Racism is Dead

By

William D. Dannenmaier

One of the silliest things I have heard from news commentators recently, has been the assertion that Obama’s candidacy for President means that racism in the United States is dead.

If any of those white news anchors truly believe this fiction, they should try walking down the street in a black neighborhood or a Hispanic neighborhood in any major city in the nation, including WashingtonDC, without their camera crews, body guards and armored vehicles. Then let them say that, after they get out of the hospital, provided they live. 

When I was a member of an evaluation team for HowardUniversity we were quartered in a nice hotel bordering a black neighborhood. One morning I stepped out of the front door and the black doorman, a tall strong man, asked me where I was going. I said I thought I would take a walk down the street. Looking at me, he said, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” I took his advice and simply crossed the street for a much less expensive breakfast than the hotel provided. The media personalities seem concerned that some of the 40 something percent of the whites who intend to vote for McCain might do so because Obama is black. I have not heard one suggest that the reason 98% of the blacks intend to vote for Obama has anything to do with race. 

But racism is not limited to blacks, it extends across racial and ethnic lines. A friend, one of my wife’s co-workers of years past, who happens to be black, told me that he was walking though a Hispanic neighborhood when three young men started following him. He said when he speeded up, they speeded up. Knowing that he wasn’t a fighter, he didn’t know what to do, but he knew he had to protect himself, so he turned around and assumed the stance that he had seen karate experts on television use even though he knew nothing about karate. He said the Hispanics stopped also and one of them said to the others, “Hey, this guy is a karate expert, let’s leave him alone.” They left.  He gave a great sigh of relief.

The truth is that there are neighborhoods in which any person who does not “belong” is in danger. I taught in one of the worst white slum areas in St. Louis for several years. I could visit and walk in that neighborhood after dark because I “belonged.” The young men hanging out on the streets knew me. But I would not have felt safe walking in neighboring white neighborhoods. Even though I was white, I didn’t belong.

When I was a student teacher, I was assigned to a slum school in North St. Louis. To get there, after leaving the bus, I walked through a black neighborhood. My father, a salesman at Sears, was telling his best friend there, Walter Bibbs (the unofficial boss of the warehouse and a tall strong black man) about my walk. Walter told him that I shouldn’t be doing that. Dad reported that Walter said, “Danne, I wouldn’t walk through that neighborhood and I’m black.”

The truth is that people like to associate with others of their own type: type by race, by ethnic group, by religion, by socio-economic class. Not all such groupings are dangerous, although they are restrictive, even if that restriction is simply ignoring the outsider. During my two years in junior high school I was in a special class. I was the only non-Jew in the class for those two years. Now, looking back, I have only respect for those Jewish fellow students. This was in the early forties when the treatment of Jews in Germany was well publicized, and there I was: Germanic and the only member of the class who was blond and blue-eyed, yet never was I insulted or abused because of that. I was, however, ignored and never a member of any casual conversation group. I didn’t belong. 

Over the years, I’ve learned to accept the fact that people with commonalities like to associate with one another: so Italians like to group and complain about the treatment they received from the Nuns who taught them, so blacks hang out together, so do football fans and bridge-players. So what? 

When I was sixteen, an elderly friend gave me a cheap fishing outfit. I was delighted, I loved it. As soon as possible I took a street car to the end of the line, by Creve Coeur lake, outside of St. Louis. It was raining heavily and a black man was there sitting under a small tent. He invited me to join him. Sitting there, I talked fishing and, I suspect, he quickly realized I didn’t know anything about it. When the rain stopped, he gave me some tips, as any other experienced adult would do for an enthusiastic youngster. I even caught a fish (a gar). We weren’t a black man and a white teenager – we were fishermen, we belonged.  

The problem arises when some small sub-group decides their problems arise from someone else and decide to punish those other people.

My experience of teaching college students over the years, leads me to believe that those who blame others for their problems are typically the ones who don’t work: don’t attempt to direct and improve their own lives. Lazy, failing, students always blame the professor, workers never do, even when they fail. I suspect many (but not all) of the shouts of racist, sexist, ethicist discrimination, etc., arise from just such people, and that it is endorsed and promoted by those who profit from it. It is always easier to blame someone else than to correct your own problems.