Black. White. and the ongoing issues of Race in America

Black. White.
Last night was the conclusion of the 6-part FX Reality Series "Black. White." which presented America with many challenges and some hope for the future.

The show took two families, one white from "loony-lefty" Santa Monica (Bruno, Carmen and daughter Rose) and another black from Hot-lanta (or Atlanta GA for you squares) featuring Brian, Renee and son Nick. Both families spent time together in an LA Suburb and literally living in each others skin as a way to gain some understanding of how race continues to affect our reality, our thinking and our lives.

At the very least, the show has sparked some discussion - and that's (usually) a good thing.

Brian

40-year-old Brian came into the project feeling that he basically knew all there was to know about "White America", and for the most part I can't say that he was wrong. White-Brian had little trouble melting into White society and quickly turning on his inner whiteness when the time came during his temporary undercover job as a bartender in a largely white neighborhood of Pasadena. He found himself somewhat shocked at the level of service and attention he received as a white patron at a golf shop where the attendent not only brought him a pair of shoes to try on - but actually put them on his feet by hand. Something that had never happened to him before in his life.

He and wife Renee seemed to be completely on the same page when it came to race issues, but greatly at odds with Brian's counter-part Bruno on the issue of whether ongoing racism remains a major factor in American life. Where as Bruno felt that the actions and racism of others was something you could choose to affect you or not, it could be argued that Brian was hyper-sensitive to each and every possible slight which may have had racial connotations.

As an LA Native myself, I feel that what the show didn't address is that southern-california by it's very nature is a locale where anti-ethnic racism is generally hidden. Even during the heyday of the civil rights movement it was rare for overtly racist rhetoric to be spoken aloud - but it was there, as was most eloquently made clear by the Oscar Winning Movie "Crash". Since that time and the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the truth is that displaying discriminatory tendencies and views can be considered a crime if actions can be linked to those views - this has created a "great quiet" where those who may feel negatively toward a minority person or group often dare not voice that opinion. Instead, they gives off signals and hints -- hints which people like Brian have remained constantly on their guard for, because essentially - a hint is all you're gonna get. (Taking this show to Brian's hometown of Atlanta would have made a major difference in how openly people would tend to display their racism IMO)

The downside of this is that sometimes a fairly innocent action or clumsy mistake can be interpreted as having a racial element when none-exists. Hence you have the conunndrum, do you dare to "cry wolf" at each potential issue - or do you instead try to "rise above it" and risk letting the genuine wolves who are still out there make a snack of you? Brian would clearly prefer the former to the latter. Bruno? Not so much.

Bruno

Bruno was certainly a lightening rod on the show. His basic view is that "Life is what you make of it", and there's little point in walking around feeling constantly aggrieved by the actions of others. You are responsible for yourself, and how you let other people impact you. A true "Boot-strapper" idealist.

But the revelation that put a lie to Bruno's "Shiny happy people" outlook is that he himself continues to this day to feel aggrieved, although he denies it, by an experience he faced in High-School basketball where he was "the best player on the team, and the other four (all black) players refused to pass him the ball". First of all, I have a hard time believing that any self respecting coach would allow the "best player on the team" to be block-out of the game like that. What school was he going to - at least 25-30 years ago - where four black players could get away with such a thing? Bruno claims that although that event deeply frustrated him at the time, it doesn't affect him today. Yeah, right.

[Update: Y'know his entire "I was the best guy on the team" stereo-typical white-guy self-aggrandizement rubs me the wrong way. This - "I was the best guy for the job, but they gave it to some unqualified black woman in order to fill the quote" - Bullshit. What the hell make you assume you're better than everybody else? If you were the best guy, GO GET A FREAKING REBOUND AND PROVE IT. Don't wait for someone else to do it and acommodate you, make your own luck - make yourself indispensible -- grab your own damn bootstraps pal! He expects Black people to turn the other cheek when he hasn't even found his yet?

Then again, maybe they didn't pass you the ball because you were an insufferable prick (who just happened to be White) and not nearly as good as you thought you were. Possible? I think so. Or else the coach should have been Sacked for letting this go on.]

Of all the people on the show Bruno was the one person who only saw racism directled against whites but never the reverse. When Black-Bruno and his wife Black-Carmen went out country line-dancing they got major-ly "Funny Vibed" with surreptitious looks and glares by the completely White crowd. It was enough to upset Carmen, but Bruno was oblivious. However when the two of them travel down to Leimert Park in the Crenshaw district (where Carmen reverted to "normal") they could certainly feel tension in the air from their presence. No one said anything negative to them, but apparently resentment directed at the Black Guy (Bruno in makeup, who frankly looks more like an Indian Sikh or an Egyptian than a Black man) daring to show up with a White-woman (Carmen) - playing into that ole' Jungle Fever vibe - was palpable.

