How this piece got past the censors we’ll never know, but we’re glad to see it. — Ed.
BLACKintellectuals just don’t get it. They refuse to understand why there iswidespread racial profiling and why they and people they know often areits victims. Black intellectuals simply refuse to acknowledge thatthere is a very obvious connection between themselves and the lawlessblack underclass.
In a recent essay in The New York Times, BrentStaples, a member of the newspaper’s editorial board, wrote, “Theexperience of being mistaken for a criminal is almost a rite of passagefor African-American men. Security guards shadow us in stores. Trooperspull us over for the crime of ‘driving while black.’ Nighttimepedestrians cower by us on the streets.”
In expressing his disgust that the Harvard professor-Cambridge copconfrontation has not been seen generally as a flagrant instance ofracial profiling, Times columnist Bob Herbert urges black people “torant and to rave, to demonstrate and to lobby, to march and confrontand to sue and generally do whatever is necessary to stop a continuingand deeply racist criminal justice outrage.”
The Harvardprofessor — Henry Louis Gates Jr. — and Staples and Herbert think theunfair treatment of blacks by the police is 100 percent the fault ofwhite people. In the view of Staples, white people need to exorcisetheir “poisonous misconceptions.”
But, for racial profiling togo away, blacks, especially black intellectuals, need to remove theirblinders. They need to see what whites see. They need to see andacknowledge the criminal lifestyle that is pervasive in the blackunderclass.
Young black men of the ghettoes take pride incarrying guns and have little respect for law. When they go outsidetheir communities, the guns and attitudes are not left behind. In muchof their music, they are out front, bragging about their lawlessness.
Whitepeople’s awareness of that criminal lifestyle creates fear, and thatfear, unfortunately, becomes wariness of even law-abiding blacks.
Blackcrime is the most potent determiner today of white attitudes towardblacks. While the great majority of American blacks are not involved incriminal activity, the criminal lifestyle of young black men makes mostwhites fearful and suspicious. That is a great injustice, because amongmiddle-class blacks, there is relatively little crime.
In manycities — New Haven, Hartford, Brooklyn, Baltimore, for instance — majorhospitals are located on the edge of neighborhoods populated by theblack underclass. When whites who work at the hospitals drive throughthose neighborhoods, they make sure their windows are up and doors arelocked. Walking from the parking lot to the workplace is risky. Ine-mails, medical students and hospital staff are informed of robberiesand beatings by young black men. They are warned against walking alone.
Ifit is dangerous to “drive while black,” it is even more dangerous towalk while white in some neighborhoods. Driving while black may resultin the indignity of a speeding ticket; walking while white could resultin a fractured skull.
Staples has written about his walks nearthe University of Chicago. It upset him that when white women walkingalone noticed him, they would try to avoid him, speeding up or crossingthe street. He was befuddled about why a completely innocent black manshould be avoided. Why couldn’t the women understand that he was BrentStaples, not some thug?
The other day, I was walking down astreet and suddenly I saw three young black men coming toward me. Myfirst reaction was “uh-oh.” I thought I might be attacked. When Iwasn’t, I thought how unfair it was to think that.
But it is atypical reaction when a white person walks alone in a fringyneighborhood. Lawless young black men cause fear among whites, and itis not unnatural for whites to be suspicious of all blacks who fit theprofile of the attackers. Would it be unnatural for the citizens ofAfrican cities — like Lagos, Nairobi or Harare — to be suspicious ofwhite men if there were an epidemic among whites of robbings andbeatings?
The American media have bent over backward to avoididentifying criminal perpetrators and suspects by race. But by names,addresses, education and criminal records, people easily jump toconclusions, and they usually are correct. They then generalize.
Itmay not be logical to do this, but for most people, generalizing comesas easily as eating. This is not fair to law-abiding blacks, but mostwhite people would rather have an unfair thought than risk being hurt.
Paul Marx is professor emeritus of English at the University of New Haven, 300 Boston Post Road, West Haven 06516. E-mail: pppmarx@comcast.net.