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general (Roland Burris), a United States senator (Carol Moseley Braun), and a
sitting secretary of state, Jesse White, who had been the state�s leading
vote-getter only two years earlier. Because of the pioneering success of these
public officials, my own campaign was no longer a novelty-I might not have
been favored to win, but the fact of my race didn�t foreclose the possibility.
Moreover, the types of voters who ultimately gravitated to my campaign
defied the conventional wisdom. On the day I announced my candidacy for the
U.S. Senate, for example, three of my white state senate colleagues showed up
to endorse me. They weren�t what we in Chicago call �Lakefront Liberals�-the
so-called Volvo-driving, latte-sipping, white-wine-drinking Democrats that
Republicans love to poke fun at and might be expected to embrace a lost cause
such as mine. Instead, they were three middle-aged, working-class guys-Terry
Link of Lake County, Denny Jacobs of the Quad Cities, and Larry Walsh of Will
County-all of whom represented mostly white, mostly working-class or suburban
communities outside Chicago.
It helped that these men knew me well; the four of us had served together in
Springfield during the previous seven years and had maintained a weekly poker
game whenever we were in session. It also helped that each of them prided
himself on his independence, and was therefore willing to stick with me
despite pressure from more favored white candidates.
But it wasn�t just our personal relationships that led them to support me
(although the strength of my friendships with these men-all of whom grew up in
neighborhoods and at a time in which hostility toward blacks was hardly
unusual-itself said something about the evolution of race relations). Senators
Link, Jacobs, and Walsh are hard-nosed, experienced politicians; they had no
interest in backing losers or putting their own positions at risk. The fact
was, they all thought that I�d �sell� in their districts-once their
constituents met me and could get past the name.
They didn�t make such a judgment blind. For seven years they had watched me
interact with their constituents, in the state capitol or on visits to their
districts. They had seen white mothers hand me their children for pictures and
watched white World War II vets shake my hand after I addressed their
convention. They sensed what I�d come to know from a lifetime of experience:
that whatever preconceived notions white Americans may continue to hold, the
overwhelming majority of them these days are able-if given the time-to look
beyond race in making their judgments of people.
This isn�t to say that prejudice has vanished. None of us-black, white,
Latino, or Asian-is immune to the stereotypes that our culture continues to
feed us, especially stereotypes about black criminality, black intelligence,
or the black work ethic. In general, members of every minority group continue
to be measured largely by the degree of our assimilation-how closely speech
patterns, dress, or demeanor conform to the dominant white culture-and the
more that a minority strays from these external markers, the more he or she is
subject to negative assumptions. If an internalization of antidiscrimination
norms over the past three decades-not to mention basic decency-prevents most
whites from consciously acting on such stereotypes in their daily interactions
with persons of other races, it�s unrealistic to believe that these
stereotypes don�t have some cumulative impact on the often snap decisions of
who�s hired and who�s promoted, on who�s arrested and who�s prosecuted, on how
you feel about the customer who just walked into your store or about the
demographics of your children�s school.
I maintain, however, that in today�s America such prejudices are far more
loosely held than they once were-and hence are subject to refutation. A black
teenage boy walking down the street may elicit fear in a white couple, but if
he turns out to be their son�s friend from school he may be invited over for
dinner. A black man may have trouble catching a cab late at night, but if he
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I cannot prove these assertions; surveys of racial attitudes are notoriously
unreliable. And even if I�m right, it�s cold comfort to many minorities. After
all, spending one�s days refuting stereotypes can be a wearying business. It�s
the added weight that many minorities, especially African Americans, so often
describe in their daily round-the feeling that as a group we have no store of
goodwill in America�s accounts, that as individuals we must prove ourselves
anew each day, that we will rarely get the benefit of the doubt and will have [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]