Can You Hate Up Close?

If you know me, you know that I am a child of the south, born, and brought up in Miami, Florida during the time of segregation.  Everything I knew and saw was black--my neighborhood, church, school, friends, teachers, and preachers.  I loved my environment, always felt safe, and always had people around me encouraging me, and being positive.  That environment gave me a strong sense of who I was and also made me feel that I could do anything.

 The only White people I remember seeing were the Millers, for whom my great grandmother had been a cook for many years.  Whenever she went into their house, (and sometimes I was with her), we had to enter through the back door.  I also saw grocery store owners in the neighborhood, insurance men who came by the houses trying to sell insurance to people, and others when we went downtown, or outside of the neighborhood.  I remember when Blacks could not enter Miami Beach except to work, and I remember going to Virginia Key, the Black beach. It was all very natural, and it was really an “Us” world, and a “Them” world.

Off to Knoxville in l960 for college, and the civil rights movement permeated my four years there.  Sit ins, organizing, marching, and activism framed college life during that time.  Since my college was a HBCU, there was still very limited contact with White folks.  Although everything I had heard most of my life,  never painted a pretty picture of who they were, and what they represented, I had still not been up close and personal enough to form an opinion for myself.

My “southerness” however, made me wary and suspicious of white people I encountered. I never allowed myself to get close! As I grew, and my circle grew, I began to know them UP CLOSE!.  It was very difficult to HATE up close, because there was the opportunity to get to know them on a person to person basis.  I was able to see the commonalities, and of course, was also able to see the differences.  I always expected those differences to be respected, and did not expect to become them, or have them become me.

I think those who hate, have not ever been able to TRULY be up close with people different than they.  It always intrigues me when I ask friends, how many people of other races do they actually have as friends, not people with whom they work, but people who have actually come to their houses for a meal.  It is a question that many should ask themselves.  The answers are usually interesting, because most, have few real friends of other races.

I have come to believe, given what is happening in our country this week, with so much hateful behavior taking place, that until people can honestly get up-close, there will be no true togetherness.  It now seems that we are going backwards as a country.  Unless, we can all get to know each other Up Close, we will still hate those with whom we have not interacted.  Hate is based on fear, and we fear the unfamiliar.

Are people born or nurtured as racist?  Racism is systemic and embedded in our lives every single day. The eradication of this new version of racism, the unmasked, unhooded type, requires more than just words, but action.  These terroristic thugs seem to think that they need to protect what they have--whatever that is.

This climate has been created by the person occupying the house on Pennsylvania Avenue.  It took him over 48 hours to read a speech from a teleprompter, which as a Tweeter said, “seemed like it was being read by someone forced to read something written by the people who captured him." I wonder Who he knows UP CLOSE as an equal?  Actually, I don’t think he sees anyone as equal to him.

I am always taken aback when someone begins a conversation with “I am not a racist,” or “I have Black friends.” It is what you do, how you act, how you treat others, which matters.  It is not just race, it is gender, religion, and any other category which seeks to divide us.

I wish I had an answer for how we can get Up Close. I CANNOT HATE UP-CLOSE.  Up close allows us to dislike people for reasons other than their race, gender or religion.  We may, however,  dislike them for the way they behave, or because of some of the things they do.

Until people are unafraid to have a REAL conversation about race, I can see no “up closeness.” FB shows me that every day.  Posts about almost anything, except race, elicits all kinds of responses.  When the posts are race related, I can feel the tension, through my device.  I imagine, however, that those conversations are best in person.  It takes everybody, from all races to sit and have these conversations.  I saw a post on FB last Sunday which said “Instead of White ministers going to Black churches to talk about Charlottesville, they should be going to White churches to have those conversations.  Hmmmm?!

Let us LOVE UP- CLOSE