The New Racism : Stereotypes Haunt Black Achievement

WASHINGTON —  Once, the positions they now hold and the success they enjoy were virtually impossible for black Americans to achieve. A wall of racism stood in the way.

But the civil rights movement of the 1960s helped clear the way. Then, their own ambition, skill and hard work did the rest.

Now--as politicians, educators, lawyers, doctors, communicators--they can enjoy the fruits of their achievement. For black people who have made it to the top, the rewards should seem especially sweet.

And yet--

Sometimes, lingering manifestations of prejudice still get in the way.

Wanted Car Parked

Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young remembers coming out of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York when he was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. “Just because I was black, some guy wanted me to park his car,” he said. “I’m going to my car, and he gives me the keys to park his. I took the keys, and said: ‘Welcome to the Waldorf.’ I turned, and the guys who park the cars were elderly white gentlemen in uniform. And I . . . gave it to one of them, and they said: ‘Oh, I’m sorry Mr. Ambassador,’ and I said: ‘No problem.’

“They were quite apologetic, but I don’t think he ever realized what happened.”

Bev Smith, who is the host of a radio talk show in Washington, remembers an incident when she moved into a condominium complex:.

“When I lived in North Miami Beach, I had a little villa. I thought I had arrived, child. You had a private guard . . . it was patrolled 24 hours a day. My back yard was right on a lake. It was just wonderful; it was just like heaven to me.

“I was cleaning up and unpacking boxes and this lady who had a very thick accent knocked on the door and said: ‘Dahling, is the lady home?’

“It stunned me. I don’t know why I didn’t say, ‘I’m the lady.’ But for some reason I didn’t.”

Smith added that later, when her daughter came home from college on a visit and went to the pool to swim, “the lady walked up, knocked on the door and said: ‘Girlie’--for some reason she never asked my name--’You know, we don’t allow the help to swim.’ I said: ‘That’s a marvelous rule. I live here; I’m the lady of the house.’ She went all red.

“She said: ‘You’re the lady of the house? You didn’t tell me that.’ I said: ‘You didn’t ask. You assumed that I was the cleaning lady. You didn’t even ask me my name. My name is Beverly Smith, but most people call me Bev.’

“She said: ‘Bev Smith--the lady on the radio?’ After that, her behavior changed because she thought I was somebody.”

For the most part, the racism that was once exemplified by segregated lunch counters, water fountains and schools has been trampled under by civil rights marches and eliminated by federal laws.

But, in many ways, the struggle against more subtle racism--the white habit of mistaking black men for parking attendants or the assumption that “the lady of the house” is always white in a wealthy neighborhood--is the toughest to win.

Some call it New Racism or Racism of the Eighties. James Gibson, director of the Rockefeller Foundation’s national programs on equal opportunity, says this kind of bias is “an incubator of prejudicial attitudes and stereotypes,” which “maintains social and cultural isolation.”

Such racism is particularly obvious to economically successful blacks who otherwise seem to have gained acceptance in society. The incidents they encounter run from the pathetically laughable to the fearsome, and they meet it with anger, with disenchantment and often with biting humor that holds back the rage.

Here are some of their stories.

Barbara Fouch, president of a public relations firm in Los Angeles, recalls a business meeting:

“Our company was called upon to make a major presentation before a well-known white ad agency with which we were going to do a joint venture for the City of Los Angeles.

“We walked in the door. In the group was one white male who was my senior account executive. I was the only female and there were two black males. We got to this particular presentation and nobody took the time to settle on who was whom. We went through our presentation and these people responded; it must have been an hour to an hour and a half of back and forth with them talking to us like we were children.

“All of the eye contact, all of the focus, and finally, the approval and the initiation toward the final agreement were all directed toward Wallace Graham, my white staff person, without their ever having even asked specifically who was the president of the company or having gotten titles.

‘Head Honcho’

“There was, of course, this assumption that the one white man in the group was the head honcho. And it was as we walked out the door that he said: ‘Incidentally, this is Mrs. Fouch, who is president of Fouch, Roseboro & Associates.’

“This is not at all uncommon. In fact we just kind of laugh about it now. You sort of expect it. What can you do? You’d walk around angry all the time if you didn’t.”

Dr. Lillian Beard, a Washington pediatrician, describes attitudes she meets in both professional and social situations:

“As a physician, I find in serving on boards and committees with my white colleagues, the assumption is that my patient load must be the urban poor. They will look to me to say: ‘Well, that must be a real problem in your patient population’--(meaning) low birth weight, single parent households, problems of teen-aged pregnancy, high infant mortality--all the major problems.

“I usually pause to really listen closely and repeat to myself what the comment was so that I don’t just fly off the handle. Then I usually say something to the effect that, ‘Well, it is a major problem and it’s one that we have to look at more closely and examine because something has to be done. However, I am not able to use my patient population as an example.’

