Cambridge Forum; WGBH Forum Network; In Between: Race in America Today

Moderator for tonight's forum is the Reverend Fred Small the senior minister of the first parish Unitarian Universalist in Cambridge that is this very church discussing in between Mark Morrison reads reflection on his life as an African-American in the second half of the 20th century or as the subtitle of his book says his memoir of an integration baby. I'm Fred Small senior minister of first parish in Cambridge Unitarian Universalist in 1903. WMUB Dubois published the Souls of Black Folk describing the special challenges faced by African-Americans at the beginning of the 20th century Dubois succinctly named the problem the problem of the color line and diagnosed its effect double consciousness. Now at the end of the twentieth century Mark Morrison reads memoir presents an update on the status of African-Americans and the challenges they face in the nation today as he describes his own lived

experience. Mark Morrison Reed grew up during the era of the civil rights movement and his book captures his struggles with racism the death of Martin Luther King Jr. black radicalism his interracial family and his experience as one of the first black Unitarian Universalist ministers. How does his experience help us gauge the impact of racism in our society ordained in 1979. The Rev. Dr. Morrison Reid and his wife Donna served as co ministers for 26 years. His graduate thesis Black Pioneers in a white denomination first published in 1984 and still in print is essential reading for Unitarian Universalists. Now retired from active ministry he is currently working with medieval Lambart theological school in Chicago to organize and build libraries archive of materials relating to African-American involvement in Unitarian Universalism. Welcome to Cambridge forum.

Mark Marson. Thank you. So the 2010 election is upon us in a week it will be over. There will be a new political reality when the 2008 election ended. We had a very new political reality and was I ever relieved it was not that Obama won it was that he cleared out of the neighborhood. You see his house in Chicago is two blocks away from where my father has lived for

the last 45 years. There were cops there were cruisers there were agreed barriers there were Secret Service agents there were helicopters overhead. There were detours and barricades that kept me from driving north in the direction of his home without first going south and then either east or west. Before I could turn around again and I was glad for another reason. President Obama inhabits and in between space very similar to my own. He is impossible to categorize unless you fabricate or lie. He is neither this nor that he is does not fit very well into the box labeled black. His existence runs smack into a quintessential American problem. This propensity to racialize

every issue. Now if I describe someone whose father worked on the atomic bomb whose mothers and sisters own slaves whose birth certificate says he is white who is educated in a Swiss boarding school and married to a Canadian and then asked you if this person is white or black you'd look at me as if I was putting you on. But that person is me. I wrote the book in between memoir of an integration or baby in order to talk about America's situation and my own. It's an exploration of what it's like to inhabit and in-between space that is neither this nor that and confounds categories Nations.

Now if you ignore my color you can't understand the oppressive social reality that impinges on African American life at every moment. And yet if you notice only my color you mis read who I am so too often white folks seeing nothing but my color don't see me at all. Rather I serve as a kind of magnet attracting all the notion some good some bad about blackness that lurks in their psyches. The words from the prologue to Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man keep returning to me. You know it when they approach me they see only my surroundings themselves are figments of their imaginations. Indeed. Everything and Anything except me except me except me. This theme runs through my book as well but this evening the

evening I'm going to focus more on America than on myself. Race is emotion laden. In this country. Why. Psychologically speaking. Because it reflects our early is wound. As a nation it touches on this and I touch on this in our first chapter of my memoir. And there I write this early America was no empty frontier waiting to be settled by Europeans. That myth helps us to evade the painful truth that the real American wilderness is a moral one the genocide of Native Americans called black ducks by the English colonists. One of them was a sin compounded by the enslavement of kidnapped Africans called niggers as they were sold on the auction block deemed savages and brutes. Neither group possessed any right. A white man

was bound to respect and so Aboriginal land and African life blood fed the infant nation's avarice. Indeed the Constitution our country's most sacred document guarantor of freedom had slavery written in to it. So around this trauma complex form of polarities its polarities are freedom and slavery. America stands for liberty and yet allowed and thrived on slavery. Having yet not figured out how to deal constructively with a tragic history in a way that would transform it. The tension continues to rise Zeid in our collective unconscious housed inside rarely articulated much less

understood and masked by the pretense that it has all been resolved. Now it gets project out there all the time. This process one of which we are quite aware can be seen in our hypersensitivity to anything that touches on race. It's numinous seizing our attention raising our anxieties. So right here in Cambridge Let's talk about Professor Louis Gates and Officer Crowley. Now it's hard to strip the elements of race from this encounter on the July day a year ago. Now did the women who call and did she did she think she was being a responsible citizen and calling the police. Certainly.

