“Some of us see it,” my 21-year-old son says to me at the dinner table. We’re talking about Ferguson, the demonstrations, all the challenges facing this country.
The inequality.
So many types of inequality.
He starts in on race relations, naming the dead black men and boys in the news over these past months.
I am startled that this is the conversation we are having. His brother has always been vocal on social and political issues, vocal on how the world should “work,” and vocal – in general. This is my dreamer-son, my artist-son, my silent son.
He is silent no longer.
“Some of the kids at school are so far into their bubble they don’t think it affects them,” he says. “We’re so busy all the time, I get it. But they don’t see. The game is rigged.”
As we’re talking, I recall the pay gap figures for women, broken down by ethnicity. White women earn 78 cents on the male dollar; African-American women earn 64 cents*. Do we think this doesn’t matter?
What about the fact that the real median household income for white families in 2013 was $58,270 and for black families, $34,598**? Do we think this doesn’t matter?
And the fact that single parent households headed by women have a median household income, without breaking down ethnicity, of roughly $26,000?
Doesn’t money buy access to better nutrition, better healthcare, better schools, safer neighborhoods – and therefore, less of a rigged game?
My boys were raised by me, a single mother in the urban Southeast. They attended public schools in an area with a significant socioeconomic mix, but white faces were the minority in their classrooms. Many of the white families in our part of the city sent their kids to private school.
I didn’t.
Not when I could have squeaked out the tuition. And certainly not after divorce, when I couldn’t. I believe we have a responsibility to make our public schools as high functioning as we can. That means we stick, we show up, we make it our business – to the extent it is possible – to participate.
I was a public school kid from the Northeast. There wasn’t much money in our household when I was growing up, and my dad was around only sporadically. But my mother, for all her intermittent craziness, consistently placed education and ethics above all else. I am who I am, in part, because of my mother.
While there was little money, I understand clearly that I was raised in an intellectually and culturally elite environment.
As for ethnic diversity, our school district was comprised of Italians, Irish, Greeks, Armenians, Jews and long-time Yankees. There were no black or brown faces in my elementary school, nor junior high. In high school, there was one African-American boy, who, to the best of my recollection, had moved from another part of the country.
“The thing is, there’s so much wrong,” my son says. “We don’t know where to start. We don’t know how to fix it. We don’t know who to believe. Not the media, that’s for sure.”
This is our first real conversation since he returned home after the semester’s finals, not even 24 hours earlier.
I am pleased that my son is increasingly aware of the world around him. That he’s thinking for himself. That his predominantly white (affluent) surroundings in his northeastern university are not turning him away from what he knows in his bones, from allegiances he’s had since childhood, from his hybrid roots and experience – born and raised in the South, of a New England mother and a European father, of three languages though we largely spoke English, of two religious traditions.
Of my two sons, his brother skews more Euro-kid, while my younger son has always been more stereotypically American.
Our household was different from that of my boys’ friends for many reasons, including the contradictions of few trappings of success, yet high-end ambitions.
But fear was never part of my sons’ upbringing.
Financial fear? Sure. But fear of bodily harm – just for being who they are?
Never.
Before divorce, there were trips to Boston to see my mother, and trips roughly once a year to Europe to visit grandparents and cousins. After divorce, there were trips twice a year to New England when both boys would see their father (and my mother until she passed away), and only the occasional trip to Europe to see family for my younger son, though my elder went more often.
New England is very white. The part of Europe where my ex’s family lives, likewise.
Money has been tight for years and consequently, the pressure was on for both my kids to perform academically in order to win scholarships. That would be their way out of the financial stranglehold that has held us for more than half of their young lives. They earned those scholarships. They made their way “out.” Or more precisely, they will in a few years time — with a bit of luck.
Our friends?
Everyone interesting, respectful, funny. With few exceptions, not adults.
Kids. I loved the kids. Their energy, their attitudes, their values.
His friends?
Mexican, African-American, Bulgarian, Irish-American.
But my sons will never know the fear that some of their pals no doubt live with. Their friends, these boys they have grown up with, these boys whose mothers I know and one of whom I was close to for years. How could I be ignorant of what these mothers had to teach their sons — to be wary of authority figures? To fear the police?
How could I be so blind? How could I be such a lousy friend?
My children had a rainbow of friends including the girls they went out with. I told myself this was good and as it should be; bit by bit, the world was making peace with our diversity of colors.
Apparently, I saw what I wanted to see. And never was this more clear to me than when I read Dana Canedy’s article in The Times, “The Talk: After Ferguson, a Shaded Conversation About Race”.
This is about the talk that an upper middle class journalist has with her son, this African-American mother of a light-skinned black child, an eight year-old, with whom she must explain what is a terrible truth in our society. She writes:
I hadn’t fully processed that someday my son would be seen as suspect instead of sweet.
Ms. Canedy describes her situation, her preparation for “the talk,” and her son’s response. Read her words.
