"Those are my brothers" said Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut has died. I remember reading his books and being confronted by his often cynical view of the world. When I found out a few facts about his life, I understood better. His mom commmitted suicide. He joined the Army and was taken as a prisoner of war and hid in the basement of a slaughterhouse to survive.

And he wrote. And wrote. He did have a low opinion of humanity, some say. Yet at one speech, he referred to abused Iraqi prisoners of war by saying "Those are my brothers." And the place went silent. He knew about injustice.

As a society, we are confronting our own use of language related to racist beliefs that stem from a long history of oppression and injustice. There is, at least, the start of an acknowledgment that our public airwaves should not be used to broadcast racist remarks. But what about the use of this kind of language when we are out in public? What about talk around the dinner table or among friends? What is acceptable discourse?

We can debate who calls who what name and whether it's right for any person, no matter whether they are included in a certain group, to use derogatory language. And the news shows are full of pundits doing exactly that, holding up rap music as an excuse or permission for others using racist language. That argument falls flat for me. It's just as wrong to hide behind language when discussing these issues to avoid addressing and fixing the injustices as it is to hurl the epitaphs in the first place. Because it's about having a human connection to each other as brothers and sisters.

In my freshman year at Rutgers many moons ago, I was assigned an African American roommate. She became a great friend. But our interracial dorm room did not go over big with some. We found dead rats and mice left in front of our dorm room door with notes warning us to "stay with our own kind". Both my roommate and I were stopped by groups of both white and black students and threatened on our way to classes a few times. We had food dumped off our trays when we went to the cafeteria.

One day my roomie came into our dorm room and asked me if I wanted to get a white roommate. I began to cry, shook my head no and just hugged her in response. We never discussed that again. Eventually folks backed off from harassing us.

I learned a little about racism that year. Just a little. It was an entirely different experience for me because I am white. But I learned that racism is a very ugly and very real thing in our country.

When we do or say anything that denies the humanity of those who are different from us, we deny those who are our own brothers and sisters. It's easy to recognize injustice when it's done to us and much harder to recognize the magnitude of it when we haven't experienced it. We need to learn as a nation and a world to listen to those who really know of what they speak.

They are our brothers and sisters.

{To read some of Kurt Vonnegut's online articles from In These Times, please click on the link above.}