Does the neighbor call if it's a middle aged white man trying to get into his house. I bet she's not sure she escaped the stereotypes of black men. We all live with. It's unlikely. What pastur does the officer take when he finds a middle aged white man who has clearly made himself at home. How does Professor Gates react if his background does not include hundreds of years of abuse and the calm commitment wariness can he simply ignore his conditioning. I think not. Another little passage from my book captures just how automatic it is. I'm in Northern California trying and failing to hitch a ride on Route 70 through a forlorn rural scrub land. No cars in sight just shimmering waves of heat

rising from the asphalt as the sun crept higher I unstrapped my black umbrella from my back pack opened it and hid beneath that shade. Just then a highway patrol car cruises by. I stiffen it makes a U turn as it came back toward me. I remember all the times I have been stopped by cops car pulled up. The officer leaned over her from behind mirrored sunglasses he says. You'll never get a ride here. Hop in I'll drop you at a better spot. I offer a big smile as I slid in next to him and just in case. Memorize the name on his badge. When he let me out. South of Yuba City.

He bought me a coke and as he drove away I laughed at my self and readjusted my view of the world a little. Now White folks need to know I can't turn that reaction off. But like Colin Powell I also learned that to survive I had better be clear about who has the gun and the power I take charge by smiling by being calm and accommodating. Professor Gates must know that. So what happened. Why did he forget it now. It's hard to strip the race out of this story but we can try to look beneath it. What do you have.

You've got two alpha males that is two males. A renowned professor and a police sergeant who are used to being obeyed and deferred to. They instantly trigger one another still perhaps common sense will prevail. But no. Gates is sick and tired as well as sick and tired of it all. And the officer I assume is trapped in part by departmental protocol and his own reaction to being challenge it. Boom we have headlines a presidential misstep and three miserable man pretending not to be sharing a beer in the patio near the White House Rose Garden. Headlines headlines are a sure sign event speaks to our national complex but just a couple of words simple banter and our

attention is riveted. Our emotions are bias leap right to the fore. The problem with this racialized and complex is that it often blinds us to the underlying issues. It makes news. It sells but it Mongar is the truth. In fact we often miss the truth all together and in America. If you see everything largely in terms of black and white you're going to miss a whole lot. August 3rd of this year Omar Thornton Omar Thornton speired and even rampageous through the beer distributor in Connecticut where he worked. Is it about race. Before he took his own life Omar Thornton said so in justifying his slaying his co-workers.

That tells us how he felt. But does that mean it was true. The owner of the company says he did not discriminate. Does that mean it is true. Did he just hate white people give any white ex-girlfriend. It's doubtful we'll never know what we know is that you don't kill people because you get fired no more than you shoot your family when the bacon isn't the way you like it. That's what happened. What. No one said anything when that happened cause the issue around race because they were all white. What do we know that these are two angry men who can't cope with their life situations. Mystified mystified we cast about for explanations we grasp for understanding and often latch onto race

because it's always lurking in our psyches. And what do we do when we substitute generalizations for the truth and disregard the facts. Easy the complex his trance racial It captures us all black and white hispanic or Anglo wise or ignorant alike get swept up take Shirley stride the Department of Agriculture employee who was assailed and fired this last June. Was it about racism. Well it's about her overcoming her own bias and doing the right thing. But what happened. Well a Tea Party blogger misrepresent what she said. The white farmer she helped defended her the White House the Department of Agriculture and the NAACP had they eat a little crow but mostly blame the blogger and Fox News.

