when i walk down broad street south of the five points marta station to get the #9 to come home in the evening, often i will be the only white person for three blocks. sometimes there will be another, just like me catching a bus, but even then we will make up less than a few percentage points of the people milling around the area that encompasses broad, alabama, peachtree and mlk.
this is not uncommon for me these days. i find myself, usually daily, to be in the overwhelming racial minority as i transit to work. the #9 never has another white person on it in the morning, and sometimes one other in the afternoon. the trains are more integrated, but blacks still make up the overwhelming majoritym and the #140 boasts three or four riders consistently who are white, but that is about it.
it didn’t take me long to realize, by the way, that this was one of the first times in my life where i had been in the overwhelming minority on a consistent basis. sure, maybe once or twice in the past, but on a daily basis, never.
it is with some level of dissatisfaction with myself that i must admit that i was very uncomfortable for a long period of time. some of it was basic fear. we have all heard the arguments for rational stereotyping – black men commit the majority of violent crime, ergo we are right to have our pulse quicken when we see them. yes i know it is a tad bit more complex but just stick with me, i am paraphrasing to try to get this out. some of it was just being uncomfortable being different. some of it was, i am convinced, fear that those on the trains and buses didn’t want me there – this was there space, and who was i to invade it.
i consider myself an enlightened guy, so it is with pain that i admit this. it is with pain that i admit that sometimes my heart can quicken a bit when i come out of the tunnel onto alabama street to catch my bus.
but i think it is important that i do. i think it is important that we all do. these responses are instinctual, and a failure to admit them might be just as bad as giving in to their impulses.
needless to say, i still come out of the train station and walk over to my bus. no one has ever mugged me; i haven’t been shot or stabbed or harassed. and everyday i get a little more attuned to the inplied associations that exist in me.
perhaps the most interesting revelation i have had is that while i can live my entirely life being in the majority racially in this country – in fact, i have to search and seek out places to be in the minortiy – a black american doesn’t have that choice. they must interact daily with situations where they are in the overwhelming minority.
this realization and the admission of my own associations has changed my opinion on many things racial. perhaps not my overarching worldview, but certainly my willingness to be tolerant of other ones.
i don’t know if any of this makes any sense, but i have been meaning to write this for a long time and have consistently not because i can’t get it just right in my head.
but, better muddled and out, than clear but always in.
You finally wrote it! Awesome… I’ll have more to say on it soon, and I’m always impressed with your honesty on tough issues like this.
thanks!
having written it i know for sure i want to revise and extend it so i am sure more posts are coming….
Great, honest post about a delicate subject. You know I have grappled with the same feelings, and I applaud you for posting about it.
Well said. Quite courageous. Like Reco, I’ll have more to say in time. The hard part is figuring out just WHAT I have to say… but what you describe is something I’ve been meaning to address (personally, politically, philosophically…) for quite some time.
Nice post. Like you, I’m often the only white person on my bus on a daily basis. What’s funny is, whenever I’m the only white person a bus, and another white person gets on, I’m automatically suspicious of them. Not really sure what that says about me though. Probably the whole turf thing.
On a lighter note, here’s my MARTA theorem I call the property of the white one. If you are the only white person on a bus in a seat by yourself, and all other seats have at least one occupant, and another white person gets on the bus, if you make eye contact with said person, they will invariably attempt to sit next to you.
thanks guys. this one wasn’t easy to write.
bti – that could be the best, and most true marta theory i have heard.
[...] Comments My friend James over at the arc of time recently made an interesting post called “minority” that discusses the social dynamics as relates to race. James is a white guy living in [...]