Gregory Freeman: Hate Mail Has Upside . . . You Get Tough Skin. P-D 5/3/1998

Headline: HATE MAIL HAS UPSIDE . . . YOU GET TOUGH SKIN
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Sun., May 3, 1998
Section: NEWS ANALYSIS, Page: B4, Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT

ANONYMOUS ADMIRERS
It's the end of the week as I write today's column, and again I've received mail from people who want to blame me for the world's racial ills.
Not a week goes by that I don't receive letters from people with nasty racial comments. Almost always they're anonymous, with no return address, lest I visit their homes and hurt them in some way, I suppose.

And they come in different tones.
   One person sends me an envelope each week filled with news clippings of crimes involving African-Americans. Usually, the person writes something or other like, "Before you blacks were here, we didn't have these crimes!"
   More than one letter writer tells me that racism is in the past and that black people should get over it.
   I even get "go back to Africa" letters from some readers.

When I first became a columnist, I was hurt by these kinds of letters.
Over the years, though, I've developed a tough skin. I usually glance at them for a second, chuckle, and throw them away.

It's one of the things black columnists in America endure.
I've spoken with black columnists from all over the country, from the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page to USA Today's DeWayne Wickham, and they all tell me they get similar letters. Like me, most of them have developed thick skins. Some simply throw away envelopes with no return addresses without ever looking at them.

For some, I can only shake my head.
How do I "go back to Africa" when I've never been there? How do you respond to people who say there was no crime before blacks came to America, especially since blacks have been here since we became a nation?
There's no answering those folks. They've made up their minds. They don't like black people. End of story.

But others, I suspect from my letters, really do think that racism is dead, and that African-Americans continue to harp on a dead subject.
   To some extent, they're right.
   Some black folks believe there's a racist conspiracy behind why it rained last week. They blame all of their ills on racism. It serves as a handy scapegoat for some who haven't gotten everything they want. If only there had been no racism, they might argue, I would have been a millionaire today.
   Out of fairness, though, some white folks do the same. If only there had been no affirmative action, they might say, they would have been chief executive officer of some major corporation.
   We blame each other a lot for our ills when sometimes the blame lies elsewhere.

In fact, the overt racism that used to foam at much of America's mouth is, for the most part, gone.
Blacks can vote now. We no longer have to worry about drinking from the wrong water fountain. We can sit at lunchroom counters and ride at the front of the bus.

But covert racism remains.
Blacks are stereotyped. We're followed around in stores and other places, classified as one of the "types" to keep an eye out for as potential shoplifters. People don't get jobs because of their skin color. We're stopped by police, simply for driving into certain areas.

Some would suggest that the people who get stopped by police or followed in stores are probably the kinds of people who deserve harassment.
Yet all sorts of black people have suffered from it: middle-class, middle-age black folks; college professors; even a well-known national talk show host.
For blacks, it often doesn't matter how rich you are, how educated you are, how old you are. The only thing that seems to matter, it seems, is your blackness.

Unfortunately, while many blacks are guilty of looking at everything as being racial, many whites are just as guilty of looking at nothing as being racial.
Then, when things happen like the two black boys who were kidnapped last year by a couple of white men in a pickup, called racial names, beaten and then dumped in another part of town, many whites are often shocked.

The type of racism that my ancestors endured is gone, thank goodness.
But racism remains, and few blacks would honestly deny that.
It's hard to get over something when you're reminded of it daily.

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

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