Is it about race or about the acrimonious political divide in America both say. My point is that when every race comes up more likely than not the exchange will be volatile and misguided. Why. Because it's a piece of an finish festering business. In nine teen 36 x Howard Thurman the Reverend Howard Thurman met Mahatma Gandhi Gandhi. I asked him whether the prejudice against color was growing or dying in America. Thurman replied that it was difficult to say since in one place things looked to improve while in another place. The outlook was dark. What is the

answer. Seventy five years later are we living in a post-racial era. Well the answer is still yes and no. I mean if we're the direction we're headed It is absolutely clear there's no question about the direction we're going America is moving toward becoming a trans racial multicultural society. And it's been moving in that direction for four hundred years. The naysayers are simply yielding hyperbole in search of political gain. Still from the perspective of 1965. So prior to the Voting Rights Act it was impossible to foresee Collin Powell Condoleezza Rice Alberto Gonzales. Impossible to predict. Super Bowl coaches Tony Dungy or Mike Tomlin much less President Obama.

But I won't forget your perspectives get your perspective on ones they are not the ones that matter. The one that will count in the long run is that of the preschoolers who know not cognitively but this really that the president is a black man and the woman their mother watches on TV every day is school. Of rock opera at this moment America. The two major iconic figures are African Americans to quote Martin Luther King Jr. paraphrasing Theodore Parker the arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice. None the less our ongoing reactivity to the issue of race is obvious. The old wound is still tender. The scab keeps getting ripped off.

And so we keep racialize in issues that are much broader and becoming less and less an issue of race poverty. The income gap the disappearing middle class immigration reform. Right after President Obama's inauguration when hope still ran high. I wrote a column that appeared in The Washington Post online. It's worth repeating because it's part of the answer to the problem I've been ruminating about this evening. The headline above it read. We need a national Fahs day. I wrote the first time I attended a Passover seder. I was 13 as an African-American celebrating one's deliverance from slavery made sense to me. For some my faith in my family.

Slavery was a taboo topic. My great grandmother refused to talk about it. My grandmother denied that anyone in our family had been a slave. But my great and I rain who never let details get in the way of a good story talked freely. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation had set my great grandmother free. Just as the Jews celebrate their deliverance at Passover we Americans celebrate our democratic principles on the Fourth of July. But I believe that we African-Americans if we African-Americans are to overcome our sense of ambivalence about America more is required. Since President Obama is good likes to invoke is given to invoking Lincoln. I suggest that he follow Lincoln's lead and proclaim as Lincoln did in 1960 in sorry in 1863 and in 1864 a

national day of humiliation fasting and prayer. Why a fast day in addition to Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The religious act of fasting was once a national custom custom which ended with Lincoln's assassination. What I propose is not just another holiday but rather a day of contrition and somber reflection. America is a great nation built on Aboriginal land African lifeblood Chinese coolie labor Japanese internment and Mexican immigrant labor just as we honor our principles. Presidents and veterans we need to honor all those who were sacrificed on such a day. We together acknowledge and grieve our failures past and ongoing might not Americans set out. The next day

to make it right. Over 50 years ago James Baldwin wrote that the history of the American Negro Problem is not merely shameful. It is also something of an achievement for even one the worst has been said it must also be added that the perpetual challenge posed by this problem has always somehow been perpetually met. Obama's presidency attests to the correctness of Baldwin's insight and his conclusion that it is precisely this black white experience that may prove of indispensable value to us and the world we face today. Americans resent resonate with Barack Obama's refrain Yes we can because we believe change is always possible and that hope will prevail.

What began as the American Revolution has been and remains an ongoing revolution one that saw slaves freed and women in franchised a national fast day would serve as a sobering reminder that the American Revolution is yet unfinished and that the future rest in our hands. I still think it's a great idea. I'm just waiting for the president to call me back. You're listening to Cambridge forum as we continue our discussion of in between a memoir of an integration baby with Unitarian Universalist minister Mark

Morrison read. Thank you Mark for your insights and your generosity of spirit. As moderator I have the daunting privilege of asking the first question this church first parish in Cambridge. Unitarian Universalist is joyfully embarked on a journey into the borderlands of race and culture toward a multiracial multicultural justice making future. But some who vigorously support this journey object to using words like race and multicultural because race has no inherent reality no biological basis. They are more than willing to talk about racism but they say that using the word race or a multi racial endorses and reinforces a flawed and indeed racist paradigm they would prefer we talk about colour culture or ethnicity not race. Has the time

