¡We can no longer be a bunch of empty minds living in critical times refusing to recognize real lies!

Wednesday, 26 October 2011

THE 'WHITE' MAN IN ME FEARS THE 'BLACK' MAN OUT THERE


Yesterday I found myself taking the public transportation to work and as I sat and watch persons take their seats on the bus, I couldn’t help but realize that I was making snap judgment about the folks that came on the bus. However, the man that sat next to me REALLY stood out. To say he made me feel uncomfortable is putting it mildly. Though he was ‘animated’ by the same energy we call ‘God’, I couldn’t help feel like a ‘white’ man sitting next to him.

For the first time I got how a white person feel when he/she sees a black man that looks a certain way. Have I felt like that before? Perhaps! I guess I never paid attention to it because for the past few years I’ve been in my own bubble, using my car to go where ever I needed to go. This made me feel so out of touch with how things really are because I don’t think about folks that use the public transportation services to get to where they need to go. But I digress…as the guy with his ''I just came out prison'' look sat next me fishing for something in his pocket, I PRAYED that he wasn’t pulling out a knife or gun. Can you say residual effect of the last time I used public transportation?

A few years back, I sat @ the back of bus, about 5/6 young men that looked to be my age came on the bus. One sat next to me, asked me for money I gave the usual, ‘I don’t have any’ reply and thought that was that. Next he showed me a knife that he took out of his pocket and then told me NOT to make him use it on me. @ That point I was upset because I just got paid I wasn’t about to give up my money. So @ that point I decided to move from the back of the bus as we near a stop because I felt something was going to happen. I made my way to the front of the bus and all of the guys but one stayed as we got to the stop. I saw one of the guys pick up a huge rock waiting for me to get off as they ‘assumed’ it was my stop. If it wasn’t for the bus driver and an older lady on that bus, I am sure I would have been attacked and/or killed by those men. I wrote this blog entry to say, we shouldn’t judge ‘white’ folks when they see a ‘black’ man that looks a certain way, because maybe, just maybe he could be what he appears to be. 

30 comments:

  1. ETHNICITY BE DAMNED! It's MALE TEENS that scare me!

    One.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MOANERPLICITY: I JUST IGNORE THEM, NOW THAT YOU MENTION THEM...

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm not quite sure what you're saying. Are you saying that being black is just a euphemism for being a criminal? Or are you saying that people are perfectly right in holding onto their racial stereotypes when they tar whole classes of people with the same brush?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Curious, I think he is saying, that sometimes, just sometimes, the stereotypes are actually correct!

    Unfortunately our society has evolved or devolved to a point where we are all suspicious of each other! I used to feel this way when going into Manhattan and was often surprised when I encountered a genuinely nice, affable person.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Purely by coincidence, I just wrote something about this, albeit from a slightly different angle. Sometimes, the content of our character (as black men) is there for onlookers to see - and confirm their worst assumptions and fears.

    ReplyDelete
  6. CURIOUS: NOT SAYING THAT @ ALL, JUST SAYING THAT THERE ARE TIMES WHEN A BLACK MAN IS WHAT HE APPEARS TO BE.

    ReplyDelete
  7. THOMAS: THANKS FOR ECHOING MY SENTIMENTS.

    ReplyDelete
  8. AFRO: I WENT TO YOUR BLOG BUT DIDN'T SEE ANYTHING THERE...

    ReplyDelete
  9. You say we shouldn't judge a "white" man when they see a "black" man who looks a certain way.

    Why are you referring to white men and how they perceive black men at all? You're black and you were a potential victim of a crime--the skin color of the criminal is irrelevant. Who cares how a white man feels when he sees a black man and is afraid of him. Yet you do care---because apparently how a white man perceives a black man is more important to you than the truth: white men overwhelmingly commit more of the crimes in this country than all other races. Yet you've bought into the idea you need to be concerned about white perception of "dangerous looking black men." Corporate media has done its job well--and you are its successful victim.

    ReplyDelete
  10. ANON: I LIVE IN THE BAHAMAS & HERE BLACK PEOPLE ARE THE MAJORITY. I WAS MAKING AN OBSERVATION SO IF YOU FEEL I'VE BEEN BOUGHT THEN SO BE IT. LIFE ISN'T ABOUT OH IT'S ALL THEIR FAULT AND NOT OURS, WE HAVE TOO MUCH OF THAT & IT GETS US NO WHERE!

    ReplyDelete
  11. For those of us who fight against bigotry, racial profiling and ethnic stereotyping, your line of thought could be seen as harmful.

