As some of you know, I was once the only white administrator in an all black anti-poverty agency. It was like going to graduate school. However, like going to school, I got a great education on the subject, but I remained who I was–an upper middle class white male. There were moments from that experience that are stamped on my brain.
- My boss, a tough, wise, soft-spoken man who was bedeviled with Sickle Cell Anemia disease saying to me, “Don’t ever tell anyone here you’re not prejudiced. Everyone is prejudiced, even us. It’ll ruin your credibility.”
- The summer’s day on my way to work I saw a colleague on the same journey but he was walking. I rolled down my window, called out “good morning”, waved and drove on. When I met him later he looked at me with a fish eye. I said proudly, “Didn’t you see me wave good morning to you?” His response, “I did, but it didn’t get me to work any faster.” For years I asked myself why I didn’t give him a lift. I don’t like the answers.
- Riding with a black Acting Lt., “acting” because the chief did want to cause trouble by appointing the first black ranking officer, He said to me, “Let’s not make a habit of this. There are people in this town who will shoot you for being seen with me.” The “town” was Stamford, Ct. then the state’s fourth largest city.
In my career I’ve been tasked with changing inner city housing conditions, defusing race confrontations on the street, ending an armed black group’s takeover of city hall, representing the city administration at an open forum on desegregating the school where I heard a man get up and shout, “I’m not lettin’ my kids go to a school where they’ll smell the stink of a bunch of N…….’s, and more. And sitting here all I can think of is that only two weeks ago I was writing about Ahmed Aubrey, ‘hadn’t even gotten around to Breonna Taylor, whose birthday is today. Ringing in my ears is, Al Sharpton’s refrain,”…get off our necks.” What is most troubling is that I’ve been hearing this since the 1960’s and that’s less than a third the time black people have been saying it.
Sorrowfully, I must admit I have little else to say that I haven’t already said except this. Unless you are black you can’t understand, “Driving while black, eating out while black, going through an interview while black, and so many more, “…while blacks.”
There was a time when I was intensely involved in undermining the Ku Klux Klan. Some approached the battle…
