Conversations of Race; S#@& is getting real in our house

The context and the caveat: I am learning. It feels risky, and yet not (as I think most of you — sadly — will relate to this story, which is why I am choosing to write about it and post it.) I can do better. I am not sure if I said the right things in the conversation I am about to describe. I chose honesty and transparency, in the interest of breaking a cycle of racist thinking. If you see a blind spot in the way I am seeing this situation, I invite your feedback. These are the conversations I believe we MUST have with our children. Brad is reading White Fragility right now, and I am reading Me and White Supremacy — both great books — that are opening up new conversations in our family, as described below.

The scene: I got in the car about 3:30pm last Friday, with my husband Brad and my two kids Adi (age 13) and Ben (age 9), ready to celebrate the end of the school year, with a visit to the beautiful Carkeek park with some friends. Our GPS said it would be a 40 minute drive. We had some time to kill so I pulled out my phone, and opened Facebook…the best time-killing place I know. The algorithm presented my 2nd cousins post at the top of my feed, front and center. I love her dearly but her post was tough to see.

Her post of the day showed a simple graphic of police statistics from 2015, essentially implying that you are more likely to be killed by police if you’re white. These graphics of course, do nothing to open up new conversations, and they are void of the larger context (armed/unarmed, percentage of total population of black/white, etc).

I contemplated, should I or shouldn’t I reply to this post? I had just read an article the day prior where a black man described several personal accounts of getting pulled over and how he was treated (and how different it was from what a white person generally experiences when getting pulled over by police). I felt the need to say something, rather than be silent, so I typed a response.

Before I posted my reply I read it aloud to Brad, Adi and Ben, then sent it as I read the last sentence. I was sharing with the kids as a learning opportunity.

Adi promptly asked,

“Mom, why do you bother? Someone who posts stuff like that is never going to change their mind.”

Just as I was about to respond, Brad interrupted me to say,

“Because, Adi, part of being ANTI-racist is to stand up and say something — as opposed to being silent — EVEN when you think it won’t make a difference.”

I then asked the kids if I could read the article I had attached in my reply, about the gentleman who described his encounters with police. The title of the article was “What I want my white friends to know about my encounters with the police.”

Adi and Ben agreed, so I spent the next few minutes, as we sat in traffic, reading them his firsthand accounts. He admitted in the article that he had never spoken up before. He too had upheld the silent contract around being silent about racism.

After hearing the article, Ben and Adi asked some great questions, one of which was,

“Mom, if you are driving and you see a black man walking close to your car (like, on the sidewalk), do you lock the door? Is it racist to lock the door?”

Brad and I gave each other a knowing glance, as if to say, oh boy, how do we tackle this? We want our daughter to be safe. We never want to tell her anything that could jeopardize her safety or put her in harm’s way, obviously. But we also do not want to perpetuate racist behavior.

I decided in a split second, to simply answer honestly, and I found myself admitting to things I had never said out loud before.

“Adi, I have been in that situation dozens of times. If I am honest, I have found myself more inclined to lock the door when a black man approaches, than when a white one does. That is tough to admit. That is racist behavior.”

Adi asked,

“But shouldn’t you just always lock the door, to be safe, no matter who it is?”

As a parent, part of me wanted to say,

“Yes, of course. Always lock the door, no matter what…you’re right.”

But that felt wrong. So, instead I revealed the truer truth and the more complex answer…

“Adi, of course, if your gut ever reads danger, you should lock the door. But it is more complicated than that. You also owe it to yourself to question WHY your gut is reading danger and to question whether that danger is real or perceived.”

I could see that they were both contemplating what I said, so I paused before continuing.

“You have got to ask yourself if you are more likely to feel in-danger or threatened (and therefore inclined to lock the door) when a black man walks by, versus a white man. Let’s pretend they are wearing the exact same outfit, they are the same distance from your car, all things about the situation are exactly the same, except for skin color. Is there a difference in who you are more likely to trust or feel worried about?”

I glanced back at them in the backseat and could see their wheels still turning.

“The problem is that we have lived (all of us) on a steady diet of mostly negative images of black men on the evening news and in movies. Images of black men who have committed crimes or gone to jail or maybe we have watched shows or movies that portray back men in the most negative light. These negative images send our brain a message that is hard to combat — that black men are a threat.”

I reminded them how interesting and eye opening it was in India to be around so many turban wearing men, and how aware we were that most of the turban wearing men we had seen portrayed in media in the USA were connected with terrorism. So, even though we knew logically that turbans did not equal terrorism, we did not have a lot of positive examples — in terms of real connections and friendships — with turban wearing men, to fill the ‘file’ in our brain with positive associations. That is one of the reasons travel was so powerful for us.

Just like our American brains are conditioned to connect turbans to terrorism, our brains have also been conditioned to associate black men with danger. I do not want to suggest that ALL white people assume Black men are dangerous, of course. That is not my point. I am simply trying to point out how quickly our mind can jump to wrongful assumptions — my mind in particular.

I said to the kids,

“I do not WANT to feel uncomfortable or worried when a black man walks by my car, while I’m stopped at a stoplight. I just DO (sometimes) feel uncomfortable and worried.”

I pointed out that we are all victims of this negative imagery. That there are way more negative examples, than positive examples, of black men portrayed in the media. Those images are powerful. Those images are what tells our body to reach for the auto-lock button on the door.

