Attitudes, Behaviors and the 2016 Election

Some time ago, we believed race would diminish as an issue in American life.  We saw the progress made since our 50s childhoods and our coming of age in the 60s.  We read the late 70s/early 80s work of authors like William J. Wilson who wrote of the “declining significance” of race. With the 2008 election of Barack Obama, we reveled in the bright promise of a color blind, post racial nation.

Today, arguably we live in a better world than the one into which the three of us arrived between 1945 and 1951.  But, things we see every day tell us we’ve come to a dark chapter in the book and that discomfort, perhaps even terror, fills the pages ahead.  The complex issues like policing and criminal justice, a frightening electoral outcome, and the stark partisan divide in the country portend, in Martin Luther King’s words, difficult days ahead.

During our formative years, open hostility often characterized interpersonal interactions between whites and blacks.  Whites considered blacks inferior and viewed them with disdain, disgust, and derision. Blacks saw whites as hateful and viewed them with fear, mistrust, and suspicion.

White insults sometimes provoked fierce black reaction.  One of us, for example, acknowledges threatening to physically assault a white college classmate who spouted the ‘N’ word in discussing  a prolific black athlete.  This response, whatever ethical and moral qualms one might express about it now, generated a sense of empowerment.

We also saw another black response to whites – a transactional approach that sought tangible economic or professional benefits.  Blacks acknowledged white people didn’t accept or like them, but whites had things these blacks wanted – jobs, professional training, mentoring – things that made slurs, insults, and put downs bearable.  The notion that “we don’t care about your attitude, it’s your behavior we’re concerned with” summed up this way of dealing with white people. The advantages of doing business with the devil outweighed the discomforts.   

We used this method from time to time.  One of us tolerated a broadcasting mentor who made jokes about the radio station’s “Resident Negro” and the incongruity of designating oneself as “black when you’re really just brown.”  Another of us, in order not to jeopardize a summer job, bit his tongue when confronted with vile characterizations of black women’s private parts.  These insults stung, but we calculated the value gained outweighed the hurt.

We learned recently how much the world has changed, while staying so much the same. Racial hostility rears its head every day in America and blacks and whites still often view each other with the derision, fear, and mistrust we saw as young men.  But, racial insult may now command a very different response.

One of our ministers shared with us an unprompted essay by his 17-year old daughter. This young, bi-racial woman (Asian father/ white mother) wrote of her heartbreak at how verbal assaults on blacks at her school must cause “unimaginable” pain for her black classmates and their families.  That such things occur in America in 2016 surprises us not at all. The difference in her response and both the assertive and transactional approaches we sometimes employed fascinates us.

This young woman, raised in the bosom of a multi-ethnic church, spoke poignantly of how she hoped her God would “reveal the hurt” blacks and other people of color experience when whites say insensitive, hurtful things about “people I love so much and consider my family.”  In her missive, we see how different a world she not only craves but believes she has a right to inhabit.  Her desire that her classmates understand the hurt their words can cause showed us an unwillingness to accept an America in which racial insensitivity represents the norm.

Still, we understand how negatively people might view her response.  Some wail about the evils of “political correctness.”  “Get over it” and “stop being so sensitive” they will say.  Others may respond with admonitions that she “grow up.”  She’s only in for disappointment, they’d contend, if she expects real change in the attitudes of white classmates. Didn’t in 1957 we wonder when such things would stop in schools?

Our young friend’s essay causes us to ask tough questions.  What is the proper response to racial insensitivity?  The aggressive and transactional approaches we used back in the day?  Her heartfelt, spiritual call to our better angels?  Something in between? Were our approaches more “realistic?”  Did we pander? In confronting racism with aggression were we any different than our oppressors?  Did we miss opportunities to teach lessons about the evil of racial animus?

America overcame some aspects of racial discrimination. The laws changed. Blacks can eat in whatever restaurant or sleep in whatever hotel they can afford.  Blacks regularly get jobs they never could before. Some white people will even vote for a black man for President of the United States. So, yes, white behavior changed.

Our young friend’s essay demonstrated, however, that racial animus remains strong in America. Many white attitudes have not changed.  At the most serious level, law enforcement officers still mistreat and kill young black men.  Black people still get shot for being black, even in church.  At a different level – not unimportant, just different – blacks still endure slurs, whites still presume blacks unfit for jobs with no evidence other than skin tone, and high school students still sling racial insults at classmates.

Our young friend’s sincere, spiritual wishes notwithstanding, we fear the hurts she sees her friends of color enduring will sting more often, not less in the next few years.  The outcome of the election enabled at least some of the forces of evil.  Despite calls that our new leader more forcefully denounce the bad acts carried out in his name, no powerful admonition has been forthcoming.  The sincerity of one young woman’s plea compels us to ask how long we must wait.