For me, she hung the moon. Here is my black mother hugging me at an event honoring my graduation from college summa cum laude and First Honor graduate with a degree in chemistry. You don’t get where I got on this day very easily without a good start. My parents hired her solely to care for me. I was born as my dad started his practice and my mom managed his office. My sister was in a preschool program, and I was a very busy child. My mom needed a little help, and she was all mine. She held my hand, allowed my free spirit to soar, and encouraged most every early whim as I explored my brand new world. She became such a fixture in our family that my dad later hired her as an assistant in his office. She would joke with the patients as she took their vitals. I could see her every time I came home. In many ways, she was such a part of my family.
As such, I found it hard to live in the rural south where there were still so many elements of society that appeared segregated and belief in racist stereotypes was so commonplace. Who among us southern white people has not been in a social situation generally not of your creation and someone says something uncomfortable, ignorant, or misinformed about people of color?
I can say that anyone who knew me or knew my family never ever assumed I would be sympathetic to a comment like that. But it was hard to fathom the ignorance that went into many of the stereotypes of black people in my community, as somehow ignorant or all criminal or government moochers, from the perspective of black culture that my parents and grandparents provided. With them, I celebrated at black weddings, I mourned at black funerals, I worshipped in black church services, I visited friends in black homes. Black women cared for me, my cousins, my great-grandparents, my grandparents, and now help my parents. We never considered these women just “help”. Many of these women are considered members of my extended family.
I found the black people of my community always opened their doors and their hearts to me and my family. They lived lives that were not so different than white people in my community. Working one-two jobs or side jobs, or volunteering in their community, going to church every Sunday, every Wednesday, and many other days for good measure, playing with friends in the neighborhood, spending a lot of time with family, reunioning at the local parks.
The difference was that black neighborhoods and white neighborhoods were largely segregated and it seemed like few people socialized in both. I lived in a home that was on the border of the largely white community as it transitioned into the black community. As such, based on racist stereotypes, you would think my parents would have bars on the windows and multiple locks on the doors, but for most of my childhood, they left both cars unlocked and frequently the house, and we were never robbed.
When I was in high school, I went into the low income housing units of my small town to tutor football players in math. These young men aspired to get college scholarships. It was pretty powerful to work with these gentlemen in trying to reach their goals. It was also pretty informative to observe their families on the periphery, siblings caring for siblings or mothers coming in from job number two to get dinner on the table. These were hard working people supporting their families and welcoming me into their homes as I helped their child reach for his dreams. My mother always told us that we could do whatever we dreamed, and with role models like my parents and their siblings, I never doubted I could do or be anything I wanted to be, regardless of my gender, if I just set my mind to it. It really wasn’t until I actually regularly visited homes where dreams were going to be so much harder to attain and where impediments to success instead of visions of success were the norm that I began to appreciate the fallacy of the bootstrap argument and how certain segments of society were always going to have a harder time pulling on theirs. I never asked for any money. I felt completely enriched by the experience.
When you are like me, it is hard to have conversations about race in the south especially with white people. I grew up in a family that desegregated the local school, at that time West Point High School. In the interim while my dad was at college and then medical school, a private school was created that recruited many of the white students from my small hometown. When my dad moved his young family back to that same small town to start his practice, we went to the public schools. I was one of 4-5 white people in any class in elementary school but I actually only really recognize that now as I look back at snapshots of my classes at the time. In my mind, in my youth, it was just my school. When I want to high school, some of the most influential people in my class, black and white, were alumni of West Point Elementary. It was an amazing place to learn and a proud place to reflect upon.
Realtors who show homes to affluent people interested in moving to my town like to show them that private school. They do not tout the amazing work of the teachers at the local public elementary school, my alma mater. But you would be hard pressed to start a conversation about how that private school conspicuously founded in 1970 allows a segregated school system to persist in our community. It would be a challenge for you to communicate to these affluent people of my home town the value of receiving their education with all members of their community, not just primarily the ones of their same socioeconomic stature. It would be hard for your to discuss how a solid education isn’t merely “book learnin'” but also an appreciation for the status and challenges of your community, how all children in your community could benefit from the collective experience early childhood education can provide. You would be considered offensive. People would not want to listen. So it largely goes unsaid. And yet, the patterns persist in small towns and urban areas alike across the nation, not just the south. In this way, the rural and the urban aren’t all that different. In this way the south and the rest of the country aren’t all that different.
