Having friends of a different race does not make America race neutral

 

 

How many times have you heard “I have friends who are black” or “I have friends who are white” whenever there is an attempt to have a discussion about race in America?  TOO many times.  The response is so predictable and it always happens in the initial stages of the conversation.  When it comes to talking about race, the initial stage of the conversation is more often than not the END of the conversation.  The discussion SELDOM gets past that stage.  Should a conversation get past that stage, it becomes a point-point, finger pointing, YOU are a larger asshole than ME conversation.  In other words, NOTHING gets accomplished.  That is both sad and true.  I wrote a piece in this space a little while ago (Racism: America’s BIGGEST denial) and the majority of the email I received from white people a) DENIED being racist, thus proving my point and b) accused ME of being racist because I had the nerve to broach the subject.  I heard about the countless interaction with black co-workers or vice versa and how the lunch hour has become the most integrated and diverse hour in America.  Which is interesting.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said the most SEGREGATED hour in America was Sunday morning between 10 am and 11 am.  That, of course, is the time most people are at their respective places of worship.  That’s powerful.  Memo to ALL: Having friends of a different race doesn’t make America race neutral. 

 

The place of employment would be a good place to start.  In the interest of fairness, I’ll use a personal experience as an example.  In 2007, I was hired by Nielsen Media Research (Nielsen TV Ratings) as a Membership Recruiter.  My job was to travel to

Diversity in the workplace

various markets in the country to recruit households to participate in the Nielsen sample which would determine television ratings.  Please don’t ask me how the ratings are collected.  Although I no longer work for Nielsen, I am still under a non-disclosure cause. Anyway, I had to spend a month in Tampa at the Nielsen world headquarters for training.  We were put up in this nice corporate apartment complex.  There were two trainees per apartment.  My roommate for that month was a 27 year old white kid from Boston.  I was 47 years old at the time.  So there was an age gap and the obvious racial component.  We hit it off immediately.  Although we had our own bedrooms with televisions, we would watch sports together on the television in the living room.  We would study together.  We kept spirits in the temporary abode because there was a nice liquor warehouse about three blocks from our complex.  We went to Sonny’s Barbeque every Tuesday night for the all-you-can-eat ribs and salad bar special.  We would grocery shop together.  We also stayed in our lanes.  He was a full blown swashbuckler when it came to the femme fatales and I was a more refined, selective swashbuckler.  I didn’t hang with him when he went to clubs and he didn’t hang with me when I was out looking for every jazz club in Tampa.  I went to grocery store a bought a gang of catfish and fried it to perfection for him since he, being from Boston, had NEVER eaten catfish.  I fell in love with that kid and he in turn fell in love with me and we’re still good friends to this very day.  The one thing we never DID then or have EVER done is talk about race.  We were having such a good time that we both, consciously or not, decided that we didn’t want to ruin things by talking about race.  We’re not the only ones who have made that decision.  How many of you who have forged a bond of some capacity with someone of a different race brought up the subject of race?  Not many.  That is my point.  We may hang out with different people and enjoy their company and they may feel the same about us but race NEVER is discussed.  Those are missed opportunities.  If we are unwilling to have a conversation about race with those we’re comfortable with and like, how could we POSSIBLY have a substance based conversation about race we have no connection with and who have no connection with us? 



DENIAL is a river in Egypt

I spend at least four hours a day listening to talk radio.  I know.  I have issues.  Half of that time is topical radio and the other half is sports talk.  I listen to a mid-morning topical talk show on the CBS Radio owned and operated station in St. Louis weekday mornings.  The Mike Brown case and the demonstrations and protests that have resulted are white hot issues in St. Louis talk radio.  What amazes me is that I hear some of the most racist, bigoted, evil, ignorant comments imaginable about black people and more often than not most of those comments are prefaced with “I’m not racist” or “my neighbors are black”.  It is DENIAL in the rawest form.  Being a RACIST is not race SPECIFIC, of course.  But it sure does seem as if white people deny being racist far more than black people.  It’s the equivalent of a criminal being caught red handed committing a crime and then goes into court and pleads not guilty.  We will never be able to have a substantive conversation about race without first acknowledging there is a problem.  Racism is an ADDICTION and like all addictions, you must admit you have a problem.  I hear white callers say they were not responsible for slavery and discrimination while at the same time making stereotypical and racist comments about black people.  That is when the conversation about race turns into one-upmanship instead of actively listening and processing grievances and differing opinions.  This is not race specific, EITHER. 

