Racism and Reality

Mark Cuban is the billionaire owner of the NBA Dallas Mavericks. He’s not the typical team owner. At games, he acts like a fan – wearing t-shirts and jeans, berating referees and even storming onto the court when he sees a bad call. Unlike a fan, though, the refs don’t eject Cuban for his behavior. Instead, he gets fined – $1.6 million and counting.

Cuban doesn’t think twice about the fines. He’s rich enough to say whatever he darn well pleases – courtside and anywhere else. The latest comment that raised eyebrows was his admission that he’d cross the street if he saw a black kid in a hoodie late at night.

Cuban said what many of us won’t even admit to ourselves – No one is initially comfortable with people who appear different.

Part of our human survival mechanism – a vestige of the fight-or-flight response of our prehistoric ancestors – is that we constantly gauge our environment to determine how we should behave. That mechanism is why we drop our guard among friends but pay close attention when we’re in unfamiliar situations. Think of the teenager who visits Grandma in the nursing home. Or the introvert who takes a wrong turn into a rowdy biker bar. And there isn’t a man in the world who reacts the same way in a roomful of ladies as he would in a sports bar with the guys.

Engaging our radar when we see someone of another race does not make us racist – no more than it makes Junior an ageist, or the sports fan a sexist. It makes us human. But our natural defense mechanism can become racism when we don’t separate the person from the packaging. It may sound easy.  It’s not.

Recently, at dusk during a steamy drive through the backroads of the Florida Panhandle, it became obvious I needed a caffeine boost to get safely back to Jacksonville. I pulled into the dimly-lit parking lot of a run-down convenience store. To reach the door, I needed to get by a young man who was chatting with a young lady. A well-muscled young black man. With lots of tattoos. Wearing a white “wifebeater” t-shirt, do-rag, and baggy jeans drooping halfway to his knees exposing at least 12 inches of plaid boxer shorts.

What would you do?

I could have walked a wide circle around him. Foolish and disrespectful, I thought. Instead, avoiding eye contact, I mumbled “excuse me” as I started to brush by him. The young man brightly said, “Here you go” as he turned to make room. I cracked a half-smile, partly in relief, as I walked inside.

A few minutes later, the man and woman had moved their conversation to the drink cooler, right in front of the glass door where my Diet Mountain Dew was hiding. The man sensed he was blocking my way, smiled, and moved down the aisle saying, “I’m sorry, sir. There you go.” Sir. More manners than at least a couple of my daughter’s prep school dates from her teenage years. I returned his smile, said a big ‘thank you,’ and, re-caffeinated, drove 130 miles safely home.

It’s smart to be wary of strangers. But it’s not okay to assume we know a person’s character by color, clothes or other characteristic. Yes, that sounds pretty obvious – even insulting – until you’re in a dark parking lot or some other unfamiliar place when ideals come face-to-face with reality. How we handle those situations help shape how we view people who appear to be different – but may not be so different after all.