THE LAST REUNION, PART III: INTENTIONAL IGNORANCE OF RACISM [F, 1-15-21]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

[Seeing in our hometown newspaper the obituary of Paula, my classmate from fifth grade through high school, reminded me of the last time I saw her, at our 60-year class reunion, and all the confusion our last conversation produced. Reflecting on it took far too many words for one column, so here is the third in a four-part series].

THE LAST REUNION, PART III: INTENTIONAL IGNORANCE OF RACISM   [F, 1-15-21]

“The media” is one of the favorite whipping dogs for stuff we don’t like. Especially for right-wing folks, it seems. So I guess it wasn’t surprising that Paula blamed the media for Obama’s election. “He would never have been elected if the media had told us the truth about him.” I reminded her that he was elected twice. She looked puzzled. “Yes, I never did understand this.”

Well, it takes no genius to understand it. A majority of voters had four years to watch him as president and concluded they wanted him for a second term.

It wasn’t exactly the last of that conversation, though. I’ve given up Facebook entirely now, but Paula and I were Facebook Friends back then. At some point I “Shared” a portrait of the Obama family on my page, just because I thought it was a nice photo. Paula commented, “Yes, they are a nice-looking family, but he did irreparable harm to our nation.” [2]

Paula posted quite a bit on Facebook. Most of it was Bible verses about love. Occasionally, though, she posted positive remarks about President Trump, thanking the most racist president we’ve had since the Civil War “for being such a great president,” sure he would make America great again, and praying to God to “cause his enemies to stumble and fall into confusion and panic.”

The “again” is the key word in making American great again. Back like it was when we were kids, when black folks stayed in their place, which wasn’t Oakland City, Indiana… or The White House.

Paula’s complaint wasn’t really about the media. It was about race. It was about having a black man as president. It was about white privilege and white fear, without really knowing it.

We grew up together, Paula and I. We grew from the same soil and were cut from the same cloth. Our classmates saw us in the same way, as the most likely to succeed. We were both lifelong Methodists. We both had multi-degree higher educations. We were both kind people personally, who were glad to help out others. We were also racists.

We grew up in a culture where there were no other races but a lot of racism. Racist jokes. Black-face minstrel shows put on by civic clubs and even schools. Never a hesitation about saying “nigger,” like “grab a nigger by the toe” or “there’s a nigger in the wood pile.” “They’re okay in their place, but their place isn’t here.” “Why don’t they go back to Africa?” Where one of my ten-year-old school bus companions quoted his father, saying “The worst white man is still better than the best black man.” Black folks did have a few redeeming qualities, which made them okay—in their place: they looked funny eating watermelon, and they all had rhythm and thus could dance. And it was okay to have one on the basketball team, but not more than that.

Fortunately, I grew up in an enlightened church, out in the country. Not the town church, where “rich” folks, including Paula, went. If you put all the college educations together in Forsythe church, you still wouldn’t have a junior college degree, but these were smart people. And open minded as well as open hearted. I was about 12 when they had a black evangelist come to preach a revival. They asked for a woman pastor when there were only two in the conference. I thought all churches were like that.

Still, I grew up in a racist culture, and you never totally overcome that. But I know I’m a racist, and I try to make allowance for it. I’m sure Paula would have been appalled had someone said she was racist. She was not violent, toward anyone. She did not want harm to come to black people. She appreciated those who were “a credit to their race,” as we said in southern Indiana when we wanted to say something nice about a black person but didn’t want our friends to think that we were “nigger lovers.” Paula apparently did not know she was a racist, so she could not make allowance for it.

I had no idea about the politics of anyone in the class, because we had never talked about such as teens. We were interested in sports and cars and dates. Those were more than enough to keep us busy. Besides, we were part of “the silent generation,” the Eisenhower years.

So why did Paula bring up the politics of race, at the very end of our time together, our life together, at our last reunion?

Maybe it was because of what Nancy said earlier. Each of us was giving a reprise, what we’d done in the five years since our last reunion. Nancy said, “I’ve been elected to one county office or another every election for 50 years. People voted for me even though I’m a Democrat, because they know me. This time, they said, ‘Can’t vote for you, Nancy. You’re on the same ticket as Obama.’” I think that is the only time anyone said anything political at any of our reunions, and it was only in the context of Nancy bringing us up to date on her life.

Maybe the end of our class reunions made Paula think of Obama’s election as the end of the society as we had known it as kids, the end of white privilege.

If you’ve always had privilege, equality makes you think you’re a victim.

John Robert McFarland

1] Media truthfulness and electability have very little to do with each other. The media told us the truth about Donald Trump, and we elected him anyway. Heavens, even Trump told us the truth about him, and we elected him anyway.

2] Disclaimer: I voted for Obama twice, worked for his election, and was mostly disappointed in his presidency, for, instead of pushing ahead with an agenda to help people and take the country back from the plutocrats, he kept trying to win his foes over before he did anything. His foes were implacable. They were never going to cooperate with him on anything. That was obvious to everyone but him. So, I considered that—for the most part--he had wasted his presidency by doing nothing. [Except the Affordable Care Act. That was insufficient, but a significant achievement.]

Speaking of The AFC, I recently saw an interview with a local social worker. One of her jobs is to help people get health insurance. She said that she often has clients who start by saying “I don’t want that Obamacare.” She tells them, “Well, I can get you the most coverage at the least cost with The Affordable Care Act.” “That’s okay,” they say, “as long as it’s not that Obamacare.”