    Sure some black people driving along NJ Turnpike will be running drugs; some Arabs will be involved in terrorism, some white men in their 30's living by themselves will be serial killers or flaming queens, but that doesn't give anyone the right to assume that, even though those facts may be true for some, those facts are true for all. To think that is to offend many hard working or lazy or ordinary people who just want to go about their day the best way that they can.

    This is not the "Dream" that Dr. King, yes I'm going there, fought and died for. And this is not the type of world that I want to fight and live for either.

    ReplyDelete
  12. CURIOUS: I GET WHAT YOU ARE SAYING, BUT IF YOU READ WHY I SAID WHAT I SAID IN THE ENTRY YOU'D SEE THAT I AM COMING FROM A PLACE WHERE I WAS ALMOST ATTACK & NOT BEING ON A BUS SINCE THAT DAY I HAD NO IDEA THAT IT STILL AFFECTED ME. I KNOW HOW THINGS ARE IN THE STATES, BUT IN THE BAHAMAS WHERE I AM FROM WE ARE A MAJORITY BLACK NATION SO I AM BLOGGING FROM "MY" EXPERIENCE & THAT IS ALL.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Gayte: check out

    http://afrogay.blogspot.com/2011/10/shelby-steele-needs-martin-luther-king.html

    ReplyDelete
  14. Curious ... but wouldn't you be uncomfortable in the company of Lil Wayne given his background and his appearance? Would you employ him if you didn't know him from Adam and the job you had on offer was one that required dealing directly with the public?

    ReplyDelete
  15. AFRO: THANKS FOR THE LINK WILL ADD YOUR BLOG TO MY LIST.

    IN ALL THINGS I TRY TO FIND BALANCE & FOR ME TO SAY WHITE PEOPLE ARE WRONG AND BLACK PEOPLE ARE RIGHT OR VICE VERSA ISN'T SOMETHING I AIM FOR. I AM SIMPLY OFFERING THE OTHER SIDE OF SOMETHING THAT SOME WON'T CONSIDER, I MYSELF INCLUDED.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Gayte - I hear you, but if we are going to talk about experience then there is a scar in middle of lower back where I was stabbed and robbed getting off a bus in Newark by black kids. There is the memory of having a golf club held to my head as my partner and I were surrounded by Latinos who robbed us in New York. I also remember as child white kids making the mistake of ganging up on me to their regret because I was often alone. And sure, I've felt a certain animosity towards those people in particular and those groups in general for a time but it's never been because I felt like a white man. In fact I'm not sure that I personally know any white man who would feel that way anyway.

    Long story short, as I've gotten older I've realized those thoughts are unreasonable.

    AfroGay - Are you telling me that Lil Wayne is the gold standard for black people? Is this the one that we measure ourselves to? How many times do white people sit on the bus next to Lil Wayne wondering if he's going to ask them for a job?

    But to answer your question, I don't know him from Adam. I really know nothing about him accept I've seen his picture. I hope that from his appearance I would be able to give him the benefit of the doubt as I would hope others would give me. In this country there are laws that prohibit against discrimination and I would not be one flout them that easily.

    ReplyDelete
  17. CURIOUS: I GET WHAT YOU ARE SAYING & I FEEL LIKE WHAT I WENT THROUGH PALES IN COMPARISON TO WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU. I GUESS THE POINT I WAS MAKING IN THE ENTRY ISN'T WORKING FOR YOU, BUT I WILL SAY AGAIN I WAS SPEAKING FROM A PLACE OF CONFRONTING SOMETHING I HAD NO IDEA EXISTED IN ME. I DON'T HATE ANYONE IT ISN'T IN MY DNA BTW.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Curious: "I hope that from his appearance I would be able to give him the benefit of the doubt"

    I am afraid, Curious, yours is the kind of compromising that has led the black man in America down the shit creek where Lil Wayne finds himself. We are afraid of calling out our own and, as you seem to be doing, choose to tolerate unacceptable social behavior from our own.

