Where’s the race?

Being-“white-ever” in Philadelphia—another take

Philadelphia Magazine, recently tweaked as the "urban magazine with suburban sensibilities" has an article that attempts to tell the untold story about race relations in Philadelphia. It's disappointing to say the least. The gist of the article is that blacks have so co-opted discussions about race that white people are afraid to say anything. I have something to say.

I think it has everything to do with where you live, how you live and how you were raised. I actually live in Fairmount where the author said he's spent time, so I've heard many of the same types of stories he relates. I don't find them shocking, because I've been hearing these "scary stories" all my life from people who usually seem to have an agenda for telling them. Here's a story that the author might find shocking. One of my neighbors, not much older than me, once told his teen daughter that if she ever brought a n**** into his house, he'd kill them both. The daughter sometimes uses the n-word in her conversations, but less so, particularly as her own daughter's best friend is mixed-race African American. Major shift, in only two generations.

BOO!

As the author states, about a decade ago, my not so lily white community had ended a longstanding "White-ween" tradition the weekend before Halloween. In previous generations, Halloween had become a dangerous time for their kids. I get that. I understand that racism aside, these parents were just looking out for their kids. The practice has pretty much died out, mostly over the evolved outrage of white Fairmounters, but also because the perceived need to "have our own and separate" doesn't really exist anymore.

Occasionally, not so often, I still hear the same tired stories about rude black kids without costumes who troll for candy on Halloween. I say, geeze, it's just candy, give it or not, but get a life. The open class/race warfare mentality that so inflamed neighborhoods like ours 20 years ago seems to have receded into a no-man’s land of uneasy innuendo and post-racial complexity.

Everybody Hits!

The author also neglects to mention the Fairmount Sports Association which because of its utilitarian need to suit up 6-9 teams in four divisions, has welcomed baseball playing kids of all colors for decades. Is it superficially boring of me to note (above), the racial heterogeneity of the kids and the fact that their coaches are, in order, white, black, Asian and Arab?

I "stoop-sat" last summer, with the association president and a board member and they told me about a kid several blocks north of 28th and Girard (very scary neighborhood) who came down to the clubhouse to enroll with $80 in bills and change he'd gotten from his piggy bank. He wanted to play that bad. They refused his money and signed him up. Didn’t think twice about it. These big, white, jock Fairmount boys had tears in their eyes when they talked about this kid. Without fanfare or fuss, my son and I also gave the little man an extra bat, sports bag and a couple of balls. It wasn’t about color, but about doing something nice and making a small difference in the life of a kid.

For decades, Von Colln field and FSA have done more to ease integration in this city than all of the affirmative action or press coverage combined. Read Temple Sociologist Sherri Grasmuck’s prize-winning, excellent Protecting Home: Class, Race, and Masculinity in Boys' Baseball for a better researched, far richer, more nuanced appreciation of race relations Philly-style.

I walk the streets almost every day and see black guys better dressed and probably making more money at law firms, corporations and in city government than I make. Good for them. I am in no way compelled to approach them or their less well-dressed/endowed brothers and sisters and have a heart-to-heart about race. What's the point? What would I say of relevance to them? What would this author say to black people if his fear of racial backlash wasn't there? Get a job. Stop making babies you can't support? Stay off drugs and welfare? Stay in school? Use a condom? Get married? Blacks only need to go Mayor Nutter, Bill Cosby or a dozen other opinion maker/leaders for those messages. What's the value of listening to a white writer who can't seem to decide whether he has a chip on his shoulder or not?

Yeah, there are neighborhoods you never go into, not because they're black, but because they're just plain scary. So you avoid them. That's not racist. That's just street sense. There are adjacent blocks where the occupants are two-parent working families in neat, attractive houses. I have friends there I wouldn't think twice about visiting. IMHO, the author is a fool for letting his son live off campus near Temple. You don’t need to read today’s Inquirer headlines to get it. One quick trip up Broad Street as a college student, I knew what I needed to know 30 years ago.

My youngest son goes to a school where he is among the .5% racial minority. His school is filled with the children of black and Hispanic one and two parent families who'd give their blood to make sure their kids get a top education. And they do. The school consistently ranks miles above the best schools in the state on PSSA scores.

Let me add here, that neither I, my wife or my kids have ever been mugged. We're lucky, or smart, or both, I dunno. Whatever we are, we're not as obsessed by these issues as the author seems to be. The worst racial incident I ever experienced, living in this "inner city" 32 years was tapping a black guy on the shoulder who got pissed at me because, from behind, I mistook him for a colleague. His response was, "What, we all look the same to you?"

Whatever, dude. Where others see fear and decline, I see hope and genuine change. Not everywhere. Not in the press. Slowly, incrementally, on the street. Where I live.