Not Your Grandparents’ Norman Rockwell

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I feel extraordinarily lucky to have such a diverse group of friends. My white swan girlfriend’s wedding was a boozy illustration for It’s a Small World After All. Jeepers, there was even a drag queen there. It sounds cheesy, I know, but one of the things I love most about my life is that I often hang around in groups as mismatched in appearance as Punky Brewster. It’s like living in a bag of Skittles.

One of these days, though, I’m afraid I’ll get cocky precisely because of this sundry crew and get myself in trouble. I’ve found that sometimes the people who are the most “disturbed” by racial issues are those who haven’t spent much time around people who are different from them ― and I’m not just talking about white folk here. Other times, I think people just don’t know the sanctioned way to react.

Take, for example, a recent lunch. A friend and I walked in first, and I told the waitress we needed a table for six, when our group actually consisted of five. When our waitress finally asked about our elusive sixth diner, I (the only white person at the table) replied, “Oh, sorry, we actually only have five people. We left another restaurant to come here, and I just saw a bunch of black people coming after me so I ran and didn’t really count.”

My friends went into chortles, but the waitress looked aghast. As if she’d swallowed a ninja throwing star. She looked around. As if trying to see where the paddy wagon would park when it came to fetch me.

Then again, do I have the right to make jokes like this? Are they even funny?

***

My son was 6 years old when we moved from Bellbrook to an inner city Dayton neighborhood and he began attending a school at which he was one of only two white kids in his class. One of the primary reasons I made the move was so he would grow up around kids who didn’t look like him. But I admit we were challenged with the school from the very start.

My son would ask me such questions as, “Why are there so many light-skin people in Bellbrook and so many dark-skin people in Dayton?” I’d reply with rambling diatribes about slavery, racism, redlining, school desegregation and white flight ― orations utterly befuddling to most young children. But since my son is, of course, a genius he understood tidbits.

That didn’t make school any easier. He came home nearly every day with tears and tales of being teased on the playground and in class. This, he didn’t understand. We went camping one weekend, and I found him rubbing charcoal from the fire pit on his face so he could “look like the kids at school and make friends.” Talk about a moment that will make a mother’s heart bleed.

So I talked to his teacher about it. She said she’d keep an eye out, but she had bigger problems. I talked to the assistant principal. She assured me such behavior would never be tolerated at the school, then abruptly got up from her desk and marched out of her office. I talked to the principal and received much the same response. All of them were black. I felt like a ludicrous putz whining about how my poor little white kid was being teased relentlessly to the point it was negatively affecting his ability to learn.

Finally, I moved my son to a different public school ― one in which more of his classmates looked like him. Thanks, in large part, to a swarmy superintendent.  Who also was black.

And that good ol’ white guilt just gets bigger and badder.

Then again, my son told me when I was interviewing him for a StoryCorps project a couple of years ago that he felt his generation’s biggest contribution to society would be that his peers truly don’t judge others based on how they look, who they choose to love or other extraneous factors. I still like to think raising my son in the diverse world that is inner city Dayton helped him realize this.

***

This past summer, I was working out at RiverScape with a friend I call Muscles due to the fact that his arms are as big as my thighs. If there’s an ounce of fat on this man, I have no idea where it’s hidden.

A friend walked by and said hello. “I’m going to look just like him after this workout!” I chirped, nodding to Muscles.

“Wow, the sun must be much brighter than I think!,” my friend said as he walked on by.

I turned to Muscles. I knew he’d heard this exchange. “I. Am. So. Sorry,” I said, horrified because my friend had noticed his skin color rather than his very obvious brawn. “He didn’t mean it like that.”

“Huh?” Muscles asked.

Was it silly of me to be offended when he was not? Is a comment racist if it’s not intended to be and just kind of slips out that way?

***

Readers, let us know what you think and share some of your stories. And please, get to The Dayton Art Institute before the Norman Rockwell exhibit has its last day in Dayton this Sunday, Feb. 5. Check the website for the museum’s extended hours. You may have to wait, but it will be worth it. I promise you will learn something surprising about this artist who so poignantly captured the joys and sorrows, the faith and the doubt that is quintessentially American.