Race

When I was growing up, my parents didn't mention race. This is not to say that I grew up in a lily white neighborhood. It's just that my parents never mentioned a person's race.

This really was not much of a problem until I was working at a college in 1973. At that time the college decided to have a "Black Week," which was the rage at the time. At that time, all of the people I ran around with were, in fact, white. Since racism was being emphasized, my friends were making some sort of statement, "I'm really a racist, but I don't know any Black people, so it doesn't show." I think that was more of a socially acceptable admission than the truth - most of the Black people were from the inner city, and tended to keep to themselves.

There was one exception. He was from Michigan, although I don't know exactly where, and he tended to hang out, and be friends with everyone. Personally, I don't think I would be as presumptuous as to assume that he would have call me his friend.

I wouldn't make that kind of a statement, however, without some feeling that it was true. I hadn't known any Black people, it was true. But was I a racist? While I was pondering this statement, I visited my parents. In the course of the visit, my mother pointed out that when we lived in a particular house in a ghetto in Des Moines, Iowa, our next door neighbors were Black. No one had told me this. In fact, I remember that house, I was about eight or nine at the time, and the next door neighbors also had a son about the same age. He and I were best friends at the time, but no one told me he was Black.

Once this was revealed to me, several other people I had known who were of other races came to mind. For example, I remember a classmate from grade school named "Wayne Garcia." I really was not a friend, but I do remember the name because I thought the name "Garcia" had such a nice sound to it. The neighborhood I lived in when I was in grade school was such that it would be believable that there may have been many races.

Then I remember the guy from New Orleans. That is, he was Black. I can remember his race because he had the blackest skin I've ever seen. In addition, he was the most handsome guy I've ever seen. I didn't get to know him because he also spoke with a very strong New Orleans' accent which is very fast, and even if asked he wouldn't speak any slower, so there was a strong communications problem.

When I was in graduate school, I had had officemates, one Arab from Iraq, and an African-American from South Carolina, I believe. I remember the Iraqi because we had long talks about his life back home, etc. We were friends. I was also friends with the guy from South Carolina. I remember him because he has so much trouble with the courses (in Mathematics). That is, I think he had the ability, but he illustrated to me that the idea of "separate but equal," which had just been ruled illegal, really wasn't equal.

I also knew a guy from India. He was a friend - dated my sister, I believe - but he also taught me how to play chess. That is, he and I would play, and he would wipe me out. Then I would set up again, and offer to play again, until he got tired of wiping me out. It was easy to know where he was from because of his strong accent.

In each case, I remember the person's race because it became part of who they were. I really don't know how many people I met before then who were of different races. It is possible that some of the people I met, and were friends with, were not white, I'd have never noticed.

Since then I have taken more of an interest in the race of the people I meet. That is, I try to remember people's races, but I'm still not always successful. (I recall seeing the DVD for The Day After Tomorrow. In one of the specials they point out that there is an Black man kissing his wife, who is White. I saw the kiss, but not the racial difference.

In the late 1980's there was an article in the Communications of the ACM (CACM) about race. The article was said to have been circulating on the Internet at the time (the general public didn't have access to the Internet yet, but Universities did). This guy makes the point that software developers shouldn't be interested in classifying people by race because the racial distinctions are so ambiguous. He noted that as a supervisor he was required to list the race of his employees, but he had a problem with a woman who was African-American named Rodriquez.

The think this article pointed out that I have not seen elsewhere is that racism in the United States has an end. That is, his statement is that if the United States reacts to Black racism the way it has in the past, there is no fear of Black power winning, or the White supremacists. Actually, he make the point that in the United States, it has always been that "Beige is beautiful" movement that has won. That is, whenever there has been problems with race, eventually the race involved has simply been absorbed into the United States population. By law, African-Americans could not be absorbed until the 1960's due to the racist laws (that have been declared unconstitutional).

I remember one interracial African-White marriage before 1974. But recently I've seen many interracial marriages. Every time I see a White man with an African-American woman, or visa versa, I think of this article, and I've seen a lot of them recently.

Last year my daughter, who is in college, came home to visit, and we watched the DVD of her graduation ceremony. When it came time for the speech from the class president, my daughter obviously noticed something. The class president, one of her friends, was one of only about five or six Black people in her class. (I cannot call her African-American, since I remember my daughter telling me she was born in Africa.) The point being that my daughter was going through the same identity crisis I had gone through when I was just a few years older than her. That is, growing up, I hadn't pointed out race to her, except people of the Chinese race (her mother is Chinese). (Actually, there are many Chinese races.)

I believe that article made a point that it would take no longer than 200 years to absorb the entire African-American race into the general population. I think my observation is that it probably won't take that long.