So hard to write this one...
The arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. was followed within minutes by posturing on all sides claiming victimhood. Such claims forsake the wisdom that we all acquire through a life of living with one another, black, white or otherwise. They also betray a genuine and disturbing lack of empathy for all of our hard-fought lessons on race relations in America.
Truth on racial issues depends on what color you are, because what color you are decides what truths you see.
As a white guy growing up around a plurality of black people I took a lot of crap. Almost every time I got roughed up it was by black kids. Just about every experience I've had as a victim of crime was perpetrated by black people. I've been called white-ass______ more times than I can remember. Those are inescapable facts that, no matter my liberal post-civil rights upbringing, or my desire for things to be different, affect my judgment today.
Even if I try to turn the other cheek, dismissing these incidents as class resentment, or some kind of helpless lashing out, I'd be a fool to ignore my instincts and walk into a potentially dangerous situation on the grounds of racial equality. My instincts of preservation may offend someone who I misread. For that I apologize, with the qualification that I'm just looking out for my own interests and that it's nothing personal. In fact, it's quite the opposite of personal.
Talking to black guys, and hearing enough stories, I have no doubt in my mind that being a young black man, no matter your background, is about being treated differently at every step of your life. You walk into a drug store and the clerk follows you around. You walk down the street and someone averts their gaze and gives you wide berth. You get pulled over for nothing and get threatened (or worse) by the police who are supposed to protect you.
I can't imagine how frustrating it would be to be a law-abiding, tax-paying patriot and have these sorts of things happen to me. Even if I knew that the cops had spent their careers learning the hard truths about who commits crimes, and that their treatment towards me was nothing personal, the personal threat, not to mention the basic insult to one's pride, would override all else. After a life of unfair experiences I'd be a fool to think that this experience, this cop, is any different.
We should all admit that there's a difference between the personal racism of self-preservation, and the impersonal racism of cultural and institutional exclusion. At some point in American history there was little meaningful difference between the two, but today I think things are quite different. In the personal sense, we're all racists. There is a difference between our realities being shaped by experience, and an arbitrary and unequal legal or social structure. I wish there were two separate words to describe these phenomena. It would clear up a lot of misunderstanding.
When a white guy calls a black guy a racist for seeing things in view of their past experience, he would do well to remember all of the times he didn't give the benefit of the doubt to someone who passed them on the street. Too often, white men take their position in life for granted, assuming that it's all a matter of personal merit that explains the impersonal nature of racial disparities. Many believe that if only black people were as race-blind as they themselves pretend to be out of fear of politically-correct retribution, all of this stuff could be put to rest once and for all.
Likewise, when a black guy turns to race as an immediate explanation for an adverse event, a little understanding towards the experiences that the white person may have had could go a long way, hard as that may be in practice. Like everyone else, white people will make judgments (right or wrong) based to some extent on their experiences.
That said, I do believe that black people have the harder role. They are challenged to overcome some pretty awful past and present truths that have shaped their worldview. There is no racial hardship that the average white American guy can claim over his black counterpart. It's just plain harder to be black in America, and that will shape how you see things.
When we hear grown white men claiming to be the victims of racism at the hands of a 'Wise Latina', or indeed, the President of the United States, the level of self-absorption and outright antipathy is staggering. It's a cold, reptilian view of the world that leads to self-interested conflict, also known as the erosion of civilization.
A situation where a police officer who was following instinct and procedure arrests a 55 year-old upset professor, who was himself acting out based on a life's wisdom, will inevitably trade one man's wisdom for another's. The world is not fair to any of us. The diverse ways that it's not fair shape how we see it. Empathy for one anothers' situations must be preserved and nurtured if we are to ever see a "post-racial" America, and if we are to prevent future bloodshed and misery on account of race. We must understand where each other are coming from. We must be honest with one another about how our experiences brought us here.
The world will be better when we can admit we're different, and that those differences do in fact matter.
A professor I had back in college concluded the semester with this piece of advice: "Kids, there is more than one truth out there. Anyone who tells you differently is only speaking for themselves." Amen.
