Afro-American Literature (as it was called at the time) had, quite frankly, a killer reading list. In one semester we covered the major works of Amiri Baraka, Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin … and those were just the writers I’d heard of. I was a junior in college, I’d just declared my English major and I had only three semesters to complete it … preferably in classes with great reading lists like this one that I could enthusiastically devour.
It hadn’t occurred to me that I might be the only white person in the class. And when I walked in that first day, I was. Until two white girls walked in a couple minutes later. I’d never been the racial minority before—no less the racial minority who paradoxically represented the oppressor to the people around me—and the experience made the class and everything we read and discussed and learned all the more profound.
The professor was brilliant. He peppered his lectures with names and dates and fascinating contextual histories without ever using notes. He got his students to participate with enthusiasm—even the shy ones. His influence literally transformed the way I thought and wrote, and I hear his voice in my writing to this day.
He and his reading list taught me way more than I could even hope to expect about the Black experience in America. I found myself spellbound in incredulity as I began to understand the ubiquity—the enormity—of black suffering in the name of white American “freedom” and “liberty.” I literally wept as I read the stories and absorbed the sociopolitical implications of the literature in our curriculum. And I vowed that I would always strive to be aware and understanding of racial perspectives and how they shape the lives and personal contexts of the people of color in my life and my larger orbit.
The class was truly a transforming milestone in the way I defined myself and the way I related to my surroundings. It blew open the doors of my relatively sheltered world and it energized me as a global citizen.
But it wasn't until a year later, when I ran into the professor at a beautifully minimalist staging of Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf and he not only remembered my name but also offered to drive me home, that for some reason I suddenly realized—to my absolute, gut-dropping horror—that those two white girls and I had slowly, gradually drifted toward each other and had eventually spent the semester sitting—rudely, arrogantly, cluelessly, cruelly—front and center in his classroom … while our Black classmates had sat behind us. In the back of the learning bus.
The professor died within a year after that ride in his car. Before I had the guts and the decency to find him and somehow apologize. I have never kept in touch with anyone—black or white—from that class. Thirty-three years later, I still feel sick to my stomach when I think about it.
As we are currently fully aware, there is racism everywhere—deliberate racism, violent racism, habitual racism, institutionalized racism, self-unaware racism. "I'm not a racist, but …" conversations happen in hushed tones where white people gather and look around furtively before they speak everywhere, every day.
Depending on the circumstances when I encounter these conversations, I either walk away or stand there awkwardly until the moment has passed. I've called a few people out on their racist comments a couple of times, sometimes angrily, sometimes in a spirit of hopefully changing a mind or a heart. But regrettably all just a couple of times.
I'm—we're all—far from perfect. Despite my best intentions, I'm not racism-free. I admit I fleetingly embraced the overgeneralized idea of "all lives matter" before it hit me like a hail of bricks how that undermined—more accurately, destroyed—the core message of and desperate need for Black Lives Matter. And while I feel a slight level of relief unloading this story on social media, it doesn't exonerate me or excuse me or even atone for my unwitting behavior 33 years ago.
I realize that living in my largely privileged white bubble with my white family and my overwhelmingly white friend base both in life and on social media that it keeps me safe from awkward conversations and maybe even confrontations. But I hope that maybe this admission sparks a dialogue somewhere. That it inspires other people to reach out and just talk to each other. And get to know each other. And start to care about each other. Because it's harder to hate—and harder to even realize that you're hating—when people stop being abstractions and start being, well, people.
I don’t even know how to begin to apologize to the Black people I insulted and the white people I enabled in that classroom over three decades ago. And I hope if you know me or eventually get to know me that I'm living my life in a way that you can accept as an apology … and believe that it’s a genuine, productive path to my own improvement.
As I hope everyone is fully aware, today is Juneteenth—also known as Freedom Day—the anniversary of the 1865 emancipation of the last remaining enslaved African-Americans in the Confederacy. I first learned about Juneteenth in a high-school history class, and I’d often wondered since then why it’s never really been a massive national holiday. And now—despite the devastating circumstances that have finally brought it to the country’s attention—I’m thrilled it’s officially become a national holiday … and an integral part of our larger dialogue about race.
The national-holiday designation came quickly and largely unexpectedly last week—especially given what little awareness Juneteenth had even a year ago—so federal agencies and even private companies didn't have a lot of time to plan and coordinate procedures for proper celebrations and shut-downs.
But many found a way, and they've closed their doors and encouraged their employees to take the day off to celebrate the milestone … the freedoms … the progress … and the hope for continued communion in the march toward equality in our country’s minds, our hearts and our shared American culture.
