Recent events surrounding Juan Williams and NPR have had me thinking of a defining moment in my life in college. The year was 1984 and of course if you were around in 1984 you know it was a much different time. I was a freshman at Towson State University just inside the Baltimore Beltway. I found myself in a residence hall living amongst a host of diverse people that were foreign to my Carroll/Frederick County Maryland sensibilities. (Again – Carroll and Frederick Counties in Maryland were MUCH different in 1984 than in 2010). Talk around the residence hall would normally be about our different backgrounds and soon that turned to simply our differences. I can’t remember how it started but I CAN remember one night when our usual BS session turning into a major discussion of race relations involving about 15 or 20 residents (all white) in the main lobby of our floor. Talk focused mainly on affirmative action and why so many black students got a free ride at Towson (or so we thought).
Just then the elevator doors opened and two people walked off. The first was the woman in charge of our building (I can’t remember her name so for the purposes of this blog I will call her “Mary”) and the other was Aaron – a guy who lived in a room two doors down from mine. Both were black. Mary was a pretty universally respected woman…she was not a student – but some sort of full time University employee who was obviously well educated. Aaron was a fellow freshman and the kind of guy that easily fit in among our predominately white residence hall….you didn’t really think about his race when you talked to him. We immediately engaged Mary in our conversation about the inequities of affirmative action. Mary cleared up a lot of our misconceptions and pointed out that as white students we could get a free ride at Coppin State or Morgan State Universities (two predominately black universities in Baltimore).
Then talk turned to something more delicate. Fear. We began to talk about how as suburban white kids we were intimidated by black people. I can still remember the look on Aaron’s face when one of us said something like “Hey – when I get on the elevator and there are 3 black guys – I am scared”. Aaron had a matter of fact look on his face like he was placing a deli order and said “It’s always 3 black guys on the elevator”. With those 8 words: “It’s always 3 black guys on the elevator”..Aaron at the same time acknowledged our intimidation and its ignorance. Aaron went on to point out that he too felt intimidated sometimes when he was the sole black guy in a crowd of white guys. It was that night that I realized most people fear something new and are intimidated when they are the minority. It was my ability to express my fear and Aaron’s ability to frankly dismiss it for what it really was that allowed me to mature and come to an understanding about culture and culture clashes
I have replayed that moment and those words from Aaron many times in the years since: whenever I find myself intimidated by being outnumbered, dismissive of something unknown or fearful of someone from a remarkably different background. It was those same words I would hear in post 9/11 when I would encounter the large Muslim population in my then home of Michigan. I hear those words now when I think of Juan Williams.
There is no doubt our country is home to a rising amount of hysteria about Islam or Islamaphobia. I think the only way we as a nation can get beyond hysteria is to be able to have a frank national conversation about it. Living in fear of saying what you truly believe is counterproductive. If you cannot express yourself honestly (as I did)– you’ll never be open to hearing your neighbor express himself honestly(as Aaron did). Juan Williams was fired for saying the 2010 equivalent of “When I get on an elevator…”. Stopping the conversation there – does not allow the Muslims to say the 2010 of “Its always 3 black guys on the elevator.”
This may have been a victory for political correctness but it’s a failure for neighborly discourse.
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