Essay by Michael Bouman

Much of the news I read is all about "the wrong sort of people."  My newspaper ran an AP story on December 13 that said members of the three largest minority groups in the U.S. view each other with suspicion driven by negative stereotypes.  The story was based on poll sponsored by New America Media, a consortium of minority media outlets. Eleven hundred people who were either Black, Latino, or Asian were asked about other ethnic groups, and roughly 70% of those polled said "racial tension" was an important social problem.  The poll suggests that roughly half the people polled held negative stereotypes of the other two groups, while more than half rejected any such thinking. 

New America Media's spin on their poll is less sensational than the AP story. Their story takes note of interesting signs of change for the better. They include a link to an interview with Richard Rodriguez, a wonderful commentator who seems to offer a deeper, more sobering assessment of what such a poll might really mean.

I don't often follow the trail of an AP story down to its source, but the theme of ethnic distrust is one I've encountered a lot in the work I do. I don't know how anyone can avoid encountering it -- distrust, I mean. In a village with just one ethnic group, distrust can thrive anyway. Distrust is part of our circuitry, and my dog, Lola-the-poodle, is wired for it, too. She sounds the alarm even when an icicle drops from the roof outside. She declares imminent war when someone comes to the door. But when I open the door and show her that I'm friendly to the intruder, she becomes a sweetheart.

Hers is an existence of outsiders and insiders. So is ours.

In connection with the mutual stereotyping of U.S. ethnic groups, I have pondered the situation of an exhibit by St. Louis Bosnians from the city of Prijedor about their persecution by the Serb regime when Yugoslavia fractured in the 1990s.  I've been thinking about the reported protest by an organization of Serbian lawyers concerning the exhibit's use of the term, "genocide." 

There are all sorts of arguments and legalities about the words that are appropriate in characterizing a horror.  To give a name to something is to "brand" it.  Since genocide is perpetrated on one group by another, a story of genocide brands not only the victim group, but also the perpetrator group.

The Bosnian story of suffering in Prijedor contains a parallel story of Serbian persecution. So, for the many thousands of Serbs who may have loathed the persecution of the Bosnians and detested the government that set those evils loose on the face of the land, the branding of the story must feel ruefully unfair. Here they are in America, trying to get a fresh start, and this story has followed them with its haunting finger of blame.

Since "story" is a noun, we can easily imagine that a story is an object.  But stories are not just objects; they are also, literally, us!  All of us are so fully "invested" in some stories, wearing them like a signature sort of garment, that to challenge the story, or to suggest amendments or edits, is to challenge the self. 

Unfortunately for all good Serbs, this is an ugly story, not one you want associated with your national group.  But the story is not something to suppress here, either, because the Bosnians from Prijedor are marked by catastrophe scarcely imaginable in Missouri.

Scarcely imaginable, that is, unless your family has been here for generations and experienced the varieties of catastrophe called The Civil War.

John Brown depicted in a mural titled, "Tragic Prelude" by John Steuart Curray. On display in the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka.

Stories of one group "branding" another are right at home in America.  In the era of the "Border War" between Kansas and Missouri (I don’t mean the 1850s, I mean today), there are tales still told of the "self-righteous Missouri-haters" of Kansas.  In Kansas, there are persistent ideas about the cruel attitudes, the deep investment in lies and cover-ups by Missourians. 

The fascination of forming a "Border War Network" is one of braving these stereotypes in networks of colleagueship.  In this network, we're going to help each other express the stories as they have truly been told here, felt here, by generations of people.  We're going to tell stories of cruelty, savagery, indifference, bravery, honor, and struggle.  We're not going to try to reconcile different interpretations, but to be truthful to the differences, together. We're all going to try to learn how to penetrate the insidious "mental filter" through which we suspect the motives or attitudes of the other side.