We Got to Live Together: A Note on MLK Day

I went to a Martin Luther King Day event at a local college last week. There were some encouraging things about it, and some discouraging things. Among the former: the deep connection to Christian faith, the warmth and charm of the gospel singers and the sweet little girls performing a “praise dance,” and the main speaker, whose theme was more or less “now it’s up to us.” Among the latter: a recitation of Langston Hughes’ well-know poem “A Raisin In the Sun,” with its implicit threat of violence in the context of a situation of direct oppression that no longer exists, and the fact that there were very few young black men in attendance, partly no doubt because there are far fewer of them in college.

Toward the end of the event ushers handed out paper and pencils to the audience and asked us to write down something that we would like to see happen toward the advancement of racial harmony. I wrote that I would like to see black and white discuss their differences openly and with good will on both sides.

Good will is what is conspicuously lacking in our racial situation (as in so many others). If “racism” can be defined straightforwardly as race-based hostility, then what we have now is a standoff between two forms of racism. I had a conversation recently with a white man who confessed that he had given up trying not to be racist. He had decided that it was silly and useless to pretend that black people in general are not going to look out for their own above all else, and he saw no reason for white people to do otherwise. He had a lot of evidence for his first point, some of which was irrational and some not—for instance, a couple of situations locally in which black people had gained control of some institution and looted it for themselves and their cronies (doing so rather recklessly, which is why they got caught).

What struck me about this is that it’s more or less the same attitude that many blacks have. They assume that whites are racist and react accordingly. Any conflict with a white is assumed to be driven at least partly by racism. I dare say most of us have seen this in action, especially in the workplace, when the simplest disagreement, something that would be worked out straightforwardly (not necessarily happily) between two members of the same race becomes a racial minefield and of course a potential lawsuit. In fact it’s probably true that almost all interaction between whites and blacks is a minefield, except in situations where the participants really know and trust each other.

Needless to say, both sides often end up wary and paranoid and behaving in ways that confirm the suspicions of the other. And there is always enough foundation for suspicion to make it seem the obvious and prudent path. The naïve assumption of the civil rights movement, that our real differences are superficial and that our prejudices therefore are also superficial gave way long ago to a recognition, not always confessed, that the two peoples are different in real and significant ways and that it isn’t easy to bridge the gap.

What can we do to break this cycle? How do we get to a place where we can approach the problem with an assumption of good will on each side? I’ve been saying for many years now that only supernatural help in the form of Christian faith and love will ever have the power to do it. But there’s one thing in the natural realm that would help a great deal: for each group to recognize how much it needs the other. Try to imagine the United States without either its white or its black population: it would be a totally different country, and one that would be missing a great deal of its richness and vitality.

In racism there is an implicit assumption that things would be much better for each group if the other did not exist. That’s a false assumption. For all its past violence and oppression, and all its present tension, the connection of European and African cultures in the United States (and in the Americas in general) has enriched both. God, as we know, can bring good out of even so great an evil as slavery, but he generally expects a good deal of human cooperation with his providence. At any rate there is no separating us now, at least nothing that would not involve violence as great as that which brought us together. We had best accept the verdict of the old Sly and the Family Stone song: we got to live together—accept it on a very deep level, and live accordingly.