In America's new Obama-forward, post racial world bluebirds follow me around all day

Recently, I decided to take my frozen food on vacation. Ok, there was the little matter of an inland hurricane and my determination not to lose hundreds of dollars worth of steaks, vension, and chicken in my freezer, but regardless of the circumstances, I recently visited D-bro Don in suburban Chicago.

I'm just going to lay it on the line. D-bro is racist. In fact, both D-bros are racist. Why they are racist is a mystery to my sister, mother, and I. My parents did not raise us to hate. It wasn't like my brothers had negative interactions with black people. My grandfathers used to use ethnic slurs, but mostly while watching basketball games on television. I don't recall there being any sort of hateful indoctrination or even overt racism anywhere in my childhood. I mean, who knows, maybe my grandfathers were conducting a covert program of race-hate for my brothers while they spent time together in the garage.

Our community was extraordinarily white. The closest we came to a minority in our grade school was a dark-complected kid who may or may not have been Hispanic or Native American. One African American family attended our church (Episcopalian), and I actually had something of a crush on the boy in that family. I was in grade school and he was in high school. His name was Kevin. Oh, first love. Deep sigh. But I digress. We grew up in a world free of racial strife. Our first interaction with other black students was in junior high school, and by then the politics of adolescence dictated who you hung with (people from your hood), and interracial dating was still strictly taboo. The lunchroom was wicked crowded and I don't remember ever noticing who ate with whom. I ate with kids from my all-white grade school. But the summer between sixths and seventh grade, a black family moved in the house two doors down and all hell broke loose.

The Whiteheads were your standard black middle class family. They had moved from Cincinnati with the major employer in town. Their children were the first people of color to attend the neighborhood grade school. The first ones EVER. In fact, they may have been the first black people to step foot in that building. Even the janitors and lunchroom ladies were white. Neither of their kids was in my class, so I have no idea how they got on. I imagine it was pretty damn tough to be plunked down from Cincy into lily-white backweeds Kentucky and stay above water. And the parents in our neighborhood practically had a fucking coronary. The kids seemed far less distraught. I tried to make them feel welcome--like I would have done for any other new kid. To this day I don't know why, but Paula (the girl closest in age to me) refused to interact with us. For all I know, some parent may have threatened her to stay away from their kids. Her younger brother was like an overgrown puppy dog who just wanted to follow the action around, but as he entered junior high school I think the fact that some parents didn't want a black boy in their house probably limited how close he could get to kids in the neighborhood. Eventually, he gave up as well. Probably with some relief for Paula and Chucky, our junior high school included the "black neighborhood" and was integrated.

Then, when we were all in high school, a curious thing happened. I noticed that Paula had black girlfriends over to her house. They were always from out of town. Her old neighborhood chums? Cousins? I have no idea. But I remember sitting outside with the gang on the block and staring at the Whitehead's place and wondering what the hell Paula did in there all day. Staying inside all summer would have been like imprisonment to me. I wondered why she never wanted our friendship. I supposed that she didn't feel included and didn't want to try. And I remember feeling like a failure because she didn't. I always felt is was OUR neighborhood and that included Paula and Chucky.

But my brothers were a bit older than me and they were too old to hang on the block by the time the Whiteheads moved in. Boys their age were more concerned about getting drafted into Vietnam. I sure don't remember there being any racial issues in our high school in the 70s. My brothers never had a black friend that I knew of, but I never knew either of them to spout racist rhetoric either.

But when I went to visit D-bro last, he slung racial epithets as easily as saying "good morning". It is clear that this is a comfortable part of his vernacular. I started a conversation with, "You know what I don't understand...." and he interjected, "why there are so many niggers in Chicago?" It was clear to me that saying something like this among his friends is considered high humor. I was also clear to me that he realized he had fucked up before it even finished coming out of his mouth. I gave him one of those "you have to be fucking kidding me" looks and we moved on, this time with a little bit more of a check on his language. I can hardly lecture a man on how to think in his own home. But having kicked him out of my house (when we were both in the Chicago area) for using such language in MY house, he is very clear on where I stand on the issue.

I have written before about how my brother and I disagree on social programs and politics. I have also written recently about how he does seem to have an open mind. So this racial bias perplexes me. Granted, he hangs around with lesser educated, country music lovin', gun totin' bubbas, but I grew up surrounded by them, and I'm not racist. Neither is my sister. Or my mother. I am looking forward to the day when he turns to me and asks me that relevant question about race and I can finally answer him. And I have decided if and when he does, I'm going to ask a question back. I'm going to ask him why, what possible justification could he have for discriminating against someone based on skin color?

I desperately want to help my brother on the road to getting the hell over himself. But like all people with screwed up thinking, they have to be ready for the message. When he's ready, I will be, too.

