Black Like Me (25 page)

The situation was doubly dangerous because we thought we were, finally, communicating. We were not, of course, because even well-disposed white men tended to be turned off and affronted if black men told them truths that offended their prejudices. For years it was my embarrassing task to sit in on meetings of whites and blacks, to serve one ridiculous but necessary function: I knew, and every black man there knew, that I, as a man now white once again, could say the things that needed saying but would be rejected if black men said them. In city after city we had these meetings to attempt to communicate, and in each one my function was to say those things that the black man knew much better than I could hope to know, but could not communicate as yet for the simple reason that white men could not tolerate hearing them from a black man’s mouth. Dick Gregory and I once made an experiment with this. We agreed to say essentially the same things to a lecture audience
at the same school. I got an ovation for “talking straight.” He got uncomfortable silence for saying the same things.

Another time, this was eloquently illustrated in a small community where there had been much tension between Protestants and Catholics. A professor of Bible at a local college persuaded the two groups to get together and sponsor a lecture by me. I went in and lectured precisely on these problems of communication. I went into it in great detail. The audience, as always, thought I was talking about somewhere else and was sure it was “different” there. At the end I got a prolonged standing ovation.

Afterward I went to a reception for the whites who had promoted the lecture and one black guest. We were introduced. I was told in his presence just how proud the community was of its black industrial psychologist and how he had “gained acceptance” in the most perfect way. The professor of Bible who had initiated the project was jubilant. He remarked loudly what a great success it was and how marvelous that the Protestants and Catholics had finally worked together to make it a success.

“I view this as a historic night,” he announced. Then turning to the black industrial psychologist, he asked, “Don’t you see this night as a historic turning point for this community?”

The black doctor, in a voice of perfect calm, replied, “Frankly, I’m not too excited.”

The Bible professor’s face clouded, and he said, “What do you mean?”

The doctor said, “It’s true that I have a good job in this town, and I seem to be respected, and I am certainly paid a wage commensurate with my skills.
But
- so long as I have to house my wife and children in a town twenty miles away because I can’t buy, rent, lease or build a home here, don’t expect me to get too excited over your ‘historic turning points.’ ”

I watched, fascinated, as the group of whites began to growl and the professor of Bible reddened with anger. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” he said. “If you’re going to be that cynical, I don’t see how you can expect us to do anything for you.”

I heard a local minister mumble to a lady standing be-side him. “I knew there’d be trouble if we invited that black man. …”

The Bible professor lost most of his self-control. He battered at the lack of graciousness and courtesy that he perceived in the black doctor. The doctor remained calm, lethal in his replies, unshaken.

I watched until the professor was almost screaming his anger and then stepped in. “Isn’t this remarkable?” I said. “Here you give me a standing ovation for telling you this same kind of truth. Now you have a black man, far more knowledgeable than I could be, who is honoring you with a truth, and you are furious with him. You will hear it from me and applaud me for saying it, but you can’t stand it yet from him.”

The point was finally made, but I doubt if it would ever have been made if that doctor had not been invited and had not spoken up.

Almost constantly and almost everywhere black men were being faced with this kind of duality. Whites were saying the right things, showing deep concern over injustices, expressing determination to resolve the problems of racism, but never really consulting with black people as equals. The vast difference between what this country was saying and apparently believing, and what the black man was experiencing, was embittering.

As a person who lived almost constantly in both communities, I could foresee nothing but trouble. Frequently, in cities where “racial difficulties” surfaced, I was called in by perfectly sincere community leaders, usually mayors or college presidents or city council members. They wanted me to study their situation and report to them on it. First I would have meetings and be briefed by white men, often by trained white social scientists. Then I would be taken into the black community, where again I would be briefed by black leaders and sometimes by black social scientists. In no city did these two briefings coincide. In St. Louis, Rochester, Detroit, Kansas City, Los Angeles, and many others this occurred. In every city there was this different view of the same situation by perfectly sincere men. I always pointed out the irony in this: I was
being called into an area I did not really know. Why not ask local black leaders directly the kind of questions the cities were asking me? After the first difficulties in Rochester, New York, I was asked to consult with community leaders. I went and spoke for quite a long time. The leaders were concerned and sincere men. The first question one of them asked after I talked was: “Well, Mr. Griffin, what is the first thing we should do now?” I told him that I had been asked to come and consult with community leaders, and yet I was sitting in a room full of white men. The white man who had asked the question slapped his forehead in real chagrin. “It never occurred to me to ask any of them,” he said apologetically.

“So you see what’s happening,” I said. “Black men are going to know about this meeting. I have already consulted with many black men locally because that’s the way I get my information. See how it looks from their point of view. You have brought me a long distance to consult with community leaders about a problem that profoundly involves black men in this community, and yet no black man was invited.” I warned them that this kind of thing was interpreted by black men as part of the hopeless lack of understanding on the part of white men and that they must be careful to invite the black people considered leaders, not just a few black men that the business and community leadership considered leaders.

Later, I got a call from one of the white leaders who asked: “How do we go about finding black leaders whom the black people would respect as leaders?”

“Ask black people - ask a lot of black people,” I advised.

This kind of pattern existed almost everywhere. I would be called in. Often in the presence of local black men whites would ask me questions that should have been addressed to the black men present. They knew the community. I didn’t. Always this was an affront to black men, one of the many affronts that white men apparently could not perceive. What it really told black men was that we had better buckle down and garner the superior problem- solving abilities of white men to get this thing settled. This is one of the attitudes that led black men to believe that racism was so deeply ingrained in the white man there was really no hope of
his ever understanding. This was an attitude, too, which did not inspire one bit of confidence in black men who saw problems affecting their very lives being handled by white men who did not even consult with the black men.

