STEREOTYPING CLOUDS METHADONE CLINIC DEBATE

SIT BACK AND visualize for a moment. Imagine a methadone clinic opens here,
and the negative rumors come true. Drugs dealers and poverty- stricken
heroin addicts move here en masse from New York City and Philadelphia. The
clinic becomes "a magnet for crime," and robberies and shootings skyrocket.
Our once beautiful Valley becomes "another Williamsport." Whew!

Was your visualization color-blind? Were addicts and families Caucasian? Did
you stereotype?

Our country has been struggling with race for centuries. Blacks were
enslaved for 400 years. It took 500,000 deaths in the Civil War to stop it.
After the Civil War the KKK was formed, and hundreds of black men were
publicly hung even after 1900. Jim Crow laws made it illegal for white and
black children to go to school together. The thought of a little black boy
sitting next to a little white girl on a school bus terrified many whites.
Blacks had to use different restaurants, water fountains, sections of buses
and balconies at movies.

The federal government ended Jim Crow laws, and out of the civil rights
movement came legislation to stop other types of discrimination. Eventually,
the Americans with Disabilities Act made it illegal to discriminate because
of gender, age, race, disability. Overt expressions of racism such as those
used by the KKK have become socially unacceptable, and thankfully rare. We
committed to creating a "color-blind" society.

One might think that the story ended happily at that point. Not so. In 1997,
President Clinton said, "We must begin with a candid conversation on the
state of race relations today and the implications to Americans of so many
different races living and working together." It never happened. Most whites
feel uncomfortable discussing race, and prefer not talk about it. Many
pretend that race issues in America no longer exist. Blacks see race as
pervading every aspect of their lives.

The American Psychological Association sees the belief that our society can,
or should, try to reach the color-blind ideal as a form of denial.

Psychological research reveals that even among well-intentioned people, race
matters. People react to ethnicity and skin color. Negative behavior and
emotional responses occur below our consciousness that reveal deep-seated
biases.

If we are to move beyond racism and prejudice we need to be honest and face
stereotypes, biases and emotions. "Color-blindness" blinds us to the unique
person standing in front of us. Love is said to be an attempt to see "the
other" as who he/she really is. Being emotionally present and trying to
appreciate the different life and cultural experiences is a more comfortable
and effective way to relate.

Over the last 20 years, a practically exclusively white Northeastern
Pennsylvania has seen changes in racial composition, with increases in black
and Hispanic populations. More people from New York, New Jersey and
Philadelphia are moving to Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, Williamsport, Hazleton
and the Poconos.

Twenty-five percent of Hispanics are below the poverty line. Poverty creates
a high risk of crime, substance abuse, domestic violence and mental illness.

The challenges of minority groups need to be faced and addressed, rather
than denied and neglected. However, it is vital that destructive
stereotyping of individuals and groups be avoided. That is the challenge.

Stereotyping and racism also negatively effect the emotional and
intellectual development of those who are prejudiced. For example, with
respect to methadone treatment, no logic or reasoned arguments are likely to
persuade if the basis of the fear is deep-seated, irrational racism. Examine
the language, phrases and emotional tone of the arguments. In reality, race
has little or nothing to do with the methadone clinics. Except in some
minds.

That is where it can be the most dangerous, especially when we don't know
its there.

Let's do another visualization: A methadone clinic opens. There is nothing
to talk about except people getting their lives back. Drug use goes down.
Some mothers avoid burying their children. Some children get their parents
back. People in treatment stop committing crimes, and HIV and suicides are
reduced.

There is more hope in the valley. We can make it happen.

Robert E. Griffin is a psychologist in Forty Fort.