A reader writes about something I find fascinating:
I've been reading your blog about black, brown and Dallas, and the comments, with a conflicted heart. (I'm white, by the way). I also live in a city that has a large Hispanic population, and a sizable African-American population. My wife and I are educated people who have what are generally regarded as enlightened, progressive views on race. We went to school with people of all races and backgrounds, and like most people of our generation (X), don't have the hang-ups about race that older people do.So why am I writing? Your blog made me realize that we don't have any black friends. That bothers me, I have to admit. I was thinking about why, and it's not because we don't want to be around black people. We aren't uncomfortable around black people as a rule. I can't speak for my wife, and I haven't said anything to her about this, but I can say for myself that I'm scared to become intimate with African-Americans. I hadn't thought about it until I read your blog, but my fear comes from being terrified of being judged by them. I would feel like I was on trial the whole time. I would sit there feeling like they were watching and listening, just waiting for me to say the wrong thing and "prove" that deep down, I'm as racist as any Confederate-flag-flying yahoo from the sticks. To be friends with anyone is to make yourself vulnerable, and I'm afraid to do that with African-Americans, because I'm afraid of being unfairly rejected, judged and condemned.
There's a lot about the African-American experience I genuinely want to know about, and I happen to like a lot about black American culture. I've really enjoyed being around the black people in the various offices where I've worked over the years. But it's hard to work up the interest in putting myself into an intimate social setting with African-Americans, because I would be totally on edge the whole evening. I would be afraid to say what I really thought about anything. I'm scared I would step on a land mine, and be judged a racist, without being given the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I'm just really uptight, but I bet this anxiety explains a lot of social behavior of whites who don't have any racist beliefs or feelings, but who don't reach out socially to African-Americans. We're afraid of getting our hands bitten off unfairly. I don't know what it says that I don't feel the same way about Asians, Hispanics or any other non-white group. What I'm trying to say is I want to have black friends, but I'm afraid that they would make friendship with me conditional, and it could explode any time if we had a political disagreement or any other disagreement that they could take as evidence of racism.
I guess I'm repeating myself, so I'll stop. As a white man, I have this sense that in my social interactions with African-Americans, I am presumed to be guilty of racism, and have to prove my innocence. I'm not certain how much of that is true and how much of it is a result of my own paranoia. The truth is that the more we go through "sensitivity training" at my company, the more I get the feeling that white males are seen as unique villains whose every motive and action has to be treated with skepticism and suspicion. It's strange to admit, but sensitivity training and its ethos has made me much more unwilling to open up socially to people of other races. I'm now so on edge about everything I say at work to anyone who isn't like me and doesn't share my worldview that I've withdrawn since our office started sensitivity training. They've made me sensitive all right! So sensitive that I'm afraid the normal give-and-take of friendship with people of different ethnicities/gender/sexual orientation could end up with me in the dock.
Sorry for rambling. Great blog entry. This is hard to work through, but it's important to try to understand it.
I can relate to a lot of this. Thoughts, readers? What about readers who are minorities -- what does the possibility (and reality) of cross-racial, cross-cultural friendship look like to you? What do we do wrong in this culture with regard to these kinds of friendships? What do we do right? What can we do better?
Let's keep this discussion civil, shall we?
UPDATE: This thread below made me recall something. A friend of mine is a corporate lawyer for a major international company headquartered in Dallas. He told me once about an intriguing difference between American workers and foreign workers. The company routinely brings in managers from its European and other overseas divisions to work for a year or two at a time in the headquarters. Lawyer Guy told me as part of the orientation process, the foreigners joined the new hires in going through a week of basic training to orient them to the company and its headquarters. On the first day, the employees were asked to fill out a form listing their hobbies, likes and dislikes, and other trivial personal information. The idea was to help the corporate facilitator assist the newbies in finding common ground, to build social solidarity and overcome any sense of isolation the new employees might have in a new city and new corporate environment.
An interesting thing happened, though. The foreigners were open and willing to list things in detail. The Americans wouldn't. It came out that the Americans were all afraid that any personal information they disclosed could be used against them if a "hostile work environment" complaint or somesuch thing were ever lodged against them with Human Resources. They feared anything, no matter how innocuous, they disclosed about themselves to the company could and would be used against them.