Some of the comments on the article at The Times were shocking to me, for example in their assertions of reverse discrimination. Other commenters expressed feeling “heartbroken.” I understand that response, but I felt anger, stupidity at my own cluelessness, and sickened that this is where we are when some of us, people like me, once assumed we made more progress than we have. I feel foolish for not recognizing the inherent protection my boys enjoy – simply by virtue of pigmentation.
As our talk about “the talk” was winding up at the dinner table, my son says:
“These past weeks, I suddenly realized, I’ve been living in a bubble of white privilege that I didn’t see.”
This from my son whose friends are at Dartmouth and NYU and Duke and University of Georgia and University of Wisconsin and Boston University – white friends, black friends, brown friends. Were all but the palest raised in the shadow of fear that Ms. Canedy describes?
My only taste of this appalling reality is this: gentle mentions to my boys about not being Christian though we live in the Bible Belt; the need to pay attention. And that’s a far cry from mothers teaching their children always to defer to a cop, never to talk back, never to raise a hand or make a sudden gesture.
What do I tell my son, who raises the question again of where to start? How to topple so many systemic barriers to fair play, constructed and sustained over generations? How do the mothers of sons do something more than “hug it out” then return to our respective worlds – mine, for example, even with its stresses, infinitely safer than so many families of color?
I tell my son it’s possible to improve things, because I want him to believe it. I want his friends to believe it. I want to believe it.
I would like to think the mother who wrote the article I cite may, one day, believe it as well.
I may be nothing more than another “liberal” white person in a cocoon, unable to change a damn thing. Unable to ever really understand. And all I can think to do is write, question, read, listen, learn, and keep writing, questioning, reading, listening and learning.
If you are a parent, read Dana Canedy’s article. It will break your heart, and it should make you angry. I am at a loss. I am ashamed. I want to turn my anger to something – anything – productive. And so I address mothers, and specifically mothers who, like me, may not see the privilege they assume is there for everyone.
It is not.
Like my son, I ask: Where do we begin, how do we fix it, how do we become a part of this absolutely vital change when so many entangled systems are involved?
*Source, More Magazine, September 2014, cited in linked post.
**Census Bureau, Income and Poverty in the U.S.: 2013
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I spent my childhood in El Paso, TX where I was the minority, but a privileged minority. I understood that we were different, but not all the ramifications that came with it. In later years, our family moved to the Midwest and there was very little diversity. My complete adulthood has been spent in the Southeast and it was originally so eye-opening. For a time, I lived in a small (very backward) location in Southern Georgia where some were shocked by my choice of home because of the “neighbors.” It was available and affordable and for me that was all that mattered. I had friends over for lunch often and there were high-school aged African-American girls who commented that they had never been in a white person’s home before. I was truly shocked. It was my first taste of how truly segregated groups can become.
There are no easy fixes. The current outcry feels like the pent up release of many years of stifled frustration. Frustration that I naively didn’t face and didn’t recognize. I wonder if mothers of so many races optimistically hoped we were past having these conversations? Maybe our children, the ones we are seeking to raise with accepting hearts and eyes that notice and appreciate diversity, will be the ones who win this sociological battle and heal the wounds of our generation’s ignorance. I can hope.
With you on that hope, Missy.
Excellent post. Catching up.
You have raised your sons well, D. A. Many white people think White equates to Clear, racially. And they think that even if it does not, the system is inherently fair, or near enough that hard work will overcome the inequality.
However, uninformed as that is, it only pertains to economic life, and ignores the dangerous and systemic racism which still abounds, not to mention the increasingly immoral and out of control authority systems. I was bothered to see a video which surfaced today from Victoria, TX of a 23 year old white policeman brutalizing an innocent 76 year old Hispanic man, essentially just because he could. That is two hours away from me, in a culture very similar to the one I grew up in, and also the one in which I currently live.
While it is bothersome to know these attitudes exist, as I have all my life, it is troublesome to see them in action, and to know that they seem to be getting worse, not better. Couple this with the extremely regressive political trends underway and it is increasingly hard to have optimism for the immediate future.
I know that as life gets more complex, societies and individuals can make either great leaps in forward development, or in regression. Often it is necessary to first make the backward leap in order to make the need for the forward one more obvious. I’m happy to see that this is not being totally lost on the young.
Thank you for your very thoughtful response, Robert. One thing I didn’t mention, from the same set of data on female demographics and earnings, Latina women earn 53 cents on the white male dollar. The complete picture comes from a study by the American Association of University Women (which I cite in this post on women and money). That’s nearly half what white males earn, and 11 cents lower than African-American women.
As you clearly describe, racism is all too pervasive. And does seem to be getting worse. All the more reason to talk about it. We must. And thank you for being willing to do so.
OFF TO read the article………………..XX
What it will take is each one of us doing all we can to know and live in community with people whose skin color does not mirror ours. If we do that with open hearts, we will learn how to come together more and more (rather than see each other as “other”). P.S. You are not alone in having thought that the U.S. had become a more open society than it is…I thought so too, until I saw how our first African-American President was excoriated from the moment he took office by those who simply could not see an African-American as Presidential. And for true obliviousness to the realities of racial prejudice in the U.S., look at recent the Supreme Court decisions on voting rights and affirmative action.
