Guilty, Though Not Charged: Don't Make Me Ease Your White Guilt

The party is in a massive colonial-style home in an affluent Philadelphia suburb. I'm silently listening in on a conversation between two stout, plainspoken, white-haired gentlemen in their late 50s/early 60s. In another time, they could have been cast as Oscar Madison's poker buddies.

The discussion turns to crime. I know the issue of race will come up sooner or later. It comes sooner, when the gentleman at my left says to his companion, "Yeah, but the cops treat white people different than they treat the blacks and the Hispanics."

Uh-oh. Suddenly, he jerks his thumb in my direction. "Ask this guy," he says. "He'll tell you how the police harass black people all the time."

Who am I, Rodney King? I wanted to tell the gentleman that he was trying way too hard. Perhaps I should have felt more appreciative. He was, after all, letting me know that he understands what "my people" suffer through and that he feels my pain in a Clintonesque sort of way. But I didn't need or care to have him try to prove he's not a racist. I never assume white people are preternaturally bigoted. I'm not Spike Lee. Still, it happens all the time.

A perfectly pleasant conversation about, say, literature, turns into a discussion about why so few African-American novelists have won the Pulitzer Prize. These turns in conversation usually begin with a seemingly innocuous statement on the order of, "You know who my favorite ballplayer was? Jackie Robinson," or something like, "Denzel Washington. Now that's a good-looking guy." From there, it evolves into a passionate discussion (that is, monologue) about how blacks can't get good roles in Hollywood, or why it's important to have programs like midnight basketball, or why Jesse Jackson is an American hero and an inspiration to everyone.

Funny how some people believe that professing admiration for?or sexual attraction to?famous black people automatically proves they're not racists. Anyone who loves Oprah just can't be racist. But I already know better; exceptions can be made. In high school, I'd learned that a kid I was friendly with confessed to a mutual friend, "I don't like black people, but that John Moore guy is all right." Charming.

Nonetheless, I don't make any assumptions. Frankly, some of the attempts to put my already eased mind at ease are downright embarrassing. A few years ago, the magazine I worked for held a party at a midtown-Manhattan comedy club. After the last act, a coworker approached me at the bar. He'd had a drink or 12, as anyone within smelling distance would have known. What he said both confuses and amuses me to this day.

"You don't have to pretend around me," he slurred. "I know how you feel. You pretend in front of all these people because that's what you're supposed to do. You act all calm and white, but I know the rage you feel inside. I was there in the 60s, man. I was there. I just wanted you to know that you don't have to pretend around me."

I think he hugged me when he was finished.

Guilt is a strange thing. It makes someone argue his case even though no one has pressed any charges. Perhaps all these rabidly antiracist people I come across have felt guilty about the fact that, in most cases, I've been the only black person in the room?the fly in the buttermilk, as James Baldwin once put it. Don't worry, friend, they seem to be saying, there will be no talk of the evils of busing or any threat of lynchings around here.

Well, let me make this clear: treating me with respect, without condescension or weird liberal paternalism, is proof enough that you're a decent human being who judges others only by the content of their character. So please, if you think O.J. did it, or that Al Sharpton is a loudmouth demagogue, or if John Wayne?not Sidney Poitier?is your favorite actor, then by all means tell me. It's okay.

You don't have to pretend around me.