As I recall, my lawyer friend didn't think they were wrong to be so cautious, either.
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Oh, no, here I go again, pushing for military service. But it's true that in the Armed Forces men and women of all races work together with far fewer problems than you'd expect. We don't exactly have time to walk on eggshells either, when it comes to 'sensitivity.' Outright racism is not tolerated and is punished. Ignorant or innocent slips of the tongue are usually mediated by peer team-members in an informal fashion. Our mission is far greater than race, gender, or, increasingly in at least the support branches, sexual orientation.
Also, we cannot choose our company. We are assigned randomly to a group, and at the smallest unit level we spend A LOT of time together. Hanging out outside work is highly encouraged and facilitated by senior leadership. Team-building, we call them, the all-but-mandatory get-togethers in parks or at senior leadership's homes. The same scene plays out unofficially at bars and on lakeshores and at the movies every weekend. Entire generations of children are raised in this milieue. I was one of them, and it accounts for a large part of my broad worldview. The end result is, you walk into any chowhall and you will see a lot more mixture than you would in many places in America. It's not a hundred percent, given off-time Blacks and Hispanics will congregate at least some of the time, for comfort's sake.
There was a time when military service was common enough to be normative experience for many young Americans from even the smallest towns who got to know personally Jews and Blacks and city-dwellers and rich kids. Now the rich kids are largely missing, and society is largely missing out. Could we at least bring back a mandatory civilian corps for kids??
A large part of the solution is humor. And grace. Humor, with some adjustments, is an effective bridge builder. Listen to Black comedians. There are some who aren't terribly course. Get involved in civic groups such as the PTA, Chamber of Commerce, these also used to be unifying factors, but attendance has been falling in recent years.
Ah, but it's storytime.
My poor Dad was from Iowa, as I mentioned, and a very small town at that. He'd not SEEN a Black man until he was a young teen. He was crazy enough to raise his right hand and volunteer for the Army, so off he went, weeks after graduating high school, naive and innocent. It was 1979. He showed up at Reception, which is your first experience of life as a mere number as you spend your first few days in the Army receiving shots, uniforms, and haircuts assembly-line fashion, and answering, no kidding, to the last four digits of your social security number, until you have uniforms with your name on them.
One night in the barracks, during the brief period of time they give you for showers and writing home before lights-out and lock-down a bunch of Black guys were standing around shooting the breeze, comparing "war stories." They were calling each other by the N-word, which is, as you all know, perfectly acceptable among Black people, in a humorous context. My Dad chimed in at a particularly funny joke, "Hey, yeah, man, that's great, N-WORD."
Dead silence. They all, to a man turned around and stared at my Dad, who was grinning stupidly with his standard-issue brown glasses and buzzed bald head. Finally, one of them said, "Boy. Where you from, exactly?"
"I'm from Iowa!" My Dad said, without missing a beat. "Far out!"
Then one of these charitable youths was kind enough to take my father under his wing and explain calmly the connotations of the word, in order to prevent the obviously ignorant kid from getting his butt kicked in the near future by less understanding people.
Good grace and humor, my friends.
That is all.
Why does the letter writer need "black friends? Why doesn't he just have friends? Be himself and let the chips fall where they may. React to a person's personality not his skin color. If this letter writer is as great a guy as he describes he should have no problems. He sounds like an uptight, self-righteous jackass.
Thank you for your honesty. If nothing else you realize how Blacks who interact with corporate and mainstream America feel ALL the time. The difference is that we plunge straight in and deal with it. It's really not that hard. By the way, I am an African-American female who has many white friends. A few of them are people whom I initially either didn't like (my own prejudice) or didn't feel I had anything in common with.
Friendships are friendships. You just plunge in and see what happens. Do not deprive yourself! I hope you will have the good fortune to make a good black friend or two along your way in life.
As someone who seems like such a nice guy, you deserve that much!
I am african american myself. I have more white friends than I do black friends and that's the way I want it. I get along with whites better than I do my own race. I go to a white church and I go to white gatherings all over my town. I would rather hang out with whites than I would a black person any day!
I am white and I prefer white friends. black people scare me.
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