DA
There are so many types of inequality and this post seems to focus on racism so I will focus on that.
As you are aware I was very involved with Civil Rights work in the US and abroad. I was waiting to see the responses and I am somewhat happy with the responses above and disillusioned with the lack of responses in general. This is a complex and difficult subject, so let me just give some food for thought.
Robert makes perhaps the best point. He states that whites think of themselves as Clear. In essence the standard to which society is and should be. This really is an important point and misunderstood by most. We gauge others and society by ourselves which we see as the standard and the benchmark. This is not just true of whites, but African Americans, Asians, Latinos, and others, as well as by nationality and gender. It is human to do so, but one must be aware this is our personal reality and not societal reality. One needs to educate oneself, be aware of one’s own bias and use logic and reason.
There are many types of racism and they are expressed in various ways. Racism arises out of many causes: personal experience, indoctrination, societal beliefs and approaches, lack of education and logic, human nature, fear, misunderstanding, and other factors.
As humans we pigeonhole people, issues, things and experiences as it is natural and it makes it easier to react and live. HOWEVER, sometimes we pigeon hole improperly based on factors that are faulty. This is a very common cause of widely held and less extreme racism. But really we are stereotyping in our own minds without logic or analysis.
Can white people really not dance or play basketball?
Are all Asians really smart and academically inclined?
Are all Americans obnoxious, self absorbed and solely care about money? (a view held by non Americans)
Are all French snooty?
Are all Democrats bleeding hearts?
Are all Republicans heartless?
These are some of the ridiculous pigeonholes we use.
We should be more self reflective. Many Americans I know believe in fairness and equal rights for all people regardless or race or ethnicity, but have no friends outside their own race or ethnicity. Why is that? Partly because it is human nature to associate with like people. But isn’t this a type of racism?
I lived in the deep south for several years and noticed that even the most racist people had friends of another race. This I call “but they are different” racism. Somehow certain people have racism towards a group but not individuals they know and even love or respect. This is a psychological process that is both beyond my emotional and academic ability to understand, and really shows how complex racism can be.
As for Fergusson, Mo I see this as a release valve. Surely there have been many and more serious racist acts. But there came a point and it was fueled by media and pundits (of all nature) where it had to blow. The situation was not helped in my opinion by a District Attorney who did not have the moral or political Kahunas to address the issue, but rather offloaded the onus onto a grand jury. It seems to me that the Grand Jury made the correct decision from the information I have heard and note that further review will confirm or refute. Note that the Grand Jury meant to determine whether there is enough evidence, or probable cause, to indict a criminal suspect. This is a very low bar and the Brown case did not reach this. Regardless the case and incident were both a spark and a lynchpin to other action and should cause people to consider the unrest and state of civil rights on America.
As far as Obama goes, I am glad the glass ceiling has been broken and his election caused me tremendous hope for American society to progress. That said I am disillusioned, progress has been minimal and he has been a disappointment to me.
In the end of this preachy diatribe from the pulpit, I think we need to use logic and reason, reflect, know ourselves, self educate, educate others, have open dialogue, engage and love all. It shouldn’t be a problem….should it?
Like you, Curtis, I was somewhat disappointed with the lack of responses to this critical topic, but that may be more a function of the audience here. Still, it was heartening to read those that did comment, and it’s disheartening if I allow myself to believe that a lack of response is because I have readers who, like my son’s friends, believe it doesn’t touch them. Or, as is the case with many I know (and I understand), race as a topic simply isn’t “discussed.”
Having been raised in the north, but having lived in the south for so many years, the nature of discrimination is also at times surprising. And there are, as you say, many types (and degrees) of racial bias. The mixing and blurring of boundaries here, certainly in the schools my children attended, in commercial areas in my neighborhood, among our doctors and other professionals – would lead one to believe that we have made great strides. But that doesn’t mean that deeper roots of discord (and other issues like profiling) are not all too alive and sadly, too well.
Hopped over from your comment on Carol Cassara’s blog — sorry I missed this earlier.
You’ll appreciate this. In the St. Louis area, black women arranged a program called Mother 2 Mother where a panel of women of color describe the Talk they have have with their children to, mostly, white female audiences. The format has proven so powerful that it’s been repeated at least three times and there are more on the way.
Thank you so much for popping over, Joy – and for sharing this. Please send some links if you have them, but I will also Google and look into it. And wishing you a very happy holiday.
A couple news stories:
http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/relationships-and-special-occasions/parenting/aisha-sultan/black-moms-tell-audience-how-they-fear-for-their-sons/article_050d4db8-8155-568a-93d3-20ec1d10f7a4.html
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/black-moms-teach-white-moms-about-having-talk-their-sons
The programs don’t really have a site of their own, but most of them eventually end up being announced on this page (currently still showing a Father 2 Father that happened last month): http://www.theethicsproject.org/our-causes/upcoming-events/
Thanks for these, Joy!