A few weeks ago, a friend of mine suggested that the Obama presidential bid might usher in a new round of overt racism in our country; that it might once again be popular to hate people because of their skin color.  I suggested that Racism might be the New Black!  I got the laugh, which is all that’s really important. 

But his comment got me to thinking about what racism really is now in this country.  I say ‘now’ because it has changed significantly even since I was a kid.   

A little background; I’ve been a Californian (northern California and southern California) since I was a very tiny baby.  My folks are from the same small town in north-east Mississippi. They left Mississippi before I was born and raised me here.  During the summers, though, I spent a great deal of time in Mississippi, visiting both sets of relatives.   

My Mom’s family has lived in northeast Mississippi since the end of the Civil War.  My great-great(-great?) grandfather was a poor Irish farmer who got off a boat in New Orleans and was immediately conscripted into the Confederate Army.  It wasn’t his war, but he got to fight in it.  He certainly wasn’t in any position to own any slaves.  He and his descendants are buried together (at least the dead ones) in this small Mississippi town.   My Dad’s family moved there in the 50’s when my Grandfather took a job there as a civil engineer.  My Mom’s family are salt-of-the-earth Baptists and my Dad’s family are more worldly Methodists.  Their churches are directly across the street from one another.  One sprinkles and one dunks. 

When I was a kid, I remember a cousin of mine saying, “black folks are just different than white folks” as a way of explaining why they couldn’t be trusted.  Even then, we knew not to say the ‘N’ word: it was crude and ugly and might get your ass beaten.  Of course, we’re all adults now.  The cousin I used to argue with has since become quite liberal, and even started a liberal weekly newspaper.  Another cousin married a wonderful black man and they are raising a passel of black kids that her mother and father, my aunt and uncle, couldn’t be more proud of.   

Things have changed for the better there, that’s certain, but racism is still there, even in the people you expect to be the most enlightened. Recently, a different aunt wanted to buy a house in her neighborhood so that she could get it away from the “slum lords.”  Slum lords?  In rural Mississippi?  Oh, that’s right, she means “people who will rent to black people.”  And this is from the worldliest of my aunts!   

So here’s my big theory: racism is no longer about the color of your skin, if it was ever about that minor, cosmetic difference.  The color of your skin (or your clothing, or your hairstyle, etc.) is just a symptom that you might not THINK the same way I do.  That makes you unpredictable.  Unpredictable makes you frightening.  Your skin color doesn’t scare me, but that you might not react to me the way I would like is very scary!   

Skin color is simply a visual cue, a way of making a quick mental image of a person.  Some of us are less afraid of people that may think differently than we do than others, but none of us are completely immune, no matter how much we think we are.   My slum-fighting aunt has a very close black friend, but before you say ‘token’, let assure you that she has not befriended this woman because she’s black, but because she’s a very talented writer, and my aunt loves to surround herself with very talented creative people – regardless of race, religion or creed.  She understands them.   

Clothes are a similar way of saying “I think like you do.”  I’ve often wondered why the western business suit is the norm for businessmen nearly everywhere in the world.  One wears the uniform of a businessman to announce to all his business acquaintances that his mind works the same way theirs do; that there are not going to be cultural barriers to doing business.   Mohawks, piercings and tattoos used to be more significant of the opposite: an announcement that you do not think the way ‘normal’ people do.  These things seem tame, even mainstream, now that so many suburban kids and malls have taken it up.  If you want to prove yourself different from the norm, you need to go in for some serious body-modifications.  Or cover your face and head with a shawl. 

So, back to Obama.  He and his campaign have done an excellent job communicating all the things about him that say, “I think like you white folk do.  Nothing to be scared of here.”  Here’s a partial list of things not to be scared of: he was raised by his white mother and grandmother; in Hawaii (not the streets of Chicago); he went to Harvard; his black father was not around for most of his childhood.   

(I’m not trying to say that President-elect Barack Obama has a ‘white’ background, and I don’t try to imagine the kinds of hurdles he had to overcome growing up as he did, where he did, with the skin-color he has.  Blackness, unlike our clothing choices, can’t be changed.) 

BBC Blogger Matthew Price wrote an interesting article while covering the McCain campaign.  He paraphrased why some Obama supporters had switched to the McCain camp,  

      “It boiled down to a sense that he (Obama) was just a little bit too different. He seemed to have a different outlook, something they weren't quite sure about. Something unfamiliar.” 

Here’s a challenge: if you think you’re immune to this, imagine yourself in an unfamiliar city somewhere in the US, and you need to stop and ask directions.  There are four men on the curb waiting for a bus, all about the same age, height and weight; one is white and wears a business suit, one is black and wears a track suit, one is swarthy and wears a turban-and-robes, and the last is Hispanic and you can see tattoos on his bare arms.  From which of these men do you ask directions?   

OK, unfair question. There are a million other details you would factor in.  But I’ll make this prediction about you: you’ll direct your question to the guy that you guess will give you a useful answer with the least amount of hassle and time.  Part of that will be picking the guy that thinks the same way that you do.  He’ll understand what you need right off without a lot of explaining, and he’ll give you directions that make sense to you and also don’t require a lot of explaining.   

That, dear readers, is the New Black.  It’s also exactly why I voted for Obama.  He and his campaign convinced me that he was best choice to give us the most useful answers to our big national questions.  Where are we going?  How do we get there? 

Thank God we’ll have a president we’ll be able to ask questions of!

Next up:  a game designer's fantasies of being President of the United States!