So, while on the surface, things looked good and promising to white men, and I was always being urged to admit that great “progress” has been made, resentment grew among black people, and quite particularly among educated black people.

Black spokesmen like Dr. King, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, James Farmer, Dick Gregory, Stokely Carmichael and many others warned that the inner cities were becoming powder kegs and would certainly explode. In every city I was brought in to study (and often I returned again and again), I would live in the black ghetto with black families. I would come out and give the most detailed analysis to the whole city and to community leaders, warning them that black resentments and frustrations were explosive and that one day some little insignificant event would occur and produce an explosion that would astound the whole community.

In every city the local community leaders who had brought me in nevertheless felt that they lived there and knew better and said that I was being “unduly pessimistic.” In some cities I was called “unduly pessimistic” only weeks before the explosions occurred. And when those cities exploded into turmoil, men who had not believed me would telephone to tell me I had been right and they had been wrong.

“I wish I had been wrong,” was all I could answer.

One of the strange things was the resentment people showed when you gave such warnings. The warnings were seen as threats. Often I was accused, as were even Dr. King and Dick Gregory, of
advocating
violence. This is like accusing a doctor of advocating the very cancer he is trying to prevent from spreading. But somehow people could not face what appeared inevitable, and they sought to evade it by viewing these warnings as threats.

And when the matches were tossed and the powder kegs began to explode in 1967, men hid behind the belief that it was all some massive subversive plot against this nation. The Kerner
Commission was established and asked to investigate. Its report, which was a courageous one under the circumstances, showed that matches had indeed been tossed and powder kegs had exploded - and that these were individual explosions, not connected through any discernible subversive plotting on the part of black men. The Commission report warned that massive displays of so-called riot control was one of the deepest sources of resentment and could trigger off more riots. The report was an obvious disappointment to some of our leaders, who had really counted on it to reveal massive subversion, so they simply cast its recommendations aside with the remark: “The report blamed everyone but the rioters.” Black spokesmen countered by saying that to blame the rioters would be like blaming the powder keg that exploded.

This was perhaps the most terrible time in modern history insofar as civil rights were concerned in this land. Black people began to believe in greater numbers that this country was really moving toward genocide, and from the point of view of black America, the evidence was alarming. That year, in President Johnson’s State of the Union message, his appeals for social justice and civil rights met with absolute silence from Congress - not a single lone handclap of approval broke that silence. His appeal for saving the California redwood trees, which followed immediately, got an ovation of wild, handclapping approval from Congress. The message was clear and desolating. It showed this country’s priorities and mood. It said to every black man: “Save the redwood forests and to hell with you.”

In my dismay, I wired the President:

“AM TIRED OF BEING A LOSER. FROM NOW ON I’M GOING TO FORGET HUMANITY AND WORK FOR THE TREES.”

The patterns of the exploding inner cities began to emerge. From the black man’s viewpoint it often looked as though black people were being driven to flare up which would then justify suppression by white men on the grounds of “self-defense.”

In those terrible days of open conflict, I was being taken
into the inner cities, usually by black militants, as an observer. I hardly ever opened my mouth. The day was past when black people wanted any advice from white men. I was taken in simply to view it from the inside, so that in the event we did come to open genocidal conflict, there would be someone to give another view of history. And another view I got. I attended enraged meetings where black men, women, children, students discussed their experiences. Everyone was saying the turmoil was the work of young blacks. That was not true. Middle-aged and elderly black people attended those meetings everywhere, and burned with rage. In Wichita, Kansas, I heard a young college student say the kinds of things that were being said in all the cities. He recounted an injustice done him in that community. He showed wounds where he had been beaten by white men.

“We’ve tried everything
decent
,” he said loudly.

“Yes,” the audience responded. “Yes. Who can doubt that?”

“We asked for justice and they fed us committees,” he shouted.

“Yes.”

“They’ve even got committees to decide how much self- determination we’re going to have.”

“Take ten!” someone shouted from the back of the room.

“Take ten!” a few responded.

After he had spoken, the young man came over to my chair, almost sobbing with frustration. He looked into my eyes with eyes that were wild with anguish and whispered while we shook hands, “When you go back, will you do me a favor?”

“Yes, if I can,” I said.

“When you go back out there, will you tell your friend, Jesus Christ, and your friend, Martin Luther King - ‘
shit
!’” He spat out the word with the deepest despair I have ever heard in a human voice.

On the streets, young black men would call out, “Take ten!” to one another. Whites thought they were talking about a ten- minute coffee break. What they were really saying was that this country was moving toward the destruction of black people, and since the proportion was ten whites to every black, then black men
should take ten white lives for every black life taken by white men.

Certainly the news reports and coverage, given largely by white interpreters outside the ghettos and widely and sincerely believed by horrified whites, had no credibility within the ghettos because they did not coincide with what black men were experiencing; and in the heat of emotions, few white men could penetrate the troubled areas, and the media had not yet hired many black reporters who could have given a more balanced view.

As black men began to compare notes with me around the country, a strange pattern began to emerge. If it did not hold true for all the exploding communities, it held true for many of them. In these, someone in a high place - the mayor, chief of police, or other official - would receive information that a neighboring city was already in flames and that carloads of armed black men were coming to attack this city. This happened in Cedar Rapids when Des Moines was allegedly in flames. It happened in Ardmore, Oklahoma, and in Fort Worth, Texas, when it was alleged that Oklahoma City was in flames and carloads were converging on those cities. It happened in Reno and other western cities, when Oakland, California, was supposed to be in flames. It happened in Roanoke when Richmond, Virginia, was supposed to be in flames. And in many other communities.