The Black Friend

by Frederick Joseph

  Most people don’t look at the world the way Jemele and Joel do. So I asked her why she feels so many people would rather not see color than learn about others.

  JEMELE: I think part of the reason why people say that they don’t see color, or they don’t want to see race, or they never even want to be challenged outside of that viewpoint, is because not only does it require you to do some extra thinking—some critical thinking, to have empathy that you didn’t want to have, maybe toward not just the people that you know but maybe in some cases the people that you don’t know—it also makes a demand of you, and people aren’t good with that. Maybe especially demand where at some point you have to kind of look at yourself a little bit and understand how the way you have viewed things may have contributed to the poor way in which we treat race in this country.

  I agree with Jemele—fear and not wanting to take accountability are large reasons people don’t want to grow in terms of race.

  Jemele gave me a final thought on why young white people should take the opportunity to learn about other races and grow in ways many of their predecessors haven’t.

  JEMELE: I guess I would say to young people especially, they have an opportunity for growth that they should always welcome. They should want to learn these things. And once they learn how everybody’s experiences are interconnected—and I guess it’s kind of the differences that I don’t think they see the beauty in. Again, we are definitely all different, and that’s fine, and that’s okay, but those differences are actually quite interconnected, and maybe if they understood that part of it, they wouldn’t always think of learning about race or talking about race as something that was automatically supposed to be divisive. Quite the opposite; it’s actually supposed to bring us all together, despite the crowd constantly bellowing that the real racists are the people who talk about race.

  There is a world that we can create that is stronger and more enjoyable if we all learn from one another and develop understanding that doesn’t allow us to simply survive but to thrive.

  A world where maybe I learned Tweedledee’s and Tweedledum’s actual names, because it’s obvious we were into similar music, since we were all at the same concert.

  A world where two young white men know they shouldn’t touch a Black woman’s hair or call a Black man the n-word.

  A world where that night is something we all remember for the right reasons. Maybe in that world, we all became friends that night.

  That’s not this world, but if we understand what we can’t do to one another and how to treat each other better, it can be. If you’re still reading, I’m sure that’s because you think so, too.

  There’s a YouTube video I watched for the first time in early high school that changed my perception of almost everything I knew. The video was of a college lecture about racism and white privilege in America.

  This was back when YouTube started, so I’d find all sorts of random things to watch. I’d love to share a link to that video, but it seems to have disappeared from YouTube in the intervening years, though videos about similar experiments exist. And, yes, I’m that old that I remember when YouTube started.

  In the video, a professor gathered his class and put a garbage can in the middle of the room. He then asked each student to take a piece of paper and crumple it into a ball. After that, he asked the students to take the ball and throw it into the trash from any distance they would like. Students did as instructed and shot from various places in the room.

  Obviously, many people shot from far random places and shouted, “Kobe!” Because that’s what ballers do.

  Next, he asked the students to crumple another piece of paper, but this time he told them he would randomly choose someone who makes the shot to have a day off from class the following week. Each of the students shot from much closer this time; some even dunked the paper in.

  Then he told the class that whoever made the next shot would get an A added to their semester grades. He also told them that they would have three opportunities to make a shot.

  They thought he was joking (so did I), until he promised them he wasn’t and they could tell the dean if no one got the promised bonus grade.

  Each student crumpled up three pieces of paper and got as close as they possibly could to ensure they wouldn’t miss.

  But before anyone could take a shot, the professor started to point at students and ask what their race was. All of the students who identified as white were placed in random spots around the lecture hall, some so far from the trash can that it was almost impossible for them to make the shot.

  But each student who didn’t identify as white was allowed to stay where they were.

  He then decided that only some of the white students he moved would have an opportunity to take more than one shot. He walked around the room and randomly took one crumpled paper ball from some students and two from others.

  As he did this, the white students started to complain. In response to their complaints, he forced some of them to cover their eyes for their shot.

  He then randomly chose students of color who were close to someone near the garbage can and told them that if the person next to them made it, they didn’t have to shoot and they would also receive the A. But in the unlikely event that the person missed, he would still allow them both to take their full number of shots.

  When he told the students to shoot, only two of the white students made it, while every student of color made the shot.

  The white students were in an uproar. Some were cursing, others were saying they weren’t coming back to the class, and one student said he was going to complain about the class to the school administration.

  The professor told the students he’d already spoken to the administration, and they had no problem with the lesson.

  He then asked everyone to sit down and to congratulate the students who would receive the A. He asked the white students how they felt, and many responded with words like “unfair,” “angry,” and “cheated.”