I now live in a medium sized town of El Cerrito in the Bay Area. My town feeds a high school whose students in large part hail from towns built by oil and shipping industries. The high school is incredibly diverse. The facilities are immaculate. But the standardized test scores are lower than the high schools in the neighboring town of Albany. Consequently, property values in Albany are $100-$200K higher for comparably sized homes just 500 yards away from ours. So the population of the Albany school system is largely caucasian and asian. In all parts, there are numerous private options. People ask us where our kid will go. It isn’t even a question to me; she will attend the lovely Harding Elementary just three blocks away from our front door. She will learn and love with the children of our neighborhood. She will be fine.
I will likely walk her to school. It is after all just down the street. But when I was a child, a lot of learning happened on the bus. The stop was in front of my grandparents’ house, so I learned to run to be on time. There was a lot of vying for position on the bus. I remember it was the only fight I ever got into, defending my sister for some silly reason long forgotten. I doubt I was very good at violence which is why I never really tried it again. The black children on my route were picked up first and dropped off last, so though they never saw it in the morning, every day they passed a large plantation home at the top of the hill where my street begins. Did anyone on that bus ever ponder the history of our neighborhood symbolized by this antebellum relic? Did anyone ever consider the blood, sweat, and tears sown into the soil beneath its streets? Do the parents of these children ever discuss these periods with their young ones? My parents did and they didn’t. It is hard to believe how much history happened in their high school years that I never thought to ask about until I was much much older.
Children on that same bus ride these days must have noticed the emergence of yard signs that say “Back the Blue.” Before you tell me these are absolutely to show support for local law enforcement, tell me if you saw a single one before the Black Lives Matter movement began. To me, these signs are just a window into the impulsive white resentment to the increasing visibility of the fight for social justice and the ascendence of our first black president, a resentment that Trump masterfully harnessed in his rise to power.
In a way, the occupants of homes with these signs have done me a favor. They have shown me that they need to hear about the ways that police disproportionately target black and brown people for things like traffic violations. They should probably learn about the statistics that show that these are exactly the types of incidents that all too frequently escalate to senseless violence and death disproportionately for those same black and brown people who are all too often maimed or killed when their only crime is being in any way perceived resisting unnecessary force, if that. And all too often they are teens. I wonder how they would react to the research on how cops even in Oakland CA treat black people differently in routine traffic stops, from their language to their mannerisms. They probably don’t want to hear about how rarely, if ever, are the law enforcement officials held accountable for their crimes. They definitely don’t want to acknowledge how the disenfranchisement of black felons has kept the solid red colors in voting across the south. And that is why the word black matters. I wonder how they would engage in a discussion of the appalling and egregious inequalities that are especially acute for the long wealth and earning potential of black men in this country studying demographic data for all Americans in their 30s. What was their reaction to the appalling and embarrassing incidents of the last week where two men were arrested for the crime of being black and early to a business meeting at Starbucks or the two men evicted from an LA fitness for being black and active. There are real conversations about race to be had, especially by white people in this country with other white people. I could link to a hundred other topical articles and books that could and should stimulate local conversation to improve cultural awareness and promote the value of the movements for social justice and equality in this country and elevate the message.
What do the children on that bus route see today? As I have said, my parents live on the border as the white neighborhood transitions to a blacker one. Do the young black children feel afraid as they enter the neighborhood? I find it as unlikely they have never noticed the signs as I do that they all treat them with indifference. Do the young white children accept the signs as unquestionable support for law enforcement? Is there ever a moment that the parents of all of the children on that bus ride discuss the current climate around the color of justice in our country? I find it as unlikely that those conversations ever have begun as I do that the emergence of the signs themselves has gone unnoticed by the people of color who live nearby, child and adult. I guess ultimately those signs show me why starting those uncomfortable conversations is vital to breaking so many of these patterns that leave our communities separate, unequal, and no closer to the dream.