Why I talk to people who disagree with me

I like my brother. D-bro Don has an interesting mind. He is intelligent--as everyone in my family seems to be. And like the rest of us, he has strong opinions on things. My brother and I disagree on virtually every aspect of politics and social programs, but amazingly enough, we have a lot of common ground around gun issues. He is a die-hard Republican. I'm an aging and increasingly centrist Democrat. He revels in poking fun at "Obamalama". Finds it almost as amusing as I did poking fun at our former mental lightweight of a President.

On many issues, my brother can speak with some authority. He reads his local newspaper daily. He seems to have a handle on the national news. He is something of a student of the stock market. And he is extremely well versed on legislation concerning gun laws. Now neither of us is a trained economist or political scientist, so I figure that we both have a right to our respective opinions on the economy, wars, fossil fuel, and approaches to social programs. But my brother is a project manager for a large, urban contractor. He has worked on a variety of public projects, including the building and expansion of schools, hospitals, and public housing. In his job, he has come face-to-face with bureaucracy, Chicago-style. It didn't improve his concept of Chicago politics. He cares about his community. He reads the newspaper and scours the news for stories that affect his community. I suppose in his school district, the administrators are well paid. In fact, he told me that the superintendant of the Joliet public schools earns a half million dollars a year. This fact, which he supported by actually scanning and emailing me the newspaper article describing it, has sent him into a tizzy.

A half million dollars for a public school administrator is about $450,000 a year too much in my brother's view. D-bro has unusual ideas about academia, mostly formed from what others have told him and an ardent distrust of tenure. He can't believe that teachers are given an "lifetime prohibition on firing". Claims that tenure makes teachers lazy. Claims that it breeds bad teaching. I will admit that he would have no trouble finding ample support for his claims. However, in part of his rant this time, he turned to me and said in exasperation, "Can YOU explain why the hell they even give teachers tenure? What possible purpose can that serve."

To which I replied, "I sure can" and I proceeded to explain how tenure assured that professors (and I suppose also public school teachers) could teach controversial subjects without fear of being replaced by disagreeing administrators. I explained how researchers HAD to probe the cutting edge of areas like medicine, biology, astronomy, and physics, and how they often had to push up against borders that some might feel violate their moral or ethical standards. I explained why it is important for the advancement of knowledge that professors be granted autonomy in their work, and that public funds not be hamstrung by the vagaries of the political moment.

He did not concede the point, but I could tell he listened.

We talked about the future of education. I told him stories of the older faculty and their ideas about academia and how I believe they are the last of an old school mentality that professors are the keepers of knoweldge. We discussed my ideas that a college education is becoming just another commodity, and that the ivory towers are going to become an increasingly competitive marketplace where second-tier universities were going to be competing with student-focused community colleges, which have, in some states, begun offering bachelor's degrees. He listened. I could see him absorbing it all. In that mind of his, he is arranging all this information into an evolving opinion and outlook about education. I found that interesting. Interesting as hell. He listens.

The same way he listened after his rant the last time I visited. He was talking to me about the Endangered Species Act--specifically, the reintroduction of grey wolves into the western US. Understand that my brother is a lifetime member of the NRA, a hunter, and a subscriber to a variety of magazines that detail the issues from an "other than scientific perspective". My last visit, I remember quite clearly my brother saying, 'There is a reason they removed wolves from that environment in the first place."

I let that moment sink in for a minute. I wondered whether my brother really believed that wolves had no rightful place in the wild places of the United States. I wondered whether my brother had actually considered that he was, by all appearances, advocating for the extermination of an entire species from the face of the Earth. In a turn of events that shocked me more than anyone, I responded very softly. I shook my head and admitted it was a difficult issue. I expressed my empathy for ranchers who with a razor-thin profit margin were losing stock to wolves. I surmised that it didn't help that wolves were "smart" predators who worked in packs and seemed to be effective, efficient and deadly hunters. It is hard to believe that predators need help. They work with such precision to cull livestock herds. Yet, I explained that scientists have to consider the health of the ecosystem, the rights of the animals to space and land and respect for a natural history that took millenia to evolve. I explained that it didn't seem prudent to think of this strictly from an economic perspective. It didn't seem right to think of this strictly as an issue of property rights. It doesn't seem right to purposefully exterminate an entire species. I told him the truth. I told him that I didn't know what the best course of action was. Was it to compensate ranchers for their losses? Was it to raise prices of meat so that the consumer paid the price for the lost stock? Was it to raise prices on grazing land to fair-market value and then set up a compensation fund for stock losses? But there was one thing I did make clear. I told him I was fairly certain that the wrong thing to do was to shoot wolves into extinction. I just shook my head and told him, "Presumably humans are the smartest animals on the planet. Does that give us the right to make such a drastic and permanent decision? I'm not sure who among us has greater rights than the rights of an animal to exist. Who gets to make that decision for us? What if, after exterminating wolves, we figure out a viable solution to the problem?" In the end, I asked more questions than I answered, but still, he listened. And listening is one great habit of an open mind.

It is sometimes quite useful to talk to people who disagree with you.