  He then asked the students of color to raise their hand if they had a thought on what the experience felt like to them. The very first person to respond said, “America.” He asked her to explain, and she said, “It feels like how America treats us versus them.”

  As she said that, I found myself nodding along with the students of color who were in the video.

  The professor responded, “This was a demonstration of the impact of systemic racism and white privilege. Most of you just experienced a fraction of what Black and brown people in America face every day in our justice system, education system, and professional system. In fact, that fraction was so difficult for you that you forgot that you were in a lesson about racism. White people have oppressed their way into a head start from slavery to mass incarceration. Y’all are lucky you even got to take a shot; most Black people don’t even get that.”

  I really wish that professor was my uncle or something. If you’re out there, Professor, you’re the man, brother!

  I spent that entire night thinking about how powerful that lesson was. It gave clarity to so much in my own life. I went to school and tried to get people to watch the video. No one was interested.

  If you’re someone reading this book whom I begged to watch the video, I ended up getting you anyway, because it would have been easier watching it than reading about it.

  While most people I knew never saw the video, it changed me forever. I had never really understood how to articulate my feelings about how I was impacted by the world around me. It’s not that I didn’t know about racism, the power of white people, or some of the lasting effects of slavery. Those things were common sense to me.

  But the YouTube video was a drilled-down demonstration of why my mother and grandmother had always told me, “Black people have to work two times harder and be twice as good.”

  They made sure it wasn’t just a phrase; it was a way of life. They would make sure that I was talented and skilled enough in school to the point where the system
designed against the success of Black and brown people would still be forced to give me an opportunity.

  When I was growing up, they made me read everything, watch every documentary, and if I seemed to have a talent or passion for something, they would find a way to make sure I got the opportunity to try it. I played instruments, I sang in the choir, I was in the drama club, I was in a poetry class, I did it all, and I did it well.

  But there was nothing I was better at than debating and problem solving. Everyone told my mother I had a natural gift for arguing points (I’m not sure how much of a compliment that was) and that we should think about my becoming a lawyer. So that’s what we did.

  When I was around twelve years old, I started reading everything I could to help me become a great lawyer. I wanted to help provide a better life for my family, and that was going to be the way. Everything I read told me great lawyers had to also be great writers (this was a lie) and be well versed in not only law but history as well.

  I started practicing my writing every day and reading history books and court documents from old highly public cases. I was also watching reality TV court shows and dramas like The Practice, which didn’t teach me very much but sure did make me want to be a famous lawyer.

  I can’t stress enough how amazing a day filled with watching Judge Mathis and Judge Judy can be. Thank me later.

  I read countless cases, but none interested me more than civil rights cases, and no lawyer captured my attention like Thurgood Marshall.

  I’m hoping you actually google something every time I ask you to, seeing as I have impeccable taste. But I can’t take a chance on you not learning more about Thurgood, so I’m giving you his background here.

  Thurgood Marshall was the first African-American Supreme Court justice. He played a vital part in ending legal segregation during the civil rights movement through the landmark 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education and founded the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) Legal Defense and Education Fund.

  You’re welcome.

  I loved everything about Thurgood. He was brilliant and stylish, and he didn’t take crap from anyone—not even white people during segregation. I wanted to be just like him, so I kept working.

  By the time I got to high school, I had read every constitutional law book available in the school district and many that weren’t. I even taught myself to write mock-case briefs. Needless to say, I was destined to try out for the mock-trial team (the debate team) in high school.

  If you feel bad because it sounds like I didn’t have friends, don’t worry: I had tons of friends—finally.

  Over the years as I “glowed up,” by growing into my face and sprouting to six feet my freshman year, I realized being nerdy was still my jam. So I ran with it, and now I was far more confident in my nerdiness because of my appearance.

  Our mock-trial team was interesting, because while the school was largely white, the team wasn’t. As I remember it, there may have been only one white person on the team. All of the rest of us were kids of color. Regardless of what the team’s makeup was, we were damn good, and I was our best. (Cocky, but true.)

  During my time on the team, we demolished schools in our district. It wasn’t even close. We were so good that during my junior year, we made the county tournament, which was held in upper Westchester at one of their high schools that looked like a college campus. (I’ve told y’all they have money.)

  There were eight other schools at the event. We were the only school from lower Westchester that made the tournament. In fact, we were the first school from lower Westchester that had ever made it.

  We were the descendants of Yonkers’s wildest dreams, ha. I’m sure this joke will go over many heads. But when you get it, you’ll come back and go, “Ooooh.”

  Leading up to the tournament, I knew we were going to win. I felt like there was literally nothing that could stop us.

  Then imposter syndrome set in.