The fact is, as I stated above, that culturally, whether they themselves are racist or not, many people have general learned that overtly displaying racism isn't "Politically Correct". Further, it can become civilly actionable and costly. Some, like Bruno frankly, have begun to rebel against this and like the bloviating racist of the right-wing will make inflammatory racisl statement against blacks or other immigrants openly under the guise of "i'm justing telling it like it is..." Bruno was expecting, even hoping, that someone was going to call him "Nigger", but that shit simply ain't happening, man. Not outside of a Aryan Nations or Skinhead Rally. (Well, maybe in Tujunga... it might happen, but hardly anyone else around LA.) Whether people speak or show their feelings, they still have them. Black people, IMO, have generally remained above board when it comes to whether they approve or disapprove of someone on racial grounds. They haven't yet learned not to say or express certain things. The irony of the Leimert experience from Bruno and Carmen wasn't that they were so upset with her for being white, they were upset with Bruno - who they perceived as a black man - who had strayed. It was Black on Black disapproval, not Black on White.

(In the area of full disclosure I will point out that I am a black man, who lives in the LA area and has been married to a white woman for the last 16 years. We've been to Leimert Park together many times, but never experienced anything like what happened to Black-Bruno and Carmen. So I have to wonder, if maybe Bruno's own confrontational attitude may have had something to do with the reaction he received. A little of his own medicine ya think?)

My favorite Bruno moment was when he went and visited the Self-made Black Man, a jazz musician who'd struggled through a difficult upbringing to became successful and affluent. Bruno's shining example of how a man can remake himself regardless of his circumstances and rise above all. And after Bruno delivers his big bad "up with the individual and down with group-ism speech" - the guys tells him "You're totally full of crap!"

Ohh, snap!.

I could spend this entire Diary on Bruno and his ridiculous anti-Black Rap song ("I don't speak in Ebonics"), or his virtual freak-out after Brian took him to the dominoes game ("Smoking and drinking and getting high - that's not my element") - but then I'd never get to anyone else. I mean seriously dude, the entire point of the show was to not be in your element, and learn from the process. WhataDumbass.

Brian ultimately began to suspect that Bruno himself might be a racist, and I can't say he's entirely wrong - but I am glad to see that he eventually saw past that learned to respect Bruno. I guess almost anything is possible then, eh?

Renee

Renee as I said tended to be in harmony with Brian on most issues, but her biggest conflict came with her opposite number - Bruno's wife Carmen. During a racial role-playing exercise Carmen while reading from a script blurted out "Yo, Bitch" - and Renee took huge offense. This began a brujah that lasted for weeks, and again goes back to what I mentioned earlier about racism sometimes only appearing in little tell-tale signs since the Civil Rights Era.

Renee simply couldn't understand how anyone could not realize how offensive that could be, even in that context. Brian backed her up on this, but I have to say I disagree with them on this one. Sometimes people make innocent mistakes, sometimes they say or do things that they simply don't realize have deeper meanings and an impact to people around them - and frankly Carmen was like blind and clueless bull in the china shop most of the time. Well meaning, but basically a train-wreck in process.

Eventually, after several naive attempts of her own at connecting with white people by joining a knitting club (what the heck was she thinking there? - "Yeah, that's what White People do - they Knit!" Brilliant? er - not so much) Renee eventually did meet someone who she "clicked with" and shared a great deal of personal values with who happened also to be white. It wasn't easy, but it's possible. It's ironic that she and her new found friend were mostly drawn together by the things they had in common. Both were catholic and had a similar perspective on raising their children. Her friend was fairly progressive, and took the lead on confronting this one off-duty police officer (in the exact same line-dancing bar that Bruno & Carmen had previous went to) who had this speil justifying racial profiling in Glendale.

(Another disclosure moment, me and my wife lived in Glendale for several years -- and everything he said about Glendale PD being intolerant and borderline racist is dead on target in my experience)

Finding common ground with someone who you already have a great deal in common with is realively easy, finding a bridge to someone whom you don't share common ground with is the ongoing challenge. We shouldn't all have to basically be alike in order to relate. We are different, and we're going to stay different. Thank God, Honor Allah and Praise Buddah for that.

Carmen

Oh, what to say about Carmen. Poor naive, sheltered Carmen. More than a few times I had to wonder - "what Planet is this woman from?" with her Let's wear Daishiki's to a Black Church deal. She was so clueless, but at the same time so curious and interested in learning what it was she didn't know -- which was a lot.

I do think she was overly bashed for the "Yo, Bitch" comment -- but at the same time she followed that up with some truly off-the-wall moments. Like when the her daughter Rose's poetry group visited the house and she called one of them "a beautiful black creature". Definitely an awkward moment.

There are certain things that you shouldn't say until have built a bridge of understanding, because it's possible that you can be misunderstood without that foundation, without that common foothold. This country is made up of many different people, with many different cultural perspectives. Carmen is like the one person you don't want to leave holding the cartoons of Mohammad.

She'd turn them into Greeting Cards.

I think there's a lot of hope for Carmen, a massive potential for growth -- and unlike Bruno -- quite a bit of desire to go about that process, but it's going to be painful. She's going to make some stumbles as many of us will, but I suspect she'll have the courage to keep. I suspect few of the rest of us will.

Nick

16-year old Nick entered this living situation simply because his parents dragged him into it. He had no interest in race, or racial matters. His response to the entire deal was a shrug. "Whatever".

