2016 The News -- Nonfiction

SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS HAPPENING SOMEWHERE!

Things are wrong in our world. But it's getting better. I'm getting better.

When I was a child, black people were not allowed in the amusement parks in our city. Or the "public" swimming pools. They weren't allowed to eat in the cafes in our town. They weren't allowed to be in our town after dark. At some point it occurred to me to wonder how a parent explained to their child why. How do you explain to your child that they've done nothing wrong, that they were just flat out born wrong?

I didn't realize that I, too, was just flat out born wrong. My white advantage gave me a distorted view of the world and my place in it. The white world I was born into set me up to be afraid, afraid of people who were "unfortunate" enough to be different from me. I didn't understand that that was my misfortune as well.

I didn't meet a Jew until Girl Scout Camp the summer after the 6th grade. I've still not been inside a mosque or a Hindu temple. I do not personally know a woman who wears a hijab.

I certainly never had trouble understanding the anxiety of a police officer's mother about whether her child would survive the job. Police work is dangerous. They deal with dangerous people in dangerous situations. Not people like "us."

We want to believe and want our children to believe that police officers are here to protect and serve. The truth is I find them frightening when I encounter them doing their duty. Like during a traffic stop. They have the gun. They have the power.

In light of our ongoing history, I must consider the anxiety of a black man's mother. She knows her son may not survive going to the grocery store. To the baseball game with his friends. Stopping at a convenience store for a six-pack. And if that black man happens to be big like my own son . . ..

The talk? Yes, we had the talk with my white son. "Be courteous. Say 'yes, sir' and 'no, sir,'" we told him. If he was treated rudely or unfairly, we would complain and seek redress later. There is a proper and safe time and place to speak truth to power. It is not on the street. It doesn't matter whether you're black or white.

In my comfortable world, I'm not afraid of the sheriff's deputy who lives next door. I know him. He has two young children. Their brightly colored beach balls occasionally end up on our side of the fence. He works in his yard and barbecues. I hardly ever think about him being a cop. Except when I happen to see him going to work in his uniform. Or when something terrible happens to policemen somewhere. Then I think about him and realize just how much I appreciate what he does and I'm aware of how much I want him to come home safe at the end of his tour each day.

That old hometown of mine is better now.

You can visit amusement parks no matter what color you are. And "public" swimming pools are truly public. You can eat in any restaurant in that town and live in that town without regard to the color of your skin. (Maybe because of its disgraceful history, it never developed a "black side of town.")

There is a mosque in that town, but the town is still pretty white. The town I live in now is even whiter, so, if I don't watch the news, it's easy to forget the troubles in this country. It's easy to dismiss my passive complicity in these troubles.

Truth is I don't have to watch the news. I get called out by Bill Nye, the Science Guy. "Change the world," he says. "If you don't believe you can, then why the heck are you here?"

Why the heck, indeed. Starting with me.