come to stop using the words race and multi racial and if not now when. There is a problem with the language of race. So I say African-American What does it mean if we refer to Obama is certainly an African-American in a way I'm not. What does he have he had a Kenyan Muslim father and a white mother from Kansas. Right. So he is African American but he's not African American the way Michelle is and at man Obama is an African-American. So we use the same term but what does it tell you. Does it tell you that he grew up and why did it tell you that he spent his formative years in Indonesia. Does it tell you that he didn't come to the mainland until he was 18 and fully

formed. It tells you nothing about Obama. That's the problem with the language of African-American. What does it mean. Hispanic What does it mean. Are you talking about well what are you talking about Chicano. Are you talking about Puerto Rico. I mean what does it that broad. And with that we're now even talking about race with our culture. So I'm I am. Yes we need to talk about it. And it's a conundrum. And I don't have the answers to that one because it's a tough one. And I wonder how important it is you were listening to Mark Morrison re discussing his memoir in between. Now let's take some questions from the audience. Please come forward and line up at the microphone and please limit yourself to one succinct question to allow us as many

people as possible to speak. Hi my name is Paul Kaplan and I'm a project director of voices of diversity project. We just have been studying racism and sexism in predominantly white universities and question I have for you sort of bears on what you were just talking about what we're what we heard interviewing students of color in four very different universities in this country was an enormous amount of silent suffering that's continuing because of the racism and sexism. And so I understand what you're saying about race and how it's much more complicated than race but when people are still mistreated because of what others assume about their race and what goes along with that then I worry. And what I wanted to ask you to address if you would is that the whole matter of micro aggression because when I was coming of age in the late 60s and early 70s all of a sudden there were things you weren't

allowed to say. The most blatant forms of racism. But what we were hearing from the current university students are the subtler forms that make them ask the kinds of questions. All right what just happened there. Did they mean that. Was that racist or was it sexist or did they just not like me or was it just a joke and what do I do about that. And the enormous emotional drain that is going on in these students who then are not sure who can I talk to about this so that the subtleties of the complexities and the nuance seemed to be causing enormous amount of pain. I wondered if you could comment on that. Yes you can't. No that's a policy issue. You can't you can't you don't know why it happened. You don't know if the person's just a jerk. You know they're a racist. You don't know if you're a jerk. I mean how do you know you can't you can't untangle it.

It would be nice to untangle it would be nice to say well that's what it was. But you can't know what the other person brought to it outside of a discussion outside of a dialogue which you may or may not be able to have but what you always least can to try to create is some place where the person who was wounded. Can Express that can ventilate can have a good place to process what it felt like there doubts. I mean we took young people there away from home for the first time this new context many of them may or may not have been around a lot of white folks. And then the stuff's coming out and they don't they don't have they don't know how to read it. What's going on. And then they have no place to talk about it. And I think that's the hard question is creating spaces in which people can have the conversation both those who say that you

know both those who say these things but most import those people who are wounded by the by words get directed toward them if they can find if they have a place and they can find their internal strength then the projections which is what they're dealing with they have to let them go. They have to let it wash over them and say Ah that's where that person said that it doesn't have anything to do with them. So in some ways it's. And the book is all about it was about me going inside and inside deeper and deeper to find myself so that I could if I once I was rooted in myself and my goodness and my competence and my abilities they could see anything they pleased because it often didn't have anything to do with me except for me. I was lucky because my background was that I knew what they were talking about and seeing didn't have anything to do with who I was. I was as it was transparently clear they didn't

I wasn't out of the ghetto. I wasn't working class. I wasn't poor. My kids had a Swiss education. For me. I got the same thing that happens of course is Afro-Americans direct the same stuff with you because they've got a series of expectations about how you're supposed to behave. And if you don't behave the same way they're going to ostracize you. There's going to be social pressure to fall in line. It's not just white kids that are doing this. There's a lot of inner group pressure to fall in line. So my experience wasn't just it was just them it was actually an American kids were directing stuff at me and I grew up when you did in the middle of a black power thing and most my friends are white. And they all know it and they think they trust me. No they interest me and I don't sit at the black table. So I walk in the College Union there's a table and everybody's there all black folks are there.

