Seeing black, white, and everything in between

I guess I’m lucky that I work in a place where we talk about race.  Not just can talk about race.  We actually bring the topic up on a fairly routine basis.  I have worked with a couple amazing women who have really provoked my thinking… and challenge me to keep thinking about… and seeing this issue.

I have long held the belief that conversation diffuses the fear.  If we let ourselves talk about a matter, we won’t fear it.  In fact, the conversation is a chance to look at something in multiple shades of blue, gray, green, and red.  I lose patience (and I suppose that is counter-intuitive to the result I seek) when people just shut off the conversation to … be polite, to avoid feeling uncomfortable, to not have to see a different color of an issue.

But I get that.  And I know I can be pretty bullish in some topics.  Because poverty makes me angry.  Vilifying the hungry.  Blaming the government while banks and corporations rob us blind.  And… I guess… in some ways, race.

I’m not black.  Or Latino.  Or Asian.  Indeed, I have that milky white skin, so transparent it makes my veins look blue, that Scarlett O’Hara wanted so very badly.  Race doesn’t affect me.  So why do I have to go around picking that fight?  Why do I have to see it in EVERYTHING?  I mean, isn’t that just annoying?  Another one of my wacky liberal, useless causes?

No.

And yet… part of my conversations at work have elucidated the fact that going on the attack about racism is, just, well, dumb.  It is counterproductive.  Just like the notion of politically correct.  That is a lie.  Using a different set of words can just paint a veneer over an attitude.  And… well, the fact is, the attitude is so muddled, so subversive… we hardly recognize it sometimes.  But we definitely get defensive when someone tries to shift the light to bring it into focus.

Last night I went to see a farce – which was funny, well performed, with an exquisite set, and a really congenial set of actors.  It was written in the mid-30’s.  A decade in which I did not live, but find myself trying to understand through a novel and some cooking experiments.  But… I still don’t know it.  I understand the context.  I understand that in writing a show during that decade, a light easy piece of humor was to have less intelligent people of color.  It made my skin crawl.

I didn’t mention this when I saw castmates after.  I whispered it to one of my fellow audience members… but grace, well… I wasn’t going to pick a fight.  Maybe I should have.  Maybe I shouldn’t. So I’m raising the issue in this blog here, to wrestle with my conscience and work through the guilt of my silence.

Because it’s not okay.  We can’t keep perpetuating these stereotypes of a young black man living off government money and not being an acceptable member of the visible group.  Even in the context of humor.  Even in the context of history.

Because it isn’t history.

Recently, on Facebook a couple friends posted this video.  

It didn’t surprise me.  It really doesn’t startle me the way we look at criminal behavior with the detail of skin color.  Nor does it startle me the lack of outrage… or determination to change our attitude.  

Maybe some of that criminal behavior is true.  But do we look at the context there?  Do we consider the logic to forgive a wrongdoing because it makes sense to the circumstance?  Wrong is wrong, isn’t it?  I mean if you steal something… isn’t it… stealing?  So what if it’s Jean Valjean stealing bread?  Or a group of ragamuffin English boys picking pockets?  We can sing about that and lament their punishment… would we lament it if they weren’t white?  

Or what if the criminal is the leader of the free world?  The other Facebook issue I found myself commenting and lamenting was how the government has been accessing our internet and phone communications.  I don’t know how I feel about it, really.  I’m not angry at Obama.  I’m not saying I think it’s all right.  But as I see people argue it is worse than what Bush did, I think of those bicycle thieves.  Is a crime worse because it is a black man doing it?  

I’m not asking for answers here.  Although, if this blog actually prompted a discussion, I would be elated.  We need to work through our denials, our fears, our anger, and our blindness.  Race is a problem.  I don’t think we will solve it… but we have to at least start to try.