“They’re usually amazed, because among my patient families are people in the diplomatic corps, congressional people and a number of professional people . . . .

‘Boogie Music’

“Some years ago, we arrived at someone’s home and rang the bell. We heard from the other side of the door: ‘They’re here.’

“We heard very quiet music as we were ringing the doorbell. We had been in that house less than one minute before the tempo and the type of music changed. It was like, get the boogie music. And in less than 15 minutes someone said: ‘Well, don’t you all want to dance?’ We looked at each other and said: ‘No, we’ve been dancing all day.’ Then we laughed. They didn’t laugh. They looked nervous, and then they began to laugh. They didn’t get it.

“My husband is 6-4 1/2. Whenever we’re in that kind of a setting, we do a countdown on how long it will take for someone to ask him does he play ball.

“We could be at a judicial gathering, and someone would not know he’s a judge. And they’d come over and say: ‘Those Lakers are really something, aren’t they?’

“In the next breath the person would say: ‘Did you play ball?’ Of course, he did not.

“In trying to find a common ground of conversation, they would feel that sports would be the common ground. Or dancing.”

Ronald Kirk, assistant city attorney in Dallas and that city’s federal lobbyist, meets subtle racism when shopping:

“There are lots of upscale men’s shops I just won’t frequent. You see white guys walk in and somebody greets them at the door, asking: ‘Would you like a beer? How about a Coca-Cola?’ And I could walk in, and I would think: ‘God, (what would I have to do) before somebody decided they were going to wait on me.’

“Within the last year I was thinking of trading my BMW, so I went to a BMW dealer. I felt like if I shot myself in the head these people would probably hand me a mop and ask me to clean it up before somebody would come out and presume that this black guy was interested in buying a BMW or Porsche.

“I was actually offended enough by one of these sales guys that I called up and discussed it with the owner of the dealership. I sat there forever while the salesman talked to some other customer. It was like a walk back in time . . . .

Different Treatment

“You can’t help but notice the difference in the way other people are being treated and the way you’re being treated.

“I used to spend a lot more time trying to understand that motive. Now my way of dealing with it is to give that money to somebody who appreciates it.”

Kirk also remembers an experience similar to Mayor Young’s, with a twist:

“At a social event, a guy handed me his car keys when he was coming out. I’m standing there waiting on the valet to bring my car. It’s like you’re black and you’re there, so they presume you’re a service person even though you have on a tuxedo just like them. There’s this man handing me his keys.

“They’re just used to it. They come in. They see somebody black. So they come over and say: ‘Check my coat, park my car.’ So I just took his keys out to the parking lot, along with mine, and threw them in a flower pot. I didn’t say anything, I just smiled. I thought, it’ll be a long time before he does this again.”

Mayor Young remembers traveling with a bodyguard:

“Last August, I was speaking at Aspen, and Aspen is not the kind of place where you wear a shirt and tie, and I was speaking right up until the time when I had to run to the plane. So I went to the plane in blue jeans and a plaid shirt with the police officer who is (my) security.

“I’ve been traveling all over the country, and nobody’s ever raised a problem, but both in Aspen and in Denver the airport security guards didn’t want to recognize the badge as a right of Atlanta’s executive protection unit to be armed. I’ve never had any trouble when I’m dressed up.

“I finally told my protection officer: ‘Why don’t you just put your handcuffs on me and tell ‘em I’m your prisoner.’

“In Denver, I presented my frequent flier card and asked about the possibility of an upgrade. The airport security guard turned (to the white guard) and said: ‘You know you won’t be able to get any liquor in first class if you’re carrying a weapon.’ My guard said: ‘That’s no problem; I don’t drink anyway.’

“He didn’t realize I was the mayor of Atlanta. I was just a nigger in blue jeans.

“I said: ‘That’s all right. Forget it. Let’s go on (in tourist class).’ So we got on and sat down. Then about 20 minutes later, he came up, very apologetic and asked us to move up to first class after he realized I was the mayor of Atlanta and that that’s Delta’s home base.”

Ronald Walters, political science professor at Howard University, recalls trying to get a taxi:

“I got in this line out at National Airport. I was going home. Hot as hell. One of those hot days. Hot nights, even. I was in the back of the line, and the white dispatcher said: ‘Where are you going?’ I said: ‘I’m going to Silver Spring.’ I’m looking at him, and he’s looking at these cabs. Then he picks me from the back of the line to get in this cab.

“I’m trying to come to grips with this magnanimous gesture. Well, it wasn’t until I was a quarter of the way that I realized this (taxi) doesn’t have any air conditioning.

“He’s putting the white passengers in the taxis with air conditioning and put me in with this guy. I was mad all the way home, but then I had the dilemma that I don’t want to shortchange this brother (the black cab driver); the brother is trying to make some money.

