The Hidden Faces of Racism

It came as a shock to the people over on Swinton Avenue, at least so say the residents of that quiet San Fernando Valley street.

How could white supremacists live right on the corner in that gorgeous A-frame house? No, no, not Chris and Doris Nadal, a quiet couple who never caused any problems: he, a flight engineer for Continental Airlines; she, a Century 21 real estate agent. Homeowners, taxpayers, good ol’ middle-class Americans.

In retrospect, some admit anonymously, they did notice the bands of beer-drinking boys dressed in military fatigues and that truck with the Iron Cross parked next to Mr. Nadal’s shiny red, late-model sports car. Maybe they were involved in drugs or something similar, some neighbors suspected, because of the heavy traffic outside the house. But gee, white supremacists? Naaaah.

Like a lot of minorities, Peter Howard of Studio City isn’t so surprised. He says he knows lots of people who harbor sentiments akin to the Nadals’--that white is the standard by which all else is judged--and not one of them would be caught dead with a swastika or a rebel flag.

Instead, they sport tailored suits, drive luxury cars, have college degrees and country club memberships. They live in “lovely” homes, have “lovely” wives and well-mannered children who attend expensive private schools. They are bankers, corporate biggies, media moguls, insurance executives, entrepreneurs, school teachers.

While heavily armed bigots who scheme to blow up churches and mow down congregations are bad guys, to be sure, Howard says, they are the tip of the iceberg. It’s those other people who do the most sweeping damage, destroying individual lives, devaluing entire communities.

“All my experiences with racism,” he says, “have come from the so-called educated people.”

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Howard, 45, is no angry outsider. Handsome, articulate, soft-spoken, he is one of those upscale African-American guys who seems to have been born to business suits, Mont Blanc pens and gold credit cards.

He graduated from college with honors before picking up an MBA from an Ivy League university. He’s knocking down a six-figure salary, has a great house with a pool and Jacuzzi, a bright daughter (she beat me at “Boggle” five straight times), a 2-year-old son and an attractive, professional wife.

Right now he’s vice president and division manager for a national corporation. Before that, he was vice president and regional manager for a Fortune 500 company.

He’s the sort of guy people like to punch up as a role model for little black children, a symbol that with hard work and diligence, “even you can make it in America.”

But it’s not quite that simple, he says.

Howard recalls, for instance, once sitting in a car with a top corporate officer in charge of some $70 million in company assets and more than 200 employees. As they spoke, the officer casually referred to an African-American client as a “nigger,” before catching himself with an “Ooops.”

Then there was the time a prospective employee told him that a higher-up at the firm had referred to Howard as a “spear-chucker.” On another occasion, Howard says, he had to tell a company executive that he wasn’t amused by the “joke” about the spoked, “nigger” tire rims on his car.

But that kind of stuff, he says, almost always falls into the “sticks and stones” category. It’s offensive, but black folks have been enduring such slights for centuries. It’s like the white male applicants Howard interviews for positions with the company who will say, “Now, who is the person I actually have to impress to get the job?”

Or it’s pretty much the same as the sales people who come to his home and mistake him for the gardener instead of the owner. Or when people seem amazed at “how smart you are” and how different he is from most black people they know and hear about.

“They still hold the stereotypes of other African-Americans as being incapable,” he said. “I’m just ‘special.’ It wears on you. It takes an emotional toll. But being the lone executive in a company, I feel a moral obligation to hang in there so I can help somebody else. It’s an emotional sacrifice you make.”

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While those attitudes bother Howard, it is their insidious manifestation that he finds most appalling and dangerous: the loan officers who won’t make the loans, the appraisers who undervalue minority neighborhoods, the underwriters who redline communities.

It’s the company executive who told Howard to his face that he need not apply for a particular promotion because the company didn’t feel that the white managers in that region were ready to be lorded over by a black man.

“That wasn’t a skinhead who did that to me,” he said. No, it was one of the guys in the suits with the expense account and the credit card who probably wouldn’t let a skinhead darken his door.