And I scan the room and all black folks are there. But my from from my roommates over there and I've got to decide am I going to sit with black guys this week this today or am I going to get to sit over there at the every time I have to decide. And if I don't sit there and play with us join the banter with the like so I stop now go sit over there. But my heart I'm still look at what's going over there. I just I can't cut it off. I describe that piece. So it's not even just black white that's that's just part of the oversimplification. It's theirs. We do. Black kids do it to themselves. What's that. You're nodding. But that's OK. OK. So next question. Yes please. Come on. If we don't have middle class

how secure are these with middle class education. And then middle class or upper middle part. No one should be middle class. It's it's a world of fame and free play. But the security of upper middle and the housing and the employment in and the good industry and no more what about that that abuses the poor who tend to be mostly that but they're not mostly black. If you take absolute numbers no question about it most of poor people in this country are Euro-Americans. There's no question about that. If we address the issue of poverty and fairness in this society for let's forget Hispanic forget black. If we address that problem

then we deal with some of the other issues. But that's one of them as well. I mean but it's not even overwhelming and it's not even overwhelming among his allies to eliminate all white and black and white thing by government because it's the issue of the heart issue. And part of it's social but I can say with some of it some of it is structural and some of it is we perpetuate ourselves from our Arwa. It's fear based it's fear based. So people who are hard pressed are scared people who are poor are hard pressed and they're scared and they actually pulled in and anything that looks like a threat they're going to reject any group that's not their group. They're going to keep at arm's length and it's and it's what we see politicians often do is playing to a culture of fear. And

if we have to break out of that culture and Obama had some success and I don't mean to politicize this but he had some success in holding up hope and when we have hope there's something we move toward and we actually are more open and we're more emotionally open when we have hope and we're scared. We shut down and that that's and that politicians play to that to stay in power. Yes. It's so frustrating just looking at the Boston Globe a police blotter about Castor and no real education and worth waiting but an education and work are not right or trans racial issues that trans racial issues. Yes. You've been talking a lot about categories the categories we impose on ourselves and the categories that society imposes on us. And I know that you

spent your your 26 years of ministry in Canada where the categories made me a little bit different and I wonder if you could compare Canada in the United States to this. This feeds into what I was just saying. I've been in Canada since 1988. You know Canadians by and large are mystified that there is any debate about universal health care. They scratch their heads when they see their American friends. They I mean they don't even know what they get. We don't get it. Then there's no politician in Canada that could get elected on a on a policy of getting rid of of universal health care. Now when you have universal health care when you have education well about where you have education that's affordable now that it hasn't gone up. But my daughter came to go to college. She got into university of

Toronto when she got near Chicago. And the difference for her parents was between $50000 for four years and $160000 for four years. So when you she decide to go to Toronto thank God. When when you have affordable education when you have health care you're not you're not so hard pressed you're you're not driven by fear all the time and it makes for a kinder gentler society. It's not that there aren't racial problems but they're not of them and they're different there. We can't make same assumptions and we have significant. Actually Canada has is going is gone the way that America's going to have to go eventually because as Americans become the minority around the before the turn of the century then we're going

to have to this whole ball game is going to change and we're going to have conversations and making his speaking Spanish illegal. Those laws are all going to get voted out and we're going to have a conversation more like between the Anglos and the French. The Quebecois that best one the conversations you're going to have here that we've already had it's a kinder gentler not perfect place. But it's not as fear driven. And I and is I think part of the reality here and question is how do you address the fear. How do you give people hope. And so I'm a huge part of the thing is a spirit. These are spiritual issues. They're not they're not going to kind of I see them. They're not. If we could have solved them we would have solved them. But I have some hunch that we're going at this the wrong way.

But I'll stop because I'm a bit lost. Hello. Yes. The Obama team was it racial when I was said. The ability of that campaign to the lies. That was so very new on the scene because I didn't view it as a racial thing. I viewed it as one campaign beat the other went to a station that had to let me. This is my take on the campaign. What do we do. You remember the campaign at one point Michelle said something about this is the first time I'm proud of my country.

