A gripe leads to a look at race
The e-mail from a disheartened reader has been pinned to my bulletin board for months. I’ve pulled it down from time to time and struggled to construct a satisfying response.
But how do you answer someone who’s nursing a grudge from years ago, over a slight neither of you can clearly recall?
Here’s what Carolyn wrote:
I was a faithful reader of your column and thought of you as a “friend” whom I understood, and who understood me. Then one day you wrote about someone black who complained of the insensitivity of a white friend.
I don’t remember the particulars, but I expected you to say that the black person was being paranoid, and the white person was unaware of their error and should be cut some slack.
But you didn’t! You agreed that black people always need to be on the look-out for slights from insensitive white people with buried prejudices.
I felt as though I had been slapped in the face! And my sneaking suspicion that white people were always being tested for signs of latent discrimination by black people was unfortunately confirmed.
No matter how long or well you may have known someone, if you are white and they are black, you must always be on your toes to avoid any remark, however innocent, that could possibly be construed as derogatory. In other words, it is impossible to really be friends.
It was a very dismal realization and reinforced a wariness in myself that I really didn’t like. I thought about writing to you at the time, but I stopped reading your column instead. . . . Whether I continue to read your work depends on your response to this letter.
I wondered then, should I apologize first for disappointing her, then scold her for being presumptuous? Do I offer up my 20-year friendship with Kimberly -- a white woman -- as some sort of personal defense? How can I acknowledge Carolyn’s indignation, without accepting responsibility for it?
Did I dare say what I really felt, composing an imaginary response? Your e-mail made me feel defensive and angry. I’m not responsible for making you feel OK. I don’t like being dismissed as paranoid when I have a grievance to relay. Why can’t you be friends with black people unless they are willing to see things your way?
There. Conversation launched.
So why don’t I feel better now about race relations?
We’ve been urged at every turn this past week to have a national conversation about race. During this presidential campaign, we have a chance to ponder our history, probe our feelings and steer clear of political demagoguery.
Optimists don’t see the need. Iowa and Vermont turned out for Barack Obama. Doesn’t that make a mockery of rigid racial categories?
Cynics don’t see the point. Talking too much about race hardens attitudes, they say. The gulf between us is too wide, the damage too serious to undo.
Still, we can’t seem to avoid the subject. We stumble around and then race intrudes, so we struggle toward each other until someone is surprised or bewildered or wounded.
In my heart, I can imagine what Carolyn feels. Somehow she came to trust me, and I made her feel like a fool. She assumed a meeting of hearts and minds, only to be ambushed by my radical side.
I imagine that’s the way some people feel now about Obama. He was supposed to transcend race, embody the blended America of our dreams. Instead, his speech reminded us that we can -- and must -- talk about race, and we begin by trying to get inside each other’s heads.
I wish I’d thought of that when Carolyn’s letter first arrived.
I’ve gone back over years of old columns, trying to figure out what made my reader threaten to bail.
I can’t find anything so incendiary that it would translate to “black people always need to be on the lookout for slights from insensitive white people” or “if you are white and they are black, you must always be on your toes.”
She doesn’t recall the particulars, she wrote in her e-mail. Yet she’s outraged and hurt by what I said. Or what she thinks I said.
And I’m confused because I know I couldn’t have written what she said. Or at least I don’t think I could have written what she thinks I said. That’s the irony, isn’t it?
Maybe the offending column reflected my own sensitivities, and she felt it as a jab at her vulnerabilities. And I’m sure I let her down again by brooding over her message, rather than answering.
So how about this, Carolyn: I’ll cut you some slack, if you’ll do the same for me.
It’s your turn, now, if you’re still listening.
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