What I Didn't Know

I used to think of racism as a white problem - you know, what I learned in college; that it was up to white people to educate themselves, do the inside dirty work that causes racial hatred, and purge the world of racism. I honestly thought that a lot of white people – not all, but a lot – were beyond the race thing. Americans, I mean. Particularly young people. They seem to have an ease (as opposed to dis-ease) about race that my generation did not have. While that may be true - I don't know any more if it is or it isn't - I have to say that I didn't grasp the level of pain that Black people in this country were living with. It seems to be a sort of cumulative pain. Like stress, you can release small portions of it from time to time, but it never really leaves you. You just live with it. It's a collective experience.

I wanted to say that it's like understanding hunger, even if you've never known it personally. I remember in the 1980's, when Ethiopia was whithering under a catastrophic famine. Night after night, we'd see heartbreaking images on the news of hungry, dying children. It made an impression. After all the fundraising was tallied up from the developed countries in the West, it appeared that the Republic of Ireland had far exceeded the other nations in per capita contributions. In other words, despite the high unemployment, relative poverty, and political strife in Ireland, its people had responded the most generously to the victims of famine in Ethiopia.

Famine and Ireland. You don't hear too much about that these days in America. But talk to anyone in Ireland about what it's like to be hungry, or in want, and the response may surprise you. Irish people fear hunger. Even generations after the famine. It's a collective experience. A collective pain. In the bones, the psyche. A catastrophic trauma, I would imagine.

The pain of Black people in this country didn't come to my attention until Barack Obama was elected; until it actually happened and the celebration began. I had had glimpses of it; I've been around a while, and I can open my soul enough to listen, to let another person's pain register with me. I thought I had done that. But on this particular issue, I was ignorant. Just ignorant.

I expected that Barack Obama would get elected, but something in me didn't want to count the proverbial chickens before they were hatched. It was exciting, but I kept thinking that some weird voter fraud glitch was going to happen, some Rodney King hanging chad ACORN-related meteor was going to strike the bureau for Voter Fairness and the whole election would be invalidated. In lieu of martial law, Oliver North would assume the presidency until the government could resuscitate or clone Ronald Reagan. You know, that one-in-a-million mentality.

When Obama did get elected, I was relieved to finally see it happen. For many reasons. On many different levels. I sighed a huge sigh and went on with my day, relieved that the election madness was over. I wondered in the back of my head how Black people felt, but my experience of voting was a personal one. It had nothing to do with anyone but myself, my choice. Anyway, when the election results were announced, I imagined that Black people in this country had to know for sure that some of us are trying to do the right thing. Barack Obama wasn't elected by accident. People – *a lot* of people – (white ones, I mean) had to think their vote. They had to show up, and they had to cast a ballot. They had to stand behind a curtain - all alone with nobody watching - and actually pull the lever. In private. Again, with nobody looking. And people did it. They did the right thing. Part of me even wants to say, they let love win.

It's a good start.

The post-election euphoria feels kind of strange. It's as if an unspoken dialogue has occurred, a truce of some sort; as if the air has been cleared of something fetid. You know, the vague smell of something going bad in the trash. You don't know exactly what it is – so much has been thrown in the bin over the years. It's just time to take out the trash and start over. None of it is salvageable.

I hadn’t realized that so many people thought they would not live to see the day when a Black man was elected president of the United States. I hadn’t realized that I felt that way myself. For that reason alone, I am grateful that this has happened. I am even more overjoyed to see elderly Black people experience this. They deserve it, least of all for what they have endured.

As always, though, I feel compelled to make the political a personal matter, and I hope you will indulge me. There are freedoms that I enjoy that the previous generation was not fortunate enough to experience. And then there are experiences that the next generation may have that my generation cannot.

Late in the summer, I met a man that I liked a lot. He's Black, in his late 50's. His name was Richard. He had been married to a mean lady for 28 years, so we had quite a bit in common - like involuntary cringing at loud noises. We got along well, and I felt safe with him; appreciated, like a woman is supposed to feel when she is special to a man. We went out several times, and everywhere we went, people were especially gracious to us. It surprised me a little, but I thought maybe they can see that we like each other. People are nice to you if they think you are a cute couple.

We had long talks. His mother was a lot like mine – the kind who would hug you and kiss you and then smack you on the head for getting lost in Sears & Roebuck. He told me a story once about how his mother didn't eat for two days because there was not enough food in the house to feed her and the kids. So the kids ate. She didn't. My mother was like that.

We both liked the same kinds of books and movies. Flea markets. Weird humor. And oddly enough, we both also had a bizarre interest in Sasquatch sightings. How often does that happen?

Invariably, though, every time I talked to him, he would ask me what my ex-husband would think of me seeing a Black man. I told him I didn't know, or care for that matter, but I think that may have been a mistake. I don't think I reassured him enough that I didn't give a rip.

"It's one thing for there to be a new man," he said once. "But it's a completely different thing for there to be a new Black man."

"Really?" I asked. Maybe I was being naive.

"Have you ever dated a Black man before?" he asked. I hadn't.

He also asked several times what my children would think of him. "I don't know," I said. "I haven't introduced them to anyone I've dated. I haven't really dated. I'm trying to protect them. They've had a lot of losses."

We were quiet.

"But they might call you brown instead of Black,” I offered. “They do that sometimes."

I laughed. He didn't.

"What about your friends?" he wanted to know.

What about them? I thought. I told him I thought they'd be fine.

"What about yours?" I asked. "And your family?"

He shrugged. Yeah, they'll get over it.

I didn't see what the big deal was. I just liked him. You see, I'm too old now to care what anybody thinks. I've been unhappy too long.

Soon after that conversation, the phone calls from Richard stopped dead. I thought maybe he’d had a heart attack and died or something. So I called to make sure he was OK. He was fine. He just couldn't handle a relationship with a white woman.

Me. A white woman. Go figure.

It's funny, ever since Barack Obama was elected, I have been half expecting the phone to ring and for it to be Richard. “Hey, ever since we voted for change, I figured it was OK to call.”

But it hasn't.

I am hoping that it is true what I have heard many Black people saying, that everything is different now. You know, life will be BB (Before Barack) and AB (After Barack). I hope it is, for my sake and the sake of the next generation. Everything, and I mean everything, needs to change.