The way authority is viewed almost always fall along racial lines.  When a significant number of whites see police detaining and or questioning black men – especially young black men – they see the authorities shaking down “thugs” and “criminals”.  By the way, “thug” is the generic substitution for “nigger”.  I say that because I hear that word articulated with such raw passion on talk radio and I never hear that word directed at white people who are suspected of committing crimes or have been convicted of committing crimes.  Can we just be honest about that?  When a significant numbers of black people see authorities shaking down black men – especially young black men – they see racial profiling and harassment.  The disconnect is simple.  It is cultural.  White people, for the most part, are taught to respect authority; authority will be friendly and helpful.  There is an innate trust factor.  Do what cops tell you to do because they are in charge and they are always right.  Conversely, a significant number of black people are taught to be suspect of authority; authority is not always friendly.  In fact, authority can be DEADLY.  That includes the judicial system as well.  There is not a large sample size of a track record where authority has championed the interests of black people.  Again, and before I get bombarded with mail, I have offered disclaimers such as “a significant number” and “some”.  These examples are not presented as absolute facts.  As the more learned would categorize them, they are “suppositions” or “concepts”.  Check out this video:

 

Now, I am in no way saying this driver acted appropriately.   However, after having the windshield violently bashed out by a cop using a nightstick and having her children terrorized by cops, can anyone blame this lady for not believing those cops were acting within her best interests?  She did the only thing she could think of to do at the time.  She drove off.  Her driving off caused those out of control cops to break the law themselves.  They SHOT at the lady’s car while it was moving and that is against the law in the state of New Mexico.  By the way, the reason she was pulled over in the first place was she was speeding.  Is SPEEDING in New Mexico worthy of receiving the death penalty?  Check out this video:

         

                                            

 

This guy in the video was shot because he was COMPLYING with the state trooper.  The guy had stopped his truck, was getting out and the state trooper rolled up on him.  Prior to confronting the guy who was shot, the trooper had pulled off the gas station lot and the doubled back on to the lot because the driver wasn’t wearing a seat belt.  Memo to the state trooper: I don’t wear my seat belt, EITHER, after I have stopped my car, turned off the engine and step out of the vehicle.  After seeing these two videos, is there any reasonable person who can blame some black people for not trusting authority? 

To many white people in the country, the mother lode of reasons the United States is race neutral is that we now have a black man as President of the United States.  A TWICE elected black man, to boot.  Those who share that ideology also point to the fact the Attorney General of the United States is a black man as well, although he was appointed instead of elected.  A strong argument can be made those are the two most DISRESPECTED, DEHUMANIZED, MARGINALIZED and DESCRIMINATED against black men in America.  I have never in my lifetime seen the office of the President of the United States, let alone the person holding the office, viewed with such utter contempt and disrespect as I have since Barack Obama has been in office.  A significant number of white people, including the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, have MIND SEXED themselves into believing that if we don’t think about or talk about race, that racism will magically disappear.  That is just plain STUPID. 

We need to have a serious conversation in this country about race.  As Attorney General Eric Holder said in 2009, “We are a nation of cowards” when it comes to discussing and tackling race relations in America.  We don’t see ourselves as racist because we have identified a few people from different races that we have established a comfort level with and we actually act human around them.  Granted, that is good beginning and is commendable.  The idea is to establish a comfort level with different races, period.  Therein lies the rub.  Therein lies the challenge.  If we can cure racism, the cure for cancer, hunger and poverty can’t be far behind.  As with any journey, it begins with the first step.  The first step is to shake a great myth.

 

Having friends of a different race does not make America race neutral. 

Peace, peace.

Craig Riggins

Email: therigginsreport517@gmail.com

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Twitter: @CraigRiggins