Gregory Freeman: Asking Me To Forgo Writing As A Black Man Isn't Realistic. PD 4/27/2000

Headline: ASKING ME TO FORGO WRITING AS A BLACK MAN ISN'T REALISTIC
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Thu., Apr. 27, 2000
Section: METRO, Page: B1, Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT

Letter from a white man
"Dear Mr. Freeman, " the letter began. "I am a big fan of your column. You really seem to have your head screwed on right.
"I'm with you except when you write that black stuff. We get bombarded with black people in our culture today, and I'm bothered when you write from a black point of view. "Let me make it clear, I'm not a racist. I'm a white guy, a baby boomer who lives in St. Louis County. I'm often amazed how much you and I have in common, except when you write about racial stuff."

The letter, from Richard J., wasn't that unusual.
Over the years, I've received other letters from readers who've said similar things: They like what I write except when I write about black people. Some letters have been nasty. Others have been cowardly -- people say especially venomous things when they write without including a return name or address.

But Richard's letter was neither nasty nor cowardly, and he didn't sound irrational.
   I called him and asked him to elaborate.
   "It's nothing personal, " Richard told me. "I generally love what you write. And I can especially relate when you write about your son because I have two sons of my own.
   But when you write about black issues and black people and so forth, I'm not particularly interested. I don't care for your 'angry black man' columns.
   I've done nothing for anyone, black or white, to be angry with me. But it seems like blacks are always blaming white people, me, for all of their troubles. And that puts me on the defensive, a place I don't like to be. I think you'd do better to stay away from those kinds of stories."

I explained to Richard why that was unlikely. We all look at the world through the prisms of our lives. My prism is that of a black man. For me to try to look at the world through eyes other than those would be inauthentic at best.
Being black is part of me. Just as it would be unreasonable to ask David Limbaugh to write columns leaving out "that conservative stuff, " or Anna Quindlen to write leaving out "that women stuff, " it's just as unreasonable to ask me to write columns that aren't from the perspective of a black man.

Richard said he was surprised how much he and I had in common, based on columns I've written over the years. He related to my columns about my son because one of his sons is the same age. Like me, he's not particularly neat, and related to a column I wrote about our house being in complete disarray when my wife left town for a few days. He related to a column I wrote last year about the death of a family cat, because his family recently experienced the loss of a pet.
Part of the reason for his surprise, he said, was that "you and I are so different -- you grew up black in the city, I grew up white in the suburbs."
I suggested to him that we aren't as different -- that most people aren't as different -- as he might think. After you get past the veneer of pigment that we all have, you often find that most people are remarkably similar. It's getting past that veneer that's the hard part.

But where we are different, I said to him, was that he hasn't gone through life with a brown face. I told him that I suspected that his view on some issues might be quite different had that been the case.
My opinions are based on my experiences, and as a black man, those experiences have sometimes been much different from his as a white man. There really aren't two of me -- the Greg Freeman who Richard thinks has his head "screwed on right" and the Greg Freeman who is an "angry black man." They're both part of me.

Richard and I have much in common, but our perspectives differ because our experiences differ. Still, if we can appreciate those differences, we can learn to appreciate what each other has to offer.

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

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