True story.
Was taking a break on a Chicago street. As a slightly disheveled man was ambling by he turned to me saying, “Can I ask you a question?” I nodded, expecting the all too common, “Can you spare a…?”, but what he asked was extraordinary.
“Why do white people hate us so much?”
I was taken aback and, surely with a raised eyebrow, managed an answer that satisfied us both. Something along the lines of, “Well sir, I find ya gotta be careful when judging entire groups. I mean, I’m a white guy and certainly don’t hate you.”
He considered that and went on about how f’n hard it is to get by, then asked, “Well, what about slavery?”
Curiously, I’d been meditating on this issue lately so loosely answered, “Well, slavery is horrible, whose end in America was ugly and something the country is still working out of its system - impacting you the most - but slavery itself is a complex topic.”
“The way I see it, until market economies, power was won through bloody conquest, where the choice was submit or die. As harsh as it is looking back, it was the way of the world since recorded time ; pretty much every race has been enslaved at some point in history. Hell, the first “undesirables” brought in chains to America were white europeans.”
“Sadly, it still goes on today, though much more “underground” due to the efforts of people like the Quakers, culminating in our Civil War. So yes, America was founded when slavery was the norm, but it is not to blame for slavery itself and actually was a driving force delegitimizing it as a business”
He thought on this and said, “OK, but this “still working it out of our system” thing, it’s f’n hard, all these rich white folk in all these condos; what about reparations?”
I answered with a solid, “No. Like I said, it was the way of the world back then, and how far you gonna go back? Are we gonna track the ancestors of the Irish? Beyond? Think of the mess. The whole thing is like a carrot on a stick used by politicians who have a whip in their other hand...”
He smiled saying he heard me, then going back to how f’n hard it is and started on the cops hassling for no good reason.
I let him know that I heard that. That actual systemic racism is very real as it works itself out, especially visible in our criminal justice system. That the unwarranted hassling certainly does make it f’n hard, particularly when one gets a record for BS. I do know that black folk get records/jailed at far greater numbers than whites, for the same crimes. It’s a horrible fact that really does make it f’n hard. While I cant do much about it, I’ll do what I can and will always speak to these issues when they arise. That I truly am sorry people like him are in the middle of that type shit.
The conversation wound down, I got one more chance to restate the danger of judging groups by the actions of individuals and how, “you don't like it when others do it to you.” He restated that, “Yeah, like when they say “all black guys… .”
We did a bro-hug, and he ambled away around the corner. I settled back to absorb what just happened when I heard a “YO!”, to see him standing at the corner where he called out, “You were real, honest, and gave me a lot to think about, Peace and Love” then disappeared
Leaving me with goosebumps saying thanks...