And there was a huge uproar and the accusation was that she was not patriotic. Now she says Obama would never say that Barack cannot say that because that's not his experience it's her experience because what do we know about her ancestors. They were they were slaves. So and he doesn't have that experience and so he couldn't speak to that. What was his experience. He grew up where again Hawaii who was around him all the time his white grandparents and mother his father was gone by the time he was two. He's completely at home with Euro Americans. He doesn't carry that angry edge that many African-Americans carry. And so he didn't trigger this. We do whites and blacks do a dance

kind of around black anger and white guilt and he doesn't do that dance because he doesn't know how to do that dance because it's not as background. So he had a chance because he wasn't triggering millions and millions of Americans. This is not a conscious thing. It's like it's intuitive. He didn't trigger that. There's a story and I don't know if it's true or apocryphal but it's something I've heard it many times that someone was canvassing in backwoods Pennsylvania came to the door canvassing for Obama and said I'm here for Obama I'd like to know who your household is voting for and the woman of the house said Hahn hall we voted for. And the voice comes back. Without that nigga fella. Now I don't know if it's true but what it captures is that the hat and this had happened. There are a lot of people some of us call red necks or we think of

retrograde who looked at McCain and saw him representing what had been going on in terms of the government the finances the oncoming recession at that point the war and said Do we want more of that or do we take. Well this guy sounds all right and he's not triggering these folks OK. Not true. He's talking about hope he saw. We can do more and made a different decision. Now how do you explain that decision by all these people that we would think and have been put in there with the fear or scared now. But at that moment said OK let's let's try this because this other thing is not working. And look beyond his race. So. And he was giving hope. Someone says they're going to run races. Those who apply peer to appeal to fear and those are prepared to hope and people chose hope and look good and didn't take his race into account. And it's the only way you can win. And also and I'm very hopeful because it

says the racism we think of as fixed is mutable. Enough people said hmm here's myself and here's my racism and here's my self interest. And they voted for. They thought there was a self-interest that is that what we think of as fixed racism actually is much more flexible and people will always choose their self-interest over racism. So I've talked around your core but that's my that's my take on what happened there that he actually because of his background didn't trigger Euro-Americans the way say Jesse Jackson would not be Jesse Jackson is anything wrong with Jesse Jackson but he has that edge. Obama doesn't have that edge you know. Yes. And his point and the reason I say that was lucky enough

to have him had a Ph.D. in anthropology and that's going some. I don't think they allowed it. And apology is even now in the United States so if you like and have to have a mother with a Ph.D. in the policy way back then. It's I think it's going to be hard to. Compare you with a lot of people in the end to end up at Harvard and the whole back. So it was just yes I don't think we were. I don't think we were ready for it. Except no I must say we obviously were ready because we did it. But in the normal course of things had not this unique individual presented himself. Now we weren't ready. Absolutely. But but he emerged because there's more and more African-Americans. I mean I'm you know he's I'm 10 years older than he is at least. But how many are Americans. Father

worked on the atomic bomb I mean do I got right. I mean I would I have a similar background but and so I identify with it. Well I just wait and see. One more question here. I'm 73 years old and I grew up in the real rules of Alabama under right real Jim Crow. Right. Right. And now I live next door to the church where Kennedy was had his funeral. Right. And I've lived in that community for 38 years and I've been trying to do a lot of observation about this a lot of crime in the area black crime. A lot of women in poverty abuse of the mentally you know what this is my question to you. When I first came to Boston and went to

Fisk University the whole bit I was so afraid that a white Americans especially white men. I was just kind of terrified of the head. No trust it was just the enemy to me right. As. There live and started to ask questions and went into a project trying to answer a few things. Do you know what happens. I got more help from that white man than I did when I was a kid the other day of course and that has just floored me. I went out and learned quietly in my mind when I look at white men do you think about me. I'm not. That white man has carried the burden of the United States. When I MEAN THAT. Is. How well that culture is evolving what how

it's being sustained. He basically is coming on his shoulder. Let me explain a bit. I see the police let me say this. They sacrifice their social lives why. While they are reading you are writing them put the show to be arrested put it just to keep the culture going my. Way. We as a black race meet them halfway. Now they. Show I heard one percent say they got the slavery they didn't really give us freedom. See we grow up. And one of the first say so. But we are to not allow us to learn because they know that we know the language and if we can speak the way they speak that

we can qualify for that. So. Why is it that we. See. That. Language. Now. Any way I would do it as a black American I'm going to take every opportunity that I've had a great part to do what I can to do. To meet him halfway. And I'm not going to allow him to say that I don't know was not gay. So I just wonder. When we will embrace the idea. Well this is what I mean halfway. OK. You keep talking. You've mentioned triggers. I know one thing. Dealing with people let's say wake people who are part of the institution that is that is part of a racist institution institutional racism and we try to have a conversation about racism. Two things happen either. They say they are