    Lil Wayne deserves nothing but contempt for the way he looks and behaves. Yes, he has sold some records but that says more about the people buying them than about the edification Lil Wayne has to offer his audience. If that is the role model young black America has today, Martin Luther King Jr will be convulsing in his grave.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I think that I understand your point, my blogger brother and friend. However, things aren't always what we see. I was riding the Washingon, DC, subway with my elderly grandmother (we're both Greek) maybe 10 years ago. The train was packed, standing room only. All races, ethnicities,ages, genders. The only person to even offer my grandmother a seat was a gentleman similar to the one you described. Not only that; his buddy offered his seat to me so my grandmother would "feel comfortable" (his words, not mine). Yes, some young people will rob, injure or worse. So will some middle-aged people. So will some older people. So will some Black people. So will some White people. At the same time, there are people of all races, ethnicities, ages, genders, etc. who will do good deeds, are respectful, decent and helpful. So where do we go from here? Judge each situation on an individual basis. You were prudent to move at the first sign of aggression (the knife). I would have done the same. We simply all need to exercise caution around all people, not just those who appear a certain way.

    Did I make sense here? I hope so.

    ReplyDelete
  20. ROGER: YOU MADE A LOT OF SENSE & I AM GLAD THAT I TOOK THAT BUS YESTERDAY.

    ReplyDelete
  21. It sounds like you learned a valuable lesson or were reminded of one! Sometimes life has to give us a little nudge to take us back to who we are!

    ReplyDelete
  22. I am totally feeling what I believe Curious has been trying to get across in his numerous comments here. I am imagining that for him, like me, the only really problematic sentence in your entire post is this one, "For the first time I got how a white person feel when he/she sees a black man that looks a certain way." The problem I see with that statement is that you are legitimizing an inherently prejudicial mindset and passing it off as a normative mindset. It is not normative. It is prejudicial. And the only context in which it is normal is through the lens of prejudicial thought. The problem is that in this sentence rather than simply sticking to your feelings of fear (real or imagined), your anxiety (justified or not), your historical experience (which are you own and which no one can argue with precisely because they *are* yours, you have interjected a racialized element to your commentary. This is problematic because when white people feel nervous around the type of man you described, it is often the result of social training. If the person does end up being dangerous their social training has helped them. if it ends up being wrong it has failed them. But the problem is that rather the training has helped or failed them it is prejudicial in it very essence. And that therein lies the problem.

    Afro gay, your "problem" by contrast, is simply that you have allowed your inner judge to speak in this post and you are trying to justify your judgments as being benign which they most certainly are not. They are judgments pure and simple and you are desiring (expecting?)others to accept your judgments without question or challenge without you taking responsibility for the fact that they are judgments, not facts.

    ReplyDelete
  23. The other issue gayte-keeper, and btw, I totally respect the fact that you posted this post and allowed yourself to expose your vulnerability in the process. That is completely honorable in my opinion. Anyway, the other issue is that you have repeatedly emphasized that you are simply telling your truth, recounting your experience. BUT...that in fact is not the case when you try to believe you can understand what I white person would feel because being white is in fact not your experience. So there becomes a disconnect between what you say you are doing and what you have actually said in the post. That disconnect is where I am imagining both Curious and myself found ourselves experiencing another difficulty here.

    ReplyDelete
  24. SAGE: I HAVE NO PROBLEMS PUTTING MYSELF OUT THERE WHETHER OTHERS AGREE WITH ME OR NOT. I GET WHAT YOU ARE SAYING, BUT WHEN I SAY I GET WHAT WHITE PEOPLE, THAT DOESN'T MEAN I AGREE WITH ASSUMPTIONS. I AM SAYING I GET WHY THEY WOULD REACT THAT WAY & LIKE I'VE SAID IN A PREVIOUS COMMENT, WHERE I LIVE A BLACK MAN WOULD FIT THAT STEREOTYPE SO...

    ReplyDelete
  25. GK- thank you for stepping out of the box and into sombody else's skin for a moment. The more we understand and experience how the other guy might feel, racial differences fall away as we begin to get accustomed to identifying ourselves as all belonging to the same club... the HUMAN race.

    I would like to counter your negative experience with a positive one. I am my partner's mother's business namager and health care advocate and I am in the process of making arrangements for her permanent care in a local nursing home. This, along with breaking up her home is a time of highly charged emotions and great sadness.

    I was sitting in the conference room with my little Yorkie puppy in my arms yesterday, waiting to meet with a number of department heads when 3 people entered the back of the room from another door. There was an elderly Black woman pushing her advanced Alzheimer's husband in his wheelchair and a very tall, regal-looking Black woman in a clerical collar following them. The regal lady began to chant The Lord's Prayer and the wife and husband joined in. Sitting on the other side of the room, I also began to chant these very familiar words and joined them all in a very heartfelt AMEN.

