I have been a
member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for
years, even before I came to the United States as a permanent
resident. Now, why would a “pinko-gray”
(E. M. Forster’s more accurate description of the skin tone generally called
“white”) man join the NAACP? Some sort
of pity for “the poor Black folk?” A
condescending desire to help “the unfortunate?”
A high-minded identification with “the underdog” as defined by those who
aren’t underdogs?
Nah.
It’s simple,
really. When I think of Black folks –
and Chicanos and Vietnamese immigrants and First Nations people and Irish
immigrants and Latvians and Poles, Indonesians and Indians (from India)
– who live in America,
I think “us,” not “them.”
I want to
emphasize something that the common culture in the USA consistently overlooks: we Americans are the descendents of
slaves. Now, as a Jew, that phrase means
a lot to me: Jews remind ourselves that
our ancestors were slaves in Mizrayim – Egypt. We are told in the Torah to be kind to the stranger in our
midst, for we were strangers in Egypt. But I’m talking more generally than
that. It is a commonplace to hear people
blithely talking about how “our” ancestors came over from England on the Mayflower;
how Puritans settled the east coast, how our ancestors in southern plantations
grudgingly gave up the enslavement of Black folks after the Civil War.
Children’s
history books talk about “our” ancestors when speaking of the British
immigrants and then use “they” and “them” when speaking of African slaves and
North American aboriginal peoples.
But for many
Americans whose roots are in Asia, Europe, Africa, South
America and North America itself, we have at
least as much in common with the Black slaves who were abducted from West Africa for centuries as with white immigrants to America. I have read that the gene pool of “white”
Americans has about 30% of our origins in Africa
and that the “Black” Americans have about 70% of our genes from Africa.
Why should I, the
son of a Russian Jew from Lithuania
and a Scottish-French woman from Quebec,
feel any less affinity with Black slaves than with white landowners? Skin color?
Hah! Skin color has all the
significance that eye color does; when was the last time (outside Nazi Germany)
you heard anyone seriously talking about the “race” of blue-eyed people? If anything, the struggles and triumphs of Black
people in America
speak louder to me, with my own family’s history of persecution and my own
personal experiences of prejudice and exclusion, than the tales of a dominant
majority.
My father taught
us children from the earliest years to reject the concept of race and the
identification of people by their nationality.
“Never,” he thundered, “refer to someone as ‘the Italian’ or ‘the
Negro.’ You can call someone by name if
you know it, or you can identify them by some personal characteristic – yes,
‘that dark-skinned man’ is OK – but don’t ever fall into the trap of thinking
that you know anything much about a person simply because of a label.”
I remember being
rejected from a sports club in Montreal
in 1964 on two grounds: they excluded
Jews and they excluded French Canadians.
I lost on both counts.
In the 40 years
since then, I have tempered my father’s advice.
I still don’t refer to people by their “race” (a patently absurd concept
for human beings) or by their nationality.
However, I do recognize that in our social context, “race” is part of
reality for anyone who doesn’t look like their ancestors came from Europe. In that
sense, I allow that “race” does influence my thinking – but symbolically, not
as a bunch of stereotypes that let me guess at an individual’s personal
attributes. No, I do not know anything about a Black person I
meet before I talk with them; I don’t know if they grew up poor or rich; I
don’t know if they like jazz or are cellists in a string quartet; I don’t know
if they dropped out of high school or if they have two PhDs. What I do know as sure as anything, though,
is that racism has been part of our lives from the day we were born.
I was chatting
with a fellow student many years ago in Hanover,
NH where we were both at Dartmouth College.
“So,” I asked, “how much racism have you encountered so far in your
first few weeks at Dartmouth?” The Black guy looked at me with
amusement. “Well,” he said, “you’re the
only white guy I’ve ever met who realizes that’s the right question. Most white people ask ‘if” we’ve encountered
racism.”
Well, I’ve never
met a Black person in America
who hasn’t encountered racism every day.
One of my friends, a Black lady, was waiting in line at the Montpelier
Post Office a couple of years ago. The
clerk was real friendly with everyone in line – until she got there. “Yas’m?” he asked in an exaggerated southern
drawl. She was so disgusted she just
left without a word.
When I think of
the experience of Black people in America, I’ll tell you what I think
of. I think of the steadfast resistance
to injustice, the insistence on human dignity, and the triumphant conquest of
adversity. To me, every Black person I
meet reminds me of my hope in the perpetual will to conquer narrowness of mind
and exclusion of The Other. When I see
people in mixed marriages, with children of varied hues, varied eye color,
varied hair styles – when I see such people, I think of the strength of their
love for each other, their willingness to see each other as individuals, and
their courage in facing a hostile world together. Seeing “racially” mixed couples sometimes
brings me almost to tears with the intensity of my silent good wishes to them
for a happy life together.
So you see, for
me, Black people are no more and no less part of the American fabric than any
other people who have come to build lives of hope in this country. Do I identify with Black people in America? You bet I do.
And proud of it – and of us, all of us.