The Time I Was Black

In the nearly two weeks since Harvard scholar Robert Gates Jr. was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for breaking into his own home, we see enduring racial bias flying in the face of the first black President we hoped would guide us through this prickly topic.

Barack Obama declared Cambridge police officers “acted stupidly” for handcuffing and arresting Gates at the home near Harvard University.  That’s because Gates rented the property, and upon returning from a trip with a friend who picked him up from the airport, a friend who also happens to be black, the two men encountered a stuck front door.  They did what everyone does when humidity gets the best of wood, they shoulder-butted it until it gave way and they walked in.

Trouble is, neighbors thought this looked like a break-in and they called police.  When police arrived to question the two men, Gates became broiling mad.  The white sergeant took that as a threat, slapped handcuffs on the 58 year old professor and hauled him to the police station on a disorderly conduct charge.

With Gates threatening a lawsuit against the Cambridge police department, and the department refusing to apologize,  the President took the firestorm and poured gasoline on it all the way from the White House.  For two full days the attention he needed for his health care initiative was instead focused on the use of the word “stupid” to describe the actions of Cambridge police.

As of today, the temperature is down and Gates told the Associated Press it’s time to “move on”.   But the issue of race, in spite of the landmark speech on the topic by then Presidential candidate Obama, and his subsequent victory in November, refuses to die.

As one who lives within Syracuse city limits and is an advocate for her son’s school district where black students outnumber whites, I’ve seen how complicated race is, from both sides.   Not content to live in the suburbs and declare the city unsafe without ever living there, walking the neighborhoods, and trying the schools, race has touched me in two stereotypical ways, one of which opened my eyes.

First, in 26 years of home ownership in Syracuse, I’ve had one instance where the safety of my family was threatened.  It was just before daybreak, election day 1993 or 94, when my first husband Steve awoke to some sounds coming from the family room downstairs in our home in Bradford Hills.  He got up to investigate, and in the shadows stood a young man in a dark hooded sweatshirt just outside the window he had pried open.  He had one leg halfway in.

I don’t know who was more surprised, the burglar or Steve because Steve was young then too, and strong, and he ran his hand along the bank of lights on the wall to fully illuminate the first intruder we ever had.  An intruder who was stereotypically black.

The burglar took off running and was never caught and we never had trouble again at that house or this one, but the national statistic that blacks are incarcerated seven times more often than whites made sense to me after that night.  From that  one incident, blacks committed one-hundred times the crimes against me than whites.

Here’s something else that makes sense.  It’s not easy being black.  I know, because I was black for an evening and I saw in fifteen seconds what every black person must feel all their lives.

One summer night years ago the anchors for my television station WTVH,  were asked to give some time to a group of underprivileged children at a Syracuse Chief’s baseball game.  A local business donated it’s pricey and exclusive box seats and indoor air conditioned space with a bathroom and small kitchenette.   The children and their parents delightfully went back and forth between the outdoor seats and the indoor ones where a picnic dinner was available.

I don’t recall the arrangement with the company, but I guess families of the business that owned that box were still allowed access to the seats outdoors, because at some point, as the interior room was filled with black mothers and their children seated at the tables, a young white mom and her two little children walked in.   Other than me, the mom was the only whitey in a sea of black.  I was seated with some black moms behind the door so that white woman didn’t see me.  She only saw black and her body language screamed fear.

You would think the room were filled with inmates.  That young mom with pale skin and blond hair like me grabbed a tight hold on her children and ushered them quickly through the room to the box seats outdoors.    She didn’t say hello, she didn’t say excuse me, she didn’t even look anyone in the eye, as if doing so might turn her into a black criminal like these women and their little children.  Because of that, she didn’t see me, so for that brief walk through the room I was as black as everyone else.

I will never forget how offended I was for these women.  Had the blond mom stopped to have a conversation, she would know everyone there probably wanted what she wanted; children who get good grades, have good manners and who don’t terrorize their brothers and sisters.

Worse still, the black moms and kids didn’t seem to notice the slight.  It was as if they are so conditioned to this treatment they don’t even see it when it occurs.    I hurt for these women who deserved better.   I still do.  They were such sports about it.

I guess that’s why the outrage of the Harvard professor who was arrested for pushing open the door of his home is understandable; why the black community rallies when an incident like this goes national.  It’s an opportunity to say enough is enough of what happens to them everyday in ways too small to make the news.

I think it’s why public opinion about the O.J. Simpson trial was so  outrageously racial.  Even highly educated blacks ignored the DNA evidence showing the chances of Simpson not being connected to the murder of his wife and her friend statistically beyond the population of the planet.

On the other hand, when officers responded to my home the morning of the break-in,  once again they searched for a black suspect.   I had no opportunity to order up the color of my intruder, he just showed up black.

My last experience with racial bias became a joke in the family.  My Charlie was on the Sherman Park Bulldogs football team when he was a squirt little kid.  He was the only white boy on the team.  Each Saturday when I would arrive to watch the Bulldogs play at their home field in Thornden Park, all the black moms politely pointed out the other side of the field with it’s white teams from the suburbs, as if to say my team was over there.

“Nope”, I told them with a smile.  It became a running joke how many times these well-intentioned folks directed me to the opposing team as I took my place on the grass and let everyone know my color was their color; Bulldog blue and orange.

Tagged as: Harvard, Obama, race, Robert Gates