But in many ways, Nick was the one person who needed to go through this experience even more desperately than Bruno. At the outset he refused to see racism, and didn't even care. Now, on the one hand that could be a good thing -- he was effectively "color-blind" just as Bruno would claim to be, but the problem is that in being blind -- you see nothing even when there actually is something to see.

Nick is like lots of kids I see everyday in South Central. Oversized t-shirts and shorts, that are basically a basketball uniform passing as street clothes. (Constantly, ready to shot a hoop at the drop of a dime...) They idolize the Rap Star, the Hustler, the Gangster with an addiction to Bling without any appreciation of the education or hard work it takes to earn it. He had a lot to learn, and his parents had clearly been trying hard to reach him -- but it was obvious that the harder they tried, the more he shut down and thickened his skin. The harder they banged on his skull, the harder his head became.

But in the end, Nick may have been the one person to make the most important strides after a visit with a real former Gang-member --- not some wannabe -- the real deal. Nick got a little Scared Straight treatment that seemed to wise him up a bit. Everything he thought was cool, wasn't so cool. And after a visit to the Seiman Wiesenthal Center (The Museum of Tolerance) he started to see that all the things that mom and dad constantly harped on him about -- responsibility, education, direction -- we're things that other black and white people fought and many died to grant his generation.

And all this occurred within his father's lifetime.

It's only been 40 years since we had our own domestic terrorists bombing churches in Selma Alabama for ethnic and religious reasons. Slavery may have been a long time ago, but Slavery didn't really end in 1865. It didn't end with the Emancipation Proclamation (Which itself was quasi legal Unitary Executive Directive), or the 13th Amendment (which ended Slavery - except for the "Duly Convicted" and of course The Black Codes), or the 14th Amendment (which supposedly guaranteed the equal protection of the laws regardless of race -- except for Plessy v Ferguson and Jim Crow!), or the 15th Amendment (which supposedly granted the right to vote -- except for Poll Tax).

It didn't end until a century later - in 1965, and it could be argued that with continued economic segregation, ongoing employment discrimination, rollbacks of Affirmative Action and voter disenfranchisement -- it hasn't really ended at all, merely moved increasingly underground, where you have to be like Brian - hyper-sensitive to catch it, identify it (accurately) and fight against it - or else it'll catch you.

Rose

Rose was a blessing for this show. She seemed to immediately and intuitively understand nearly all the issues and complexities of situation right from the start. Like her mom, she was hungry for knowledge - but far more sensitive to her own responsibility to avoid some of Carmen's mind-numbing faux-pas.

She showed the best balance between Bruno's blunt idealism with Carmen's empathy, blending to two together into a strong mix of compassion and practicality. She seemed for more aware of the vulnerability, pain and frustration that 400 of overt (and covert) oppression has heaped on these people -- and that they carry much of that pain to this very day. It has shaped who they (well, ok who "we") are in both positive and negative ways, forging both strength and weakness. Passion and folly. Both Black-Bruno and Black-Rose walked around their home neighborhood of Santa Monica to see if people were going to react differently to them. Where Bruno was basically - Bruno in black-face, Rose wasn't. She was almost instinctively different, not only in dress but also mannerism. She internalized the sense of distance that comes from being "the other", where Bruno saw no difference in anyone reaction (or simply refused to look close enough expecting unrealistically that anyone would be criminally stupid enough to be obvious about it), Rose picked up on the change in vibe almost immediately.

Rose was the only person on the show who seemed to have not only a different color, but a different hair style -- a different wardrobe and a different demeanor. (Not like Brian who had his little tight-assed white guy walk and super straight diction even when he was in make-up) She was a practically a different person, and I don't think it was deliberate - I think it was just happening because of the circumstances. Sometimes you do perceive yourself as an internal reflection of how the world perceives you.

Ultimately the differences between black and white Americans isn't simply a matter of skin-tone. It is about who you are as a person, who you are culturally, socially, how you relate to others, what you're expectations of them are as well as how you treat them. These vary wildly not only between black and whites, but between blacks and other blacks - between whites and other whites.

Prejudice is simply coming to a conclusion. You may indeed have facts to draw on to build that conclusion (every cliche is based on at least some truth), but the problem is do you have all the facts? And further, can you take the risk of disregarding what you think you know long enough to discover what you don't know? Do you have the guts to face the possibility that everything you currently believe just might be completely wrong?

The key to defeating racism and all forms of bigotry, is having the courage to take those risks. You might find out that those young hoodlum looking kids really do want to rob you -- or you might find out that they don't want your bling because it's dated and wack. Do you avoid the risk, or do you have a duty not to presume and prejudge them without real evidence? You might feel that the elderly couple just crossed the street to avoid a confrontation or coming in contact with you, but then again maybe they were just headed to a different store? Should you ignore it, get upset about it - or simply list it under "unknown"?

Sometimes our perceptions and preconceptions are right on the money - sometimes they're not. We all have the capacity to be racists and bigots -- the question is, do we have the courage that Brian, Bruno, Renee, Carmen, Nick and Rose displayed to try not to be?

And can we afford not to find that courage, somewhere - somehow?

Vyan