afraid they can be called racist and so the conversation stops at the fear of being called racist or else to take on the racist and say I'm such a racist to take up a shirt with you know and all this. So we start the conversation. Both things tend to end the conversation at that point. Ready restarted. Right. You know it's all fear. OK. I'm going to voyaged but stick with me. Have a seat. Stick with me. My understanding of racism why the conversation is so hard to have what do we know about babies. What do they need. They need to be held Fed have diapers changed and have their goodness mirrored back to them so they know that the most wonderful thing in the world. So does the baby care if you have polka dots. A baby care if you're green. I don't think so. If those other things

get met. Babies Think Green is wonderful. Think polka dot is wonderful they does. OK. What else do we. Are any of those babies racist. Was no one here was born racist. It is possible. It is not possible. That's not your essential self. That's the first piece you have to hold onto in this conversation that no one was born this way. What we know about kids by the time they're one half two you can't and this time you you can't walk down the street without them seeing every every leaf is fascinating red yellow. You know I mean you can't go anywhere because what do they think about the world the world is one they see you with your cane. What are they. What. Why to use a cane. Why are you bald. Why. I mean deaths.

They just. Now only now them they fall where the Explorer and they run back to Mother their comfort and they say it's ok I love you. And then the next day there they go back. That's our essential nature to be open to difference. We should for other cultures should be absolutely fascinating to us. So we're not born racist. We find the world absolutely marvelous and fascinating and want to take in of it as much as we possibly can. That's our basic nature. Third thing what do we know about kids. What can they smell. Fairness and kids know when something's not fair whether it's race or gender or whatever they face. They know very quickly you know this. That's not. I mean boy I knew every problem my brother got on his case that I didn't. I mean we were weird were tuned to that. And and they noticed that. And my hunch is when the first time they see racism or sexism they probably say something they said well why did that happen or what. And if it's a liberal parent they get this

uncomfortable and you know they learn by don't ask because my parents going to get uncomfortable is embarrassment. They have to do if you know if the parents what we say is a bigot. The kid may get smacked kid. In any case learns don't go there. How many times did that happen. Not once. Twice. Happens thousands of times because it's a day is not who you are and you learn that there's a cost to raising to saying that and you don't do it again. And then eventually because you want your parents to love you you fall into line around their attitudes or because the gang you hang with has certain attitudes you fall in. It is not the way any of us has. Nobody would choose this. No one would choose to be separated and not be able to be open and in touch. So it gets it's fear based it's it's enforced on us. And if people can begin to accept that this was not their choice that they don't have to feel bad they don't have to prove themselves. I can beat myself or I'm going to I'm

going to I'm going to you know be more politically correct you can if they can kind of relax it's ok. I don't know how to do it. Right. And the other part that is they're scared of making mistakes because what. Because they don't want to deal with all those feelings because they're going to. So I'm a liberal if I make a mistake I look bad and I can deal my ego can't deal with it. You know I don't want to look bad so I'm going to fake it. I'm going to fake that I'm liberal with them. You know do it all the time rather than go ahead. You got to make mistakes is the only way to learn. Kids all learn by making mistakes. But when it comes to race none of us white folks let me get Mr. called Blackwells don't you know when I'm making mistakes because I feel bad I'm going to be embarrassed I my go home I have deal with these feelings they're all feelings. So we pretend we pretend all the time rather than have the real conversation. So then you get all the stuff you're talking about like let's not talk about it or let's talk about it or I'm cool. But it's them

let's go get them because I'm more righteous I'm more rights than they are. So why is that about. Because I want to feel good about myself. That's all it is that their egos are much more delicate than we want to admit. And so some what we have to admit our vulnerabilities say this is hard work. I'm gonna make mistakes but it is not my essential self I want out of this and I'm going to do whatever I have to do and make as many mistakes as I have to make to be free of the shackles of the virus that is racist. It's a sickness. And when we see is a sickness it's nobody's fault. It's something we call it because it's in the texture of society. No one here would ever want to say that. That was very hopeful. And I'd like you to talk about another topic that I hope is

also helpful. You've talked a little bit about babies and you talked about children in the new generation and how different their experience is from from yours and mine growing up you know basically segregated world. How. Will things change over the course of a generation. Will it take longer. Put on your predictors hat now and talk about how the new multicultural world that our children are living in is glad to have your first story. I was in Selma Alabama two years ago February. There have been so terrified. So terrified. So and after a couple of days I had let that go because I didn't make any sense.