In the Middle

“So racism put in the kind of trick where I’m between the wrong that was done to me and doing further harm to this brother who was trying to make a living.

“So I just rode and sweated these 15 miles out to Silver Spring, mad as I can be. Done wrong, you know. And I’m a Ph.D. I said: ‘This is America. Here I am.’

“In hotels, they give you the worst rooms, where there’s no air conditioning or something’s wrong with the heater. I remember my wife and I moved three times trying to get a decent room at a fine hotel in Atlanta about a year and a half ago.

“You go in a restaurant they’ll seat you in the worst places. I used to annoy my wife because I had a habit of watching where the maitre d’ went. But after a while, she said: ‘You know, you’re right; you have to do that because if you don’t, they’ll seat you in the worst place.

“They expect you to go around them on the sidewalk. It’s a power thing; it’s subliminal. It goes back to the old days when blacks literally got off the sidewalk for white people.”

Paranoia? Oversensitivity? Do black people attribute to racism incidents that are simply cases of bad manners, inattention and inefficiency that might happen to anyone?

Walters acknowledges that black “antennae” are especially sensitive to slights that white people may not notice. But whites do not have to worry about being racially discriminated against, he says, adding that repeated incidents have given blacks “empirical confirmation that you ain’t crazy.”

Kirk believes that the lingering daily racism black people meet comes about because, integration notwithstanding, white people still have to “work through being comfortable dealing with somebody of color who’s not ‘inferior,’ not like the nanny who brought them up.”

In some situations, Walters says of racism, “You’re looking for it because you’ve become accustomed to the fact that you’re under suspicion” of stealing or committing some other crime. “You’re under less suspicion if you look like you’re middle-class, but you’re under suspicion nevertheless. That’s the weight racism puts on you.”

Added Stress

This weight can be overbearing, says Fouch, when it comes on top of other daily concerns. “Life itself is filled with enough stresses,” she says. “You don’t need to add the component of race on a day-to-day basis.”

But it is there, of course. And those who study and live the phenomenon say daily racism’s ultimate effects are far reaching.

For example, Walters, who is president of the National Congress of Black Faculty, believes the daily manifestations are part of the larger prejudice that keeps many scholarly journals from publishing black academics. “There’s this thing out there that says black intellectuals really don’t matter,” he says.

“Over time (daily racism) could erode the black middle-class and stop its growth,” says Gibson of the Rockefeller Foundation, asserting that many black people may withdraw from social situations “because of the prospect of this kind of racism.” That withdrawal would, of course, take them out of the social stream, where many professional and career opportunities exist, he says.

Withdrawing would be harmful, but having to endure racism exacts a toll too, says Charles King, who, as director of the Urban Crisis Center in Atlanta conducts seminars to help businesses, schools and government agencies deal with racial problems in their organizations.

He says that during the two-day sessions he asks what it is like “being black in a white-oriented society.”

Answers, King says, include that it’s like:

--”Going to war and nobody gives you a weapon.”

--”Skating on ice and only white people know where the thin places are.”

--”Picking up a hand grenade. You pull the pin, look around and you don’t know where to throw it.”

These descriptions may sound extreme. But, sometimes, daily racism can be truly threatening.

Elevator Confrontation

Bev Smith, the Washington radio talk show host, remembers leaving work after a show on which she had strongly criticized President Reagan’s policies:

“A guy was standing in the elevator, a white guy. I came down from the ninth floor. Generally, when we’d come down we’d come down in a pack--my producer, my daughter and others. But for some reason, I don’t know why, I was by myself. I get on and this guy says: ‘Excuse me, I’m waiting on Bev Smith.’ I thought, here’s a fan.

“He called me a ‘nigger bitch,’ and he spit at me. I never even said anything to management. All I said to him was: ‘Do you feel better now?’ I was floored, absolutely floored. He looked at me and ran.”

King says that successful blacks can face a terrible conflict. On the one hand, he says, they “are looking for something negative to happen every day,” but on the other, successful black people “always have to pretend that things are OK. It’s like being a chameleon. You have to change colors, adopt a culture.”

As difficult as that is, it seems far easier than eliminating daily racism. “You could spend your whole life doing race relations seminars,” said Young, who, like many black people, says he uses humor to soften the blow from much daily racism.

Successful blacks owe part of that success to perseverance in the face of racism, and those quoted in this story seem unlikely to let it beat them down. But, they say, they believe that for the foreseeable future, race and racism will remain a peculiar American preoccupation.

Says Dr. Beard: “Regardless of how you’re dressed or what your general appearance is or how you speak or what degrees or letters may be behind your name, when you walk through any door you will always be described as the black whatever it is.”

And Bev Smith will remain alert for racism’s daily assaults.

“I’m always on guard,” she says. “I wish I could feel a false sense of security. I would like to know what that feels like.”