Gates Incident (Ctd) – Maybe I am the one who doesn’t get it…

So alright, just one more post about the Skip Gates affair. Yesterday the 911 call details of the concerned neighbor / passer-by were released and the main comment I heard in the media was that the woman who called did not specify that the two men she saw (Gates and the cab driver who helped him open his door) were black. She said, “maybe Latino for one of them, I am not sure”. Then, the comments generally went, you see, this was not a call motivated by those guys’ skin color – and thus, implicitly, what are you complaining about? Race has nothing to do with this, we live in a wonderful country…

Well, the whole thing about bias (and I speak in general, not specifically about this woman) is that it is really powerful when it gets internalized. You see black kids together and you may want to cross the street, you see two black guys getting into a house by forcing the door, it has to be suspicious - they attract your attention more than two white folks would. That is what bias is about. At some point, you don’t even realize you have a bias – it becomes part of your intuition.

I am going to share a quick anecdote that helped me understand how bias can play out even in the most mundane situations. I like walking around and exploring cities by foot. I did plenty of these walks in Boston the first few years I was back from DC and one day, I found myself in an exquisite part of Newton by the river – it was kind of a peninsula (not exactly sure how to call it). It was a narrow strip of land and there was basically one main street lined up with trees, just very nice. It was during the day – very quiet - and there was no way that as a non-resident I could go unnoticed. And I did not – I saw two or three folks, some closer than others, who were looking in my direction. I nodded and smiled and said hi when people were close enough. Two things that struck me that day: good manners matter – smiling and being polite make you much less threatening. And the very fact that I looked white and was dressed rather conservatively did not raise any eye-brows – I managed to be pretty much transparent, which is what I wanted. Good thing that I am not wearing on my face that I have an Arabic name and I am 50% North African…

Everyone has to hear black folks in this county when they talk about what it is to be black in America (and African-American in particular). A friend told me one day, being black is a 24/7 thing. You are never anonymous. Try to go to a developing country with your Western looks – you’ll see what it is to not be anonymous – the 24/7 thing… It may disturb a lot of folks when they hear what it is to be black in America today, but what everyone should do is listen and appreciate what they will hear. Maybe that is the main “learning opportunity” of this whole thing.