I was nine or ten years old when I met Larry.
He was younger than me by a few years but I remember being struck by how small he was. I think he was only six, but I was still surprised that the top of his head barely reached my shoulders. He had a short buzz cut, within a centimeter or two of his scalp, a toothy smile and significant difficulty pronouncing the letter “L,” which meant that I spent a good ten to fifteen minutes wondering what kind of parents would name their son Warry. He lived up the block from me in a small, freestanding house with his parents and older brother.
He was also the first black child I remember meeting.
I imagine that I had met other black kids before my brother and I found Larry playing in his front yard that day. I attended a local public day camp in the summers that was more diverse than my Jewish private school or the synagogue where my family belonged, but I couldn’t tell you any of the kids’ names or what they looked like. I had a few friends from the neighborhood – white, of course – who also attended the camp, so I spent most of my time with them instead.
Larry and I never became close friends or even playmates. (Sorry, this isn’t that type of story.) My family moved to New York shortly after my eleventh birthday and I don’t think I ever saw Larry again after that first day. I wonder sometimes about what he ended up doing with his life and whether he ever asked his parents why my brother and I never came by to play with him again.
I thought of Larry recently as I was considering my diversity quotient. I know that my status as a white, Jewish, cis-gendered male affords me a significant level of privilege. It would be fairly easy, for instance, for me to go through life surrounded only by people who look like me and think the way I do; it would be the same way I went through my elementary, high school and college years. Conceivably, I could have led an entire lifetime with barely any reason to think outside my immediate cultural box.
To that end, I’ve been working to increase my exposure to people from other backgrounds. I’m fortunate, in that sense, to be a social worker in the community mental health field, as my position gives me the opportunity to speak with people of color and families from other religious and socioeconomic backgrounds. I’ve also been paying closer attention to coverage of race in the news, including the white supremacist views of representatives in Congress, the discriminatory biases of certain states’ voting laws, racist treatment of young people of color, and the racist history of apparently the entire Virginia state government. Plus, on a more straightforward note, I’ve been making it a point to follow more people of color – women, in particular – on Twitter, since the platform is one of the easiest ways to hear and promote the voices that so often go unheard.
I’m not saying this for applause or adoration or any other a-word that celebrates my “woke-ness.” This isn’t about me. It’s about the responsibility of learning more about the history and current opinions of people of color resting with the people who have silenced those opinions for centuries. And, even if I may not have actively or intentionally played a part in maintaining the social status quo, I still have the obligation to work to change the system.
February is Black History Month. The month dedicated to the history of the people who literally built much of our country happens to be the shortest of the year, which I’m fairly certain is not an accident. Still, it’s as good a time as any to open our eyes and increase our awareness. It’s a time to read books that we wouldn’t necessarily read, watch films we wouldn’t necessarily watch and listen to people we might not necessarily listen to on a regular basis. It’s a time to highlight the people who have broken color barriers over and over again despite the constantly present faces of oppression, hatred and bigotry.
The obstacles that continue to exist between people with different skin colors aren’t going anywhere. We’re not going to fix racism in our lifetimes, or even our kids’ lifetimes. That’s okay; the fact that we’re not able to finish the job doesn’t mean we’re exempt from doing the work in the first place. There have been signs of progress, though, from the increased prevalence of people of color in the higher levels of government to the lowered tolerance for racist comments in public settings. And, even if Larry and I never became anything more than one-time acquaintances, hopefully his grandchildren might meet mine at some point and do a better job than we did.
