The Big Community

This week I was asked by a colleague at the Race Project.org to comment on an experience he and his wife had recently on the train…

Stephen

My wife and I were climbing down into the Harrison Red Line subway station in our neighborhood in Chicago when we happened upon three young Black boys -- maybe 13 years old -- tagging the station walls with spray paint. It was particularly surprising because there are security cameras down there, yet the kids were dancing around and acting as if they didn't care if anyone saw what they were doing. I thought about it for a second or two and decided to let them know that I saw what they did. Rather than express disappointment or anger (I figured at that age, irrespective of race, they wouldn't care -- I wouldn't have!), I simply wanted them to know that they were not as quick or careful as they though they were. Even now, I'm not sure if I was trying to scare them or warn them that they could easily be caught, or if I was trying to discourage them from doing it again. In any case, they all denied having done anything wrong, and as we boarded the train, one of the boys stuck his head in the door before it closed, called me some names, and flipped me his middle finger while another boy spray painted on the window of the train as it pulled out of the station.

I spent the rest of the night thinking about whether there was anything I could have done to meaningfully intervene in those boys' lives. Since I am a White ally, I am very conscious about not wanting to be act like, feel like or be perceived as though I need to "save" (Dangerous Minds-style) persons of color. On the other hand, as an adult who wants to see all children succeed and who knows that sometimes getting in trouble is the best thing that can happen to turn someone's life around, I wonder if I should have tried to call a CTA employee or otherwise "bust" the kids. Further complicating the issue is the fact that with all the youth violence and gang activity in the area, saying anything to kids that age at all -- particularly while they are engaging in an illegal act -- probably isn't a particularly smart thing to do. Would I have felt the same or acted in the same way if I were Black (a man or a woman -- and would that matter) or if the kids were White? Would the kids have reacted to me differently? Did I act appropriately (do enough, do too much)?

And my response…
It would be all too easy for me as an African American male to categorize the angst my White brother felt over this incident as just another example of the privilege Whites enjoy – as it relates to race - to stand at a distance from the dirty work of confronting the tough realities racism creates and retreat to the sidelines where behaviors, motives and choices can be safely analyzed and timidly dissected. For sure, that is the choice of many White liberals, intending to sound like allies and then losing their voice when situations and circumstances call for a more vigorous assertion of solidarity.

But in the real world of race, no one gets a pass. Racism exists to systematically rob of us our humanity and psychically prepare us for the dirty work of denying to those deemed “less than” or “other than” opportunity, access, power, wealth and the very essentials of life itself. And racism doesn’t ever stand alone as a single issue but pulls in every other societal structure in around it, forcing us to contend with unholy combinations of race and other social dimensions such as class, gender or sexual orientation.

What has to be remembered is that race is the predicate, the root. Indeed, a racist system will never truly let you forget it. In the encounter with the boys making mischief on the train, the scenario is as it seems. No matter of intent, goodwill or progressive racial sentiment can alter the reality that a White man has stepped into foreign territory and entered the world of these Black boys without invitation. Their response is neither novel nor unexpected. They rebuke him and put him “in his place.” His angst is also part of the “script.” Was he right to express his displeasure at the boys or was his behavior based on race? Did they reject his correction because he was an adult censoring youth rebellion or did they interpret his actions as racist?

In a better world a grown-up should be able to confront misbehaving juveniles and have his intent be seen if not as helpful and corrective at least benign. But this is not a better world. It is the world that racism has created. In that world –our world – racism is an idol that must be worshipped and our desire for community is the sacrificial lamb.

How do we ever get past this? How do we meaningfully enter each other’s worlds and build real connections across race lines? The answers are not simple ones but they begin with a need for a universal recognition of what racism is and how it distorts the human heart and mind. It begins with Blacks and Whites each speaking to the ways our lives have been wounded by racism. Whites must summon the courage to acknowledge how they have been privileged by the oppression of people of color and undertake the work of dismantling that privilege by working for justice. Blacks must come to grips with centuries of rage and bitter resentment (much of which has been focused internally) and become earnest partners in forging a more just society.

Real community ought to be our goal, but to get there we are going to have to have the courage to step up to situations such as this and confront how incomplete our lives are in the shadow of structural racism. We’re going to have to finally reach that place where justice demands that we stop business as usual and get down to the real business of confronting racism.