Until There’s Change of Heart…
“Every change of mind is, first of all, a change of heart, and if the heart does not change, new ideas do not last long.”
I was born and raised in a working-class suburb of a major city – a totally white suburb. I knew not one person of color throughout grade school and high school. I once was on a bus at an amusement park that was full of black people (“the darkies” as my grandmother innocently called them) and I thought they smelled funny. Even in college where there were people of color I never got to know them, and later, in the Army in the midst of Viet Nam, I knew black guys but had no more than casual friendships with anyone who wasn’t white. It was unconscious behavior on my part because I really didn’t feel animosity, at least not that I was aware of. I remember one conversation with another soldier who was black (and whom I’d known throughout training and afterward in the war zone when he lived right next to me) regarding a racial topic. I don’t know what the actual topic was, but I remember that I didn’t quite agree with his point of view. At the time I couldn’t even fathom what he was actually talking about.
Now, don’t get me wrong, in my home I was never specifically taught to have anything against people of color or to treat them as less than anyone else. And though I would say that this idea was part of my general moral training, my dad would, at times, in the confines of our home, refer to non-whites using the “N” word; and even then it was if he didn’t really mean what the use of that word entailed. It was more in a joking sort of manner. He also voiced disgust when a black entertainer married a Scandinavian woman. Then when I was much older (I think in high school or college) sitting around the dinner table with my parents and close relatives I argued that I believed that racial intermarriage should be okay. The older adults didn’t agree – at all. They voiced the typical excuses about the negative effects on the children of such a marriage. I simply believed that the idea that two people who fell in love should be able to marry each other regardless of their skin color or what society might think of their offspring. As I began to get upset with the position of the older adults, my dad ended the argument by joking about my marrying a black woman and the rest of the family having “Pickaninny” cousins. In many ways these types of remarks seem so antithetical to the man I knew and loved. I guess the “Greatest Generation” who fought WW II as segregated troops were even more susceptible to cultural lies than those of my own generation.
Now comes today when, to my shame, I am only beginning to understand the situation that people of color have endured – it seems like forever. For so long my “progressive” beliefs left my heart absent, even after having black coworkers as friends and after trying to assist many families of color over time and teaching classes to majority non-white students, all of whom I truly cared about and respected. I even have a black son-in-law whom I love and see as one of my own, and some brown grandchildren – beautiful children who are no different in any way (intellect, looks, personality, etc.) than my “lily white” grandchildren… and still???
In the past, when I heard the term white privilege, I instantly thought that I didn’t have it. I wasn’t rich. What were they talking about? Then came this past summer and I was sitting on the porch having a beer with my son-in-law discussing George Floyd when my seventeen year old granddaughter came home saying that she wanted to join a protest march downtown. My immediate reaction was to protect her – it wasn’t safe. Nothing else even occurred to me. It was only later that night that I realized that my reaction was lacking in some way. My son-in-law would also be concerned about his daughter’s safety, but there would be more to it for him. Though he’s extremely intelligent, well mannered, well spoken, he still feels the need to change his clothes before running to the corner for a gallon of milk. If he happens to be wearing a hoodie, who knows what could happen? And no matter which people of color I talk to or hear about, no matter their level of income, intelligence or status, they all have similar stories: we don’t have “privilege.”
I don’t want any of my granddaughters to be treated as less than they are. I don’t want my son-in-law or his extended family - or anyone to be treated that way. For me, the election this year became about racial injustice. It has been a long time since the last significant civil rights laws were enacted. People of color should not have to wait fifty more years to be treated as Americans or to truly experience the liberties we celebrate on the Fourth of July. I recently read a quote by Richard Rohr which said: “Every change of mind is, first of all, a change of heart, and if the heart does not change, new ideas do not last long.” So I guess I’ve had a bit of a change of heart – one for which my blind white life didn’t prepare me. And yet, just last night when watching a football game, an opposing team player with starkly black skin and dreads was acting in an unsportsmanlike manner toward a player on our team - and a feeling that “black people act that way,” crept into my mind. It was only for a second or two, but it was there! That’s why I say that I’m only beginning to understand; I can say that my mind has been slowly changing over a very long time. But now what I can only describe as "grace" has allowed my heart to somehow feel what it must be like for so many others… I can only hope (i.e. trust) that the same grace will continue to change the hearts of all of us.