But that is wrong. Racist. Unfair.

If your only (or most) of your examples of black men are not from having personal friends, colleagues or neighbors that you know, love and trust — but instead — images of violent criminals (who are black) — then that becomes the main reference point your brain relies upon for information. And, since human beings are wired to take short cuts in our brains, for efficiency sake, we are wired to make snap judgements and make meaning of situations, in a nanosecond.

I explained,

“As a kid, the only reference point I had, given that I cannot recall having any black friends, was driving through rough parts of town with my Dad, who always told me — Don’t EVER drive through Oakland or Richmond — it is dangerous.”

He didn’t have to say, nor would he have ever said (or believed) consciously or intentionally, that “black people are dangerous.” My brain made that leap on its own because these “dangerous neighborhoods” were all black, as far as I could see.

“I lived in, and went to school in a very white area, so I didn’t have lots of experiences with black people to overshadow those negative stereotypes in my mind. Luckily, I do now, as an adult, but old auto-pilot bias die hard.”

I admitted,

“To this day, I still find my hand creeping towards the auto lock button more often than I would like to admit. If I am parked at a stoplight for example. But I have learned to quickly and unconsciously ask myself a set of questions silently in my mind. The filter questions I ask myself sound a bit like this…

Is there any real danger here?

Are you being racist?

Where are you in the world right now? A good/safe part of town, a not so good/not so safe part of town, a place you are familiar or unfamiliar with?

Is this person closer to your car than they should be?

Are there other reasons besides their skin color that has you feeling on guard? For example, do they look to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol?

Are they acting erratically?

Is your gut really telling you that this person is dangerous or are you reacting to their skin color?

Would you feel this way and be reaching for the auto-lock button if this person was white?

And, honestly, Adi and Ben, I did not know until RIGHT THIS MINUTE as I’m hearing myself say these things out loud to you guys, that this is the thought process I go through in 3 seconds flat, before deciding whether I should or shouldn’t lock the door.”

I had never admitted to anyone, until that moment in the car with them, that I have been guilty of locking the car door when a black man walks by. It was a tough pill for me to swallow. It came with some guilt and shame.

Adi was still not entirely clear, so she asked something like,

“So, what’s the bottom line? Should I or shouldn’t I lock the door?”

I responded,

“The answer is not always the same. It’s about judgement. You have to get good at asking yourself these filter questions. You have to refine your judgement. I can tell you that I have personally resisted (talked myself out of) locking the door, when my first response was to do so, on more than a few occasions and I have never been harmed by a black man walking by my car. I have also decided on certain other occasions, that it made sense to lock the door — because something in my gut still did not sit right even after going through my ‘filter questions’”

I have heard black men describe how painful it is for them to hear doors lock when they walk by a car at an intersection. I do not want to be one more person who is “playing it safe” at the expense of the dignity, respect, and trust of black men.

I believe that people live up or down to our expectations of them. I often think about that, in the case of racial stereotypes. If we (the collective we) keep taking in images of black men as criminals, for example, we will continue to feel fear when we are around black men. That fear we feel will come through when we see black men and they will sense it. It will seem unfair and unjustified to them, because, well it IS unjustified. So, over time perhaps that black man who has been treated as if he is not trustworthy or respected, or worse, that he is feared for no reason — he begins to build up a level of resentment or anger about the way he is being treated. That anger and resentment, as it builds up, begins to erode his positive outlook and attitude towards white people, for example, or at least white people who are strangers to him. We come across this same black man later in his life, and by then perhaps he has developed a thick outer layer of protection, that looks like a “chip on his shoulder” or a rough or dismissive attitude. He may seem aloof or “angry” and that attitude we feel coming off of him, might trigger our “danger” button or spidey senses. As a result, we avoid him, we don’t make eye contact, we lock the door when we see him approaching. And there you have it….the entire pattern repeats itself. t’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We reflected in the car about ways we could take responsibility for breaking this pattern. We landed on a few things, in short:

Get better and better at asking a set of filter questions in different situations.

Develop friendships with all kinds of different people from different races and backgrounds, so we have many positive images and relationships.

Read books with positive and powerful Black characters central in the story

Put pressure on media and Hollywood (vote with our dollars) in terms of the movies we watch and buy. Be sure we are watching a variety of movies that portray women and people of color in varied and positive ways.

This is just a start. I/we are open to other suggestions of actions we can take. I believe that the first step towards any change is awareness.

I know that I am leaving myself exposed to all kinds of criticism right now, and that is ok with me. I would rather speak this truth, than not, if this story can act to open up a deeper level of conversation and awareness in your hearts and homes. I can handle your feedback. I am doing my best to not be “fragile” around issues of race. So, please, if you have a message I need to hear, in the interest of my growth please share it with me. I know that some of you might be thinking “well, you might be racist, but I’m not.” And others of you are thinking “wow, I wish I didn’t relate to this story, but I do.”

I would like to say to my black friends in this world, I AM SORRY that I have, and sometimes still do, feel this way. Sorry is not enough. To the black men in my life, and those not in my life, you do not deserve this treatment. My promise to you is that I will keep challenging WHY I feel the way that I do. I will do better. I will teach my kids to do better. I promise to continue to fill my heart, my brain, and our home with positive examples of black leaders, friends, community members, and everyday people. I will do my part, as small as it may be, to be honest and shake up the views I hold that perpetuate harm and racist beliefs.