I mean you know one thing was I remember when we got the bus I was I got pulled over by a cop and the cop came and got the bus and we froze. What's a black cop. And he just pulled us over to tell us that his wife couldn't meet us because she was supposed to give us a tour. But all my stuff immediately came up right. So we're in Selma Alabama at Brown Chapel where the whole you know about Selma Alabama the Brown Chapel the voting rights sing so there had been the March lead on what became bloody Sunday. The marchers were beaten. The nature of the whole nation responded. King called the clergy down clergy hundreds of clergy went to participate in the March eventually. Then James Reeb was killed and that point Johnson intervened. Made a speech to Congress saying we shall overcome. And they and then push through the Voting Rights Act.

So I'm standing there in front of Brown Chapel and I heard this time and I looked down the street and there's motorcycles coming and there's more motorcycles. And then I look and they're being led by motorcycle cops two white one black and there's more. And they keep coming and the whole street is full of these cyclists. And they pull up in front of Brown Chapel. Well these aren't just any bikes. These are Honda gold wings these Harley Davidsons or BMW Roadmaster them either the bikes expensive bikes and you know all these folks if they got a bike they buy got a van too. This has got to be the middle millstone middle class. 300 of them and they get off the bikes on the black leathers and they walk in and I see on the back of their back of their leather black leather Buffalo Soldiers and they're

all black. And I thought when they were marching in Selma they could not have possibly envisioned that they could not possibly envision that you were going to have 300. I had to be solidly middle class Americans coming down there riding the roads as they wanted. They couldn't that they didn't know that's what they were fighting for. So we can never know when we're doing these things what the outcome was. It wasn't just about the vote. It was about the vote after got passed. I mean there was a Black Bill all of a sudden you had all kinds of black officials but it was also about class issues and Africa-American getting a chance to have some well but we can some other price is we can't foretell we enter into it because we're called to do it because we think it's right. We can't know the outcome and we shouldn't know the outcome because the outcome is going

to become between us working together. And so to prejudge what's going to emerge besides us acting on our principles for justice is to actually damage it. So we work together. Something beautiful will emerge and we have to have that faith. Because to me it's absolutely clear when in Jamestown you had the first English colonists and they interact and then the Aboriginals and then the African indentured slaves came in. What talking about 16:19 we had three races in. Nobody can. You can't get from 16:19 to 2010. And a black president you can't do it. There's no way to for but somehow this nation is Baldwin said has managed to live up to its principles not the straight line but those principles in fact have predominated. And we do have a substantial black middle class. And when we focus too much on as we

ignore the issue of poverty. So I look at my kids you know their friendship network. I I I stopped asking because they they were embarrassed that I'm thinking in my old 60s mentality and they they're like Dad what's you know they got me a nice guy and these friends and Tom all friends and Chinese friends and I can make a speech about the Chinese friends word dinner. Well one from Taiwan. One's from Hong Kong and the other family has lived in Newfoundland since 1949 which was before Newfoundland was part of Canada. Now I can't make any assumptions about them. Yes they look Asian but don't make any assumptions about them is to go wrong. My kids roll their eyes you know. You know like Dad this is not part of their world.

And so it is evolve. I have no I am completely confident about where we're headed in the general picture. I don't know exactly how we're going to get there. I don't know what it's going to look but my intuition when I was a child I used to think about God and I wonder what god looked like. And I thought it was you know what to seize. Tall and pygmies. And in Sweden you know people of fair skin long noses and broad noses. And I thought well what's the what's God. I mean it wouldn't be right or fair for God to be any one of those groups and maybe eight or eight or so I kind of kind of chemicals that God was some mixture I could not imagine some mixture that we were moving toward together and in a million they are some are we to get there and I rested easy with that.

And that was my that was my child very like concrete sense of dealing. But I think that intuition was correct that we're heading towards something we can't imagine. But the arc of the universe the direction is absolutely clear there as there is no question about it where we're headed.