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| "A Child's Garden Northampton 2 by Lynne Graves" by Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0 |
I am a white man married to a Black woman for over 25 years. We have five children together. In that time I have learned a lot about American society that I never suspected - and wouldn’t have believed 30 years ago if I had been told. Even after 25 years, I still have a lot to learn. One thing I have learned is that multiple issues keep racism a problem in the United States. There is a quote in the book “Methuselah’s Children” that points out one problem we have with race relations. A character, explaining to his people why they are in mortal, danger says:
“But Eve is right... as far as she went. Individuals are kind and decent… as individuals to other individuals. Eve is in no danger from her neighbors and friends, and I am in no danger from mine. But she is in danger from my neighbors and friends, and I from hers.”
This is one of the things that makes racism hard to eradicate in the U.S. About 13% of the population is African American. This means that most of the white population does not really know any Black people. They may work with a few, or they may interact with some at the gym, but there are no Black people that they hang out with and get to know. That means what most white Americans know about African America ns is what they see on TV, in the news, and in movies. Or what they hear from their leaders and authority figures. I speak from experience. I was raised in a mostly white community with no Black people. When I graduated high school, I didn’t think I had a prejudiced bone in my body. Despite never hearing anything overtly racist at home I was wrong - but that’s what I thought. It wasn’t until I started meeting Black people that I began (slowly) to realize how wrong I was. I thought racism was a thing of the past, and that any problems were isolated incidents that should be addressed, and that was it. I didn’t believe there was any disparity in the treatment of whites and Blacks by police, in hiring, or anything else.
When I started working with a lot of Black people, I began to see that some things I believed were wrong, but I still didn’t realize how many. I didn’t even realize when a coworker told a new employee I didn’t mean anything by something I’d just said that I was saying offensive things. I didn’t really start to understand until I married into a Black family and began to see some things they experience on a regular basis. It was hard to comprehend how different my experience as a white man in America is from my wife’s.
What really brought home to me just how wide the experience gap can be happened just a few days ago when Cameron Welch posted the unwritten rules his mother gave him growing up. I recognized almost the entire list as things my wife said to our children - but one really hit me. For years my wife would tell our kids not to touch anything in the store unless they were going to buy it and get onto them if they did. I would tell her it’s no big deal as long as they put it back. Seeing “Don’t touch anything you’re not buying” on Cameron's list put my wife’s rule in a new perspective. Growing up, we were always grabbing things we wanted and running to mom with them and being told to put it back. But we were white kids in a white town. Generally, even kids who were caught shoplifting just had their parents called. It never occurred to me that telling our kids not to touch anything in the store would be a survival tactic to keep our kids out of trouble. But it is.
That so simple a thing could be a source of concern is startling, and heartbreaking. A child taking something they like to show their mother should not cause fear of reprisal or for the child’s safety. But that is where we are in America. Black families fear that just trying to show mommy a neat toy could have serious consequences. White people usually don't. We are in that place because most white people don’t actually know anything about Black people, and we aren’t willing to learn because it involves admitting that there is prejudice, that there is white privilege, that slavery is still a problem and that racism has not gone away, just gotten sneakier. Until we can have those conversations we can’t solve the issues. Until we, as the privileged class, will at least listen to why the phrase “White lives matter” is an inappropriate (at best) response to "Black lives matter" we cannot hope to face the bigger issues that have to be addressed.
It may not be reasonable to expect more white people to befriend Black people, but it is possible to learn more about the Black experience in America. Netflix and Hulu both have sections with documentaries and movies by, about, and for Black people. Some of them are very intense and can be hard to watch. Some of them can be entertaining. But watch with an open mind and maybe learn a little about what life without white skin is like in the U.S.
