PREJUDICE IS LEARNED - IT CAN BE UNLEARNED

The Institute for "Interracial" Harmony, Inc.

For more than 20 years (spare time) I have been Founder/President of The Institute for "Interracial" Harmony, Incorporated, a 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit charitable New York City organization. "Prejudice Is Learned - It Can Be Unlearned," is our Motto, reflective of our sustained campaign to prevent, counteract and heal pervasive institutionalized racism/colorism which continues to erode the fabric of our society and causes individuals to actually lose their lives (especially with the racist/colorist death penalty). For America, and, for that matter, the world, to become more effective in dealing with huemanity, the healing we do on a local level must be expanded to embrace everyone. I invented the concept of racism/colorism-testing (including the term "colorism") with the Racism/Colorism Quotient Test, which Dr. Mari Saunders, Ph.D. then developed. We have also contructed the Racism/Colorism Quotient Test Program with Follow-up Discussion (in a non-threatening atmosphere) and have administered it to members of the public, classes of students, a college President, the Director of a Sociology Department, New York Supreme Court judges, a Human Rights Commission, MultiCultural Advisory Committees ('AllColor Report 2000' available upon request), newspapers, including The Village Voice of New York, 1992 - where fully one third of the (international) 4000 liberal-readership respondents were found to be dysfunctional in their responses to color and cultural differences.

Long before I became the First Black U.S.A. Flight Attendant, breaking the color barrier of the U.S.A. airlines, I saw the need for social change with respect to valuing the content of a person's character and respecting the form in which that character is cloaked.

We continue to build (with out-of-pocket personal monies and in spare time) The Institute for
Interracial" Harmony, Inc. (the quotations marks are used because there is only one race - the hueman one - but many colors and cultures, so there's no 's' at the end of the word 'race;' there is no meaning to words such as "interracial," "biracial," "transracial," "multi-racial," [did you see that category in the new Census?] "people of different races," or "out of her/his race!")

One hueman race - starting (DNA studies've revealed) Black and in Africa - so if folk are thinking analytically and correctly, they must arrive at the undeniable conclusion that: all huemans are "...of African descent!"

We developed the concept of testing individuals (R/CQT) in non-threatening arenas as a catalytic tool to, as Law Professor Dr. Lani Guinier has said, "...put the issue of racism (colorism) on the front burner in America so as to be able to deal with it in a forthright manner."

I have instilled my desire for equity in my two children, one of whom, my son Laurence, has pledged to carry on the work of the Intstitute when I am no longer able to continue developing strategies for promoting the prevention and healing of untreated racism/colorism. Our major challenge is communicating the dire need for our nation to end the epidemic denial of the deleterious effects of racism/colorism (like 'racial' - we call it 'color'-profiling) and conveying the fact that our Racism/Colorism Quotient Test Program (with Follow-up psychological/psychiatric counseling) is a compelling solution to the problem which affects every area of people activity.

A book, detailing our work, will be published soon and The Racism/Colorism Quotient Test is available on the Internet at www.racismtest.com

Finally, we must ensure that every school, education organization, political and social group, can recognize how its individuals, through no fault of their own, have been conditioned by an institutionally racist/colorist society. Our proven methodology for undoing that conditioning and introducing positive change in their lives is now readily available so that we can expand the healing, help to remove the 'blame' syndrome and prevent people from losing their lives and their jobs, (alcoholics can no longer be fired if they accept counseling) by encouraging corporations (especially police departments with their life-and-death powers) to offer our R/CQT Program (for dysfunctional responses to color and cultural differences) instead of costly suits and dismissals.