    The reverand turned to me and smiled, inviting me over and I walked over to them with Smokey and put him down in the husband's lap, took hold of his hand and got him to stroke my little guy as I explained why I was there. Though the man's eyes were closed, as it is with advanced Alzheimer's patients, a small smile of recognition came to his lips.

    The wife smiled and encouraged her husband to pet Smokey again as the reverand turned to me and said "Bless you, and please tell me tell name of your loved one here and I will say a prayer for her."

    Together, the elderly Black wife, her husband in his own way, the regal Black lady minister, the middle-aged White, Jewish, Gay man and his froo fro dog all prayed for my partner's mom, and for all of us to have the strength to get through the terrible times we are experiencing TOGETHER, and it was GOOD.

    It was very, very GOOD and I walked away in tears, but a bit stronger and a bit more confident that the ONE God will guide me and my new friends through the heartbreaking Reality we all share.

    ReplyDelete
  26. JEFF: I PASS JUDGEMENT ON THE 'WHITE' PEOPLE THAT LIVE HERE EACH TIME I SEE THEM & JUST THE OTHER DAY I SAID TO MYSELF THAT I WANTED TO NOT HAVE THAT BE MY IMMEDIATE REACTION & I FEEL THAT BUS RIDE DID IT FOR ME. LIKE YOU SAID, "ONE God will guide me and my new friends through the heartbreaking Reality we all share." I TOTALLY BELIEVE THAT & THAT IS WHAT TAKES ME FROM DAY TO DAY.

    I SO HAPPY THAT YOU GOT THAT EXPERIENCE YESTERDAY, I WAS WONDERING WHAT YOUR THOUGHTS WERE ON THIS ENTRY. THOUGH I AM STRONG INDIVIDUAL BEING MISUNDERSTOOD IS SOMETHING THAT STILL BOTHERS ME A LITTLE. THANKS FOR SHARING YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH US.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Jeff, on the surface your first paragraph sounds wonderful. I however don't believe it is when it is properly deconstructed. I understand your interpreting gayte-keepers experience as an instance of stepping into someone's else's shoes and having a learning experience as a result. That is a wonderful thing. It is called empathy. Empathy is good. The problem is that the shoes that have been stepped into here are prejudicial shoes. They are shoes that are about judging a book by its cover. Those two energies take away substantially enough from the positive, empathetic elements of the"steeping into another's shoes" experience to turn into a different experience.

    Gayte-keeper, when you identified the man on the bus as black and then stated that you knew how a white person would feel in the situation you added racial aspects to your experience. From that point on, the reader is not reading a neutral sharing of an experience. The reader doesn't know just how you are thinking. The reader only knows that you have added a racialized aspect to your experience and we don't exactly know why you have done that because we are not inside your head. In your responses to various people's issues or problems with the post you have tried to further explain your experience by giving more details. That has been very helpful. It has given the reader a broader vision of your experience. The issue I have is similar to the one Curious has. Like him, I spend my entire life, day in and day out working to decrease racial and other forms of bigotry. So I am trained to identify problematic and potentially bigoted speech. And the way you presented your experience tripped that switch. It just did. Imagine, if what you had reported was something like this instead, "I got on a bus today and there was this sissified gay boy who sat next to me. She was just a flaming queen talking on her cell phone and talking all girly and stuff. I know know why we straight people hate gay people so much. They are all so sick." That is essentially what you said in your original post except I substituted heteronomativity speech for the racialized speech you used in your actual post. If you were on that bus and heard someone repeat those words about the "gay boy" to someone else on the bus, what would be your thoughts about what you had just heard without knowing anything about the person who spoke them?

    ReplyDelete
  28. Sage, you missed my point, which is that 'your' people havent cornered the market on prejudice or bigotry. Take a careful look at the history of 'my' people and see 5000 years of prejudice, enslavement, bigotry and genocide along side the 400 years that Africa and its people have been raped by the White Man.

    Personally, I have been beat up, told I am not human, not Caucasian and that Jews dont believe in "God", this coming from White trash and WASPS alike.

    I dont wear my outrage like a festering sore on my ass. I simply go quietly about my business, lead a decent life and in that way show the 'White Man' that 'I aint like dem odda Jews, Im a gud Jew.", which by the way, I've also heard from more than one African-American in my life time.

    I havent personally experienced and Gay bigotry yet, but Im sure it lurks just around the corner for me and I will soon hear, 'You aint like dem odda Fags, ur a GUD fag' .... and honestly, I really dont fking care what anybody thinks of me any more.

    ReplyDelete

THANK YOU FOR YOUR VOICE...

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails