I had just left my office after working late. I had a short two block walk to my car through an area of Mid-Town Atlanta that, until just a few years ago, was mostly deserted after dark.
That night however, I was not at all alone. I saw three young men walking toward me on the same side of the street that I was on. Though they were a distance off, I could see that they were rowdy, smashing empty bottles against a fence and into street signs while loudly egging each other on. As they passed a street lamp I decided that they looked like three hoodlums, with their knit caps low above their eyes, loud, boisterous laughter, and their rapper style of walking. I would have to pass them to get to my car.
On the far side of the wide street, walking in the same direction as me was a group of about ten young men and women. They appeared to be decently dressed, and respectful. They were probably heading back to their cars after attending a show at the nearby Fox Theater. I cut across the street and joined this group. That was probably a good idea because as we passed the three thugs they were commenting very loudly, so as to be heard by the group of young people I had joined. The group I had joined ignored the comments. One of the young men in the group inclined his head toward me and said to the woman next to him, “Don’t see that every day.”
I understood what he meant. I suspect, given the tone of our day, that many readers of this blog envision the hoodlums as black kids and the group I crossed the street to join, as white kids. It was the opposite. The kid that made the comment meant that it is not everyday that some middle-aged, middle-class white guy in a business suit crosses the street to join a large group of African American youths so that he can pass by a group of white youths.
It is in fact, a story many of you have your own version of or have heard others tell their version. What I am suggesting by telling this story today is that we have the “Us” and “Them” completely off focus in our world. A person says, “Hoodlum,” or “Thug,” and people see black. And when people see black, decent African American folks get angry. Neither seeing black nor getting angry is good for our country.
I write this after reading a column by one of my favorite writers, Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts, titled, ‘You don’t really know me.’ Pitts writes that he was neither surprised nor shocked by a couple of recent reports of made-up crimes where whites made the scapegoat a black male. He notes that whites are not immune to this treatment but cites a study showing 67% of the time it is whites reporting fake crimes and accusing black men.
If you’re black and you’re male, you know the pain. Somewhere, sometime, whether on an elevator or in an otherwise empty hallway or stairwell, or walking down the street, you’ve been viewed with suspicion and fear. You don’t like it. You’ve worked hard to make a success of your life, just like everybody else. You’re a decent person just like everybody else, yet you’re treated like a hoodlum.
If you’re white, you also know a feeling that is in some ways the same. You’re automatically presumed racist until proven innocent. If you’re financially successful the presumption grows.
It’s all got to change. You can quote me statistics on crime among blacks vs whites, unfair advantages, disadvantages, history, whatever. To me, what is important is that we have the “Us and Them,” out of focus. We need to recognize that decent people are decent people. The “Them,” in this case, are the crooks, thugs, gang-bangers, pimps, drug dealers, etc. It’s the dishonest cops and crooked politicians and racists. We need to stop excusing their behavior. They are the ‘Them’ and need to be ostracized by ‘Us,’ together, not as white and black but as decent folks that want a better society. When a promising young person is killed in a hold-up it doesn’t matter whether the young person was white or black. Nor does it matter the color of the killer. The promising young person is just as dead and the promise they held for their family, friends, and the world, is just as lost. No matter the color.
The whites need to condemn the racists more aggressively, the way they condemn the hoodlums, white and black. They need to push that crap completely out of the realm of acceptability. Blacks need to stop assuming whites are racists and that they’re thinking of them as criminals. They’re not, on either of those accounts. The reality is that most black and white people are decent, law abiding, non-racially motivated folks. So when the exceptions occur like the phony allegations of crimes committed by some black bogeyman that Pitts wrote about, or the everyday hoodlums, crooks, and thugs of any color, we need treat them as “Them,” the unacceptable outsiders. And treat ourselves, black and white, as the ‘Us,’ together.
Our Constitution gives us all equal rights, equal protection, and equal responsibility. Part of that responsibility just may be to come together to ensure the equal rights and protection are there and no longer allowed to succumb to the ‘Them,’ because the ‘Us,’ the good folks, stood together.
