-By Jake T. Snake
Loads of opinions in both the press and internets regarding Obama commenting on the arrest of Henry Louis Gates. As usual, some commentors feel he was too racially identified, while others feel he should have been more strident and used this opportunity to really talk about the societal costs of racism. Or maybe it was just a badly handled interaction on both sides of the equation. I have run into my share of arrogant policeman and academics in my time, so I am not so suprised that these two men reacted strongly to one another.
This couldn't be a more no win situation for Obama. Liberal folks like myself want him to name the beast of racism and call us out collectively. People of a more conservative stripe want him to pretend that we are that beautiful shining example of a colorblind society that offers equal opportunity to all. You should pardon the expression, but it just isn't that black and white. We will spend weeks parsing which parts of this interaction belong to us as a society and which pieces belong to the individuals involved and probably still not understand the realities of the other side of the racial divide.
What intrigues me in these various opinions is that many of them seem to feel that Obama (and Sonia Sotomayor in her confirmation hearings) must abandon their own history/experience and the mental filters that creates and make all their "official" decisions through the prism of the default or "normal" setting of white, male, middle class and center right. These folks never acknowledge that this point of view arises due to a set of unique experiences that are no more or less valid than Obama's and Sotomayor's. This assumption of a default setting creates a blind spot in the collective consciousness where people can not even imagine how someone could see a situation differently. It is the O.J. Simpson trial all over where the ground between the polarized views is sparsely populated indeed. It is a considerable threat to have one's core assumptions called into question and so we should expect more squawking from those who want the default setting to remain invisible and assumed.
The process of racial understanding must begin with the realization that my truth might not be the truth or that there might be multiple truths in one situation. Scary stuff.
I was pondering all this over again the other day at work. My organization sponsors several peer programs that pay people stipends for their work. This necessitates sending staff members to the bank to cash checks of between $1,000-$2,000 so that we can pay the peers in cash. We have three staff who do this on a regular basis. Sometimes the bank will call to assure that we did indeed mean to write a check for this amount to this particular person. I appreciate the security measures, I really do. The odd part is that the bank never calls when the white staff members cash these checks, only when our African-American staff do. It has now happened frequently enough that I cannot chalk it up to mere coincidence and I have obtained another brief glimpse into another reality and am alarmed anew.