Many years ago there was a billboard that I passed often that had a picture of an African American in a suit and the words “He is a successful black man” on it (the word black had a line through it, something I cannot seem to replicate on this blog post). There were other words that basically said “racism will be gone when we see a person and not their race.” This was a powerful message and one that reminds me of the work I personally need to do as well as the community. Can we do this in America? We can certainly try. We may need to recognize differences before we can accept our sameness. But the ultimate goal should be that we become race blind.
Let me give you some background. My maternal grandfather was the US Marshall in Memphis when Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot. He served an injunction to Dr. King the day before he was shot informing him of the inability of the federal government to protect him if he chose to hold a rally or march in Memphis. My grandfather was appointed US Marshall by Robert F. Kennedy, and he believed in the Civil Rights Movement. As I child I thought the world of my grandfather and he toted me around to meet with the local farmers on his political junket trips as the county party leader. I never saw him treat a black man or woman with disrespect and he was known for being the only banker who would make loans to African Americans. Our family never uttered the “N” word and we did not befriend openly racist people. This, I thought, made us “better” than those people and I grew up thinking I was not a racist.
As an adult, I took a class in Social Justice. There I sat in a very diverse room, a white lady, from a white suburb…what experience did I have in Social Justice? I started out with enough sense to keep my mouth shut and some confidence that I was not a “racist.” I soon learned differently. This is where I discovered that my beloved grandfather, someone I identified with as a civil rights advocate, was indeed also a racist. Could the two things be true? Yes they can and my eyes were opened to a different point of view. Read on…I still love and admire my grandparents, but by seeing their limitations, I am hoping to take our family progress a little further towards equality.
Yes, my grandfather was a civil rights advocate and he was willing to do business with the African Americans in his community. That surely made him a little more evolved than the majority of his peers and even some current leaders in the south. However, when I reflected back I have no memories of dining with African Americans in his home and one memory or him calling the 80 year old African American man who mowed his lawn “boy.” His church was all white…and most likely the cemetery where he is buried too. My own parents did not have any friends of different race that came to the house and I grew up with very limited knowledge about what it was like to be black (that’s what we called it back then). There were a few African American’s at my high school and we did not ostracize them, but to be fair, they were pretty integrated into our white society. We did not care to know of their race struggles or the unique challenges they faced in our upper middle class white community.
While none of this is “actively racist” it is not the equality the billboard asks for. Because I did not know much about life as an African American we were separate and I was intimidated. I was not scared that they would hurt me, but afraid that I would offend someone or they would see me as “a white cracker” (something I have actually been called by an angry 13 year old.) While taking the Social Justice class I wasted a lot of time on guilt, but guilt is not a productive emotion.
Today, I reflect on my progress and recognize that there are times I am timid about engaging those of other races, especially with regard to race. I notice that my breath gets shallow and I sometimes flush. I have been known to say things that do offend others and I spend a lot of energy trying not to offend. This is how I know I still have work to do. I may never fully erase the prejudices of the generations before me, but in recognizing the progress my grandfather made (and where he failed) and building on that, I hope my children and grandchildren will see a day when we achieve race blindness.
This is my offering today to my friends of all races. Please accept me with my limitations and work together with me to see our sameness instead of our differences.