Race Relations and an African American President
November 17, 2008 by Julia King · Leave a Comment
Since Barack Obama’s presidential win, I have been thinking a lot about a woman I used to know. I haven’t seen or spoken with her in years, but we were both members of a racially diverse steering committee for a project called Study Circles on Race Relations (the national organization has since changed its name, but its mission still involves encouraging small group discussions around difficult social issues).
It was an intense years-long experience, one that drains me to recall in too much detail. There was genuine friendship within the group, but also some genuine strife. A handful of us met regularly for long lunches to hammer out recruitment plans and explore funding possibilities; and to try — to the best of our abilities — to confront our groups’ own inter-personal challenges, some that were a result of personality differences, and others that no doubt stemmed from race. We presided over workshops and discussions together, sometimes gracefully and sometimes clumsily. However imperfect, we were a team.
During those years I witnessed moments of uncommon interracial dialogue, moments that included accusations, defensiveness, tears, apologies. But there were just as many moments in which everyone stayed well within the carefully constructed boundaries of polite society. Either way, as a discussion facilitator, I usually went home with a headache.
The incident I’ve been thinking of since Obama’s election, however, wasn’t from a formal discussion session; it was at a steering committee lunch meeting that happened just a day or two after a racially motivated murder occurred in town. The tragic coincidence was that one of our members knew the victim. Not only did she know him, he was on his way to her house on the evening he was shot and killed. The details are fuzzy in my mind; it’s possible I’m remembering things incorrectly; but what I do remember clearly was this woman’s grief, the way it hung on her face and her shoulders.
At some point during lunch, she began telling us a story about a man (black) who knew another man (also black) who worked for a white man who seemed like a wonderful guy. It was the sort of story where the black man and the white man ran through fields together giggling and catching butterflies.
Then one day the black man was looking for a roll of tape (or paper clip) in the white man’s desk drawer, when he discovered the truth. There it was, plain as day… a Klansman’s mask.
I doubted the story at the time (as I still do today), but didn’t say so. This woman clearly not only believed it, but needed to tell it, needed to give shape to what she was feeling – that all white people, no matter how kind or cooperative or sincere they might appear – have a Klansman’s mask hidden in their desk. It was not an unreasonable thing for her to believe on that day, but it hurt to hear her speak it.
And so she has been on my mind, this woman who lost trust, who lost hope.