  I remember walking into the school and feeling like we were all extremely out of place. Not only did we have the only nonwhite team; we also were underdressed.

  We had been wearing casual clothes, like jeans and sneakers, to every match for more than a year against schools in our district, so we wore the same to the tournament. But everyone else was wearing business attire and full-on suits.

  I don’t mean oversize suits that they pulled out of their parents’ closets, like Donald Trump wears. These kids had custom-tailored pieces for this event. It looked like they were all going to interview for a job at a top law firm.

  All of the other students were staring at us. I could see that my team was feeling it, too.

  Our first match, about an hour after we arrived, was against the school that had won the tournament the year before. We got to the room, and our opponents were already there.

  A few parents were with their children’s teams, and some were standing near us. A few of us overheard two of the parents talking to one of the students on the other team before we got started, and what we heard devastated us.

  The student told the two parents that she was nervous about the first match. One of the parents looked over at us and said, “Don’t worry, they’re probably just the affirmative action kids. They have to do that sometimes. They have to say they’re giving a chance to minorities, so they stick them in, even if they aren’t as good.”

  One of my teammates started crying and went to the bathroom after overhearing this.

  I’m pretty sure those parents knew we could hear and did that to throw us off our game, or maybe they didn’t. Either way, it was a trash way to treat a bunch of kids.

  Our coach asked why my teammate was crying, and we told him what we’d overheard. He had someone go get her out of the bathroom and gave us a talk.

  He told us that we were just as good as, if not better than, the other team, and neither they nor he could understand as white people how hard it is to be nonwhite and try to do something while held back by racism.

  He then explained that even when programs like affirmative action did help people like us, it was because we deserved it, not because it was some sort of handout.

  I believe, based on America’s history, there’s no such thing as a handout to people of color, especially Black and Native American people. But that’s a whole different book topic. *Cough*, reparations.

  After his talk, I looked at my coach and said, “It sounds like you watched the YouTube video, too!”

  “What video?” he responded.

  “Never mind,” I said.

  Sigh—no one saw that video! If any of you find it, please feel free to send me the link.

  After our coach’s talk, we were ready. This wasn’t just about winning a mock-trial match; this was about kicking racism in the mouth. This was our Thurgood Marshall moment, our Brown v. Board of Education!

  Okay, maybe not, but you get the point.

  We ended up tearing that school apart in the first match, and then we tore the next school apart, and then we made the last school look foolish in the final round. We didn’t have the tutors, the new textbooks, or the technology of our white opponents; we were just better. We had worked harder and were more talented than the other teams, and it showed.

  While winning the tournament was nice, nothing was better than seeing the looks on the faces of the people who had been looking down on us since we walked in. As if we were lucky to be in their presence.

  I took that day with me, and I still hold it close. It’s important to me because, while it wasn’t the first time I was underestimated because of my race, it was the first time anyone had said I was handed anything because of it.

  This has since been a pattern in my life as people have tried to write off my success and the success of other people of color as the result of a handout. But programs like affirmative action, which were put in place to right historical wrongs, are not handouts. Think back to that YouTube video. Affirmative action isn’t putting all the Black kids’ bal
ls in the basket for them. It’s not even moving all the Black kids to the front row. Affirmative action is letting some Black kids sit in the same row as most of the white kids. It’s giving an opportunity to a person who would not otherwise have it because of discriminatory systems. Programs like affirmative action are actually just a small way to right historical wrongs.

  I spoke with activist Jamira Burley about her thoughts on affirmative action, and why it’s important that people of color be given opportunities in traditionally white spaces.

  JAMIRA: At every institutional level, there are opportunities that are supposed to address those who are the most marginalized, those who are the most in need of actually getting access to those resources. So whether you’re talking about welfare or whether you’re talking about transportation, you’re talking about legal representation. What we see oftentimes is that there are gates—I should say there are barriers to entry.

  For instance, if a young person wants to get access to opportunities for school, they have to have money for transportation and/or they have to meet with someone to fill out paperwork. That normally requires them to have access to their birth certificate, which normally they don’t. Also what we’ve often seen is that those resources are actually being taken up by others, many times by middle-class white folks, especially women, because white women are actually beneficiaries of affirmative action. We don’t talk about that enough.

  The point that Jamira made about who affirmative action also—and at times more so—serves is important. There is a narrative that affirmative action and programs like it, such as welfare, were created to help Black people. But in reality many of these programs benefit white women and poor whites more than other groups.

  There are more white women and poor white people in America than there are Black or brown people combined, so these programs serve a great number of white people. Yet many white people who oppose the programs or use them as an example of a handout act as if only people of color are benefiting.