Gregory Freeman: Invisible Walls Of Mistrust Separate Us P-D 2/31/1992

Headline: INVISIBLE WALLS OF MISTRUST SEPARATE US
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman - Column

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Sun. May 31, 1992
Section: NEWS, Page: 4B, Edition: LATE FIVE STAR

WHEN IT COMES to race relations, how many of us really sit down and talk with people of other races about what we really think of them - or our thoughts about people of their race?

The question came to mind last week while sitting through a meeting last week. Post-Dispatch reporters and editors meet on a regular basis with black readers to discuss our coverage, why stories were covered the way they were and what the newspaper can do to improve its coverage of African-Americans.

During last week's meeting, the discussion turned to the Rodney King verdict and the ensuing riots in Los Angeles. One participant told us how the situation there had inspired him to sit down one day over lunch with a Jewish man he had known for years. The two decided to drop all pretenses, dispense with all the niceties and honestly discuss what they felt about each other's people. The results were eye-opening.
The Jewish man talked about how he was troubled because he believed that blacks had been given rights and had not taken advantage of them. He said he was tremendously bothered by blacks constantly killing one another.
The black man discussed his problems with Jews in this country - how he felt that Jews had been the key beneficiaries of this nation's civil rights movement, not blacks, and how he believed that Jews now had abandoned blacks and had in some cases become blacks' harshest critics.

The black man told this group last week how much he and his friend learned from this experience. He told of how each got an honest assessment of what the other thought of the other's group. He told of how this conversation had brought the two closer together as each realized that his views were stereotypical of an entire group but did not really apply on an individual basis. He explained how the discussion made him and his friend understand why each other felt as he did.
''We felt each other's pain, '' he said.

Why can't more people have conversations like these? Imagine what we could learn, and how we could help foster interpersonal relationships, if more of us engaged in these sorts of conversations?

For many people, the only place that they get together with people who are different from themselves is at work or at school. Because of that, of course, people are often reluctant to engage in really honest conversations out of fear that what they say will be taken out of context or because they simply don't want to rock the boat. We have to work and go to school with these people, for goodness sake. Why bring up these matters?

To be sure, there is a certain amount of risk in holding such conversations. If your point is taken the wrong way, the conversation could foster some resentment in the person with whom you're conversing.

But there are good reasons behind holding such conversations. Discussions of this sort help us to understand ourselves and to understand others. And they get us to look at people as the individuals that we all are.
Suppose this were done by thousands of people on a one-on-one basis? What if we could sit down with people we know of different races and have honest discussions - not heated arguments, mind you, but sensible discussions - about how we perceive others? Just think of all that we could learn. We might not agree with one another's positions, but we would open channels of communications and begin to realize a great deal, both about ourselves and about others.

In Europe, the Berlin Wall has been torn down. But here in America we continue to have invisible walls that separate us, black from white, yellow from brown, rich from poor.
We've lived here, side by side, for hundreds of years. It's sad that we've never really taken the time to understand each other.
Why should race continue to be such a major issue in this country? Why are feelings on this issue so strong, on both sides of the fence? There are so many other issues that need to be addressed. What can we do to get these issues of race behind us?

One of the first steps is to begin talking - and to try to understand. For from understanding would surely come an easing of tensions that sometimes make us feel so contemptuous of one another.
But if I never understand why you feel as you do, and you never understand why I feel as I do, we will never resolve our differences. And we'll never be able to move on to the next pressing issue.
So much can happen if we can just begin to feel each other's pain.

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

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