Act Two. If You See Racism Say Racism

Act Two. If You See Racism Say Racism

Act Two. If You See Racism Say Racism.

Chana Joffe-walt

For the rest of today's show, we are going to leave sex behind, and we are going to step forward from the beginning of life to the murky, complicated middle, the other facts of life that you really don't want to have to explain to children, because you wish they were not facts or a part of life at all. Our next story is from W. Kamau Bell. He's a comedian and a father.

And recently, Kamau's been planning for a conversation he really does not want to have with his children, one that is familiar to black parents everywhere in America. Act Two, "If You See Racism, Say Racism." Here's Kamau.

W. Kamau Bell

I talk about race and racism in my act a lot, some would say too much. It was how I was raised. Some families have hardware stores. My family has thinking about racism. So it's no surprise to me that after I became a parent, I began to do jokes about race and racism and fatherhood.

W. Kamau Bell

And people ask me all the time, like, you're black. You talk about race a lot. And have you talked to your daughter about the fact that she's black? I'm like, no, because she's 3 and 1/2. I don't want to bum her out yet. You know what I'm saying?

Being black is great, but it's like a big responsibility to know that. My mom waited until I was eight before she told me I was black. And she did it the right way.

One night she's like, tonight for dinner, you can have whatever you want. I was like, yay. And she's like, you can stay up all night and watch TV. I was like, yay. And you're black. I was like, hold on a second. That explains everything.

I thought every day I was just kind of having a shitty day. It's good to know why now. It's good to know there's a historical context for that.

I now have two girls, a baby named Juno and an almost four-year-old named Sami. My wife, Melissa, is white. And Sami calls herself peanut butter. She really doesn't say much of anything yet.

My wife and I have both put our toes, or at least our older daughter, Sami's, toe in the race pool. But we have not even put the slightest hint of a Sami toe into the racism pool. Yes, those are separate pools.

The race pool is filled with positive stories of black achievement, African American role models, books and TV shows featuring diverse characters. Our race pool even has Kwanzaa.

But Sami's racism pool is completely drained with a lock on the gate. And we run past it every day on the way to the race pool. And every day that goes by, I feel guilty. The racism pool is treacherous. It's not fun to swim in.

And if you aren't careful, you drown in the sorrow of the black experience in America. Damn. We live in Berkeley. People have been protesting the police blocks from our house. How do I explain that?

This was on my mind recently, how to teach Sami about racism, when this thing happened. It was January 26 of this year, my birthday. I was having a low key celebration, just like I like them.

I was carrying a children's book I had just bought for Sami,TheCaseforLoving,TheFightforInterracialMarriage.Mildred and Richard Loving are the interracial couple responsible for the Supreme Court striking down the laws in 16 states that banned interracial marriage. And if I was going to get into racism with Sami, then the Loving story-- which was about a family like ours-- seemed like a great place to start.

I was headed to meet up with my wife at the Elmwood Cafe, a restaurant she loves. This was her second time eating there that day after we'd gone there earlier for breakfast. It's not really my kind of place. It's a little bit too impressed with itself, a little too humble braggy about its lattes served in bowls.

So I get to the Elmwood Cafe, and I see my wife sitting at one of their sidewalk tables with our baby and three other moms and their babies. The four moms all look like they would go out for the same casting call, for a white woman, mid 30s who has recently had a kid, and while exhausted, is doing a great job of keeping it together.

My wife introduced me to the group. We made small talk. One of the women asked about the book in my hand. So I turned it over and showed it to her.

She nodded at the cover. I didn't get the sense she knew the story. That's when I heard knock, knock, knock. It was on the cafe's window coming from inside.

I looked up and saw a woman, a server who clearly worked at the Elmwood Cafe, and she was angry and looking at me. Next, she flicked her head and mouthed something. I didn't know what, but the message was clear. Get! Or maybe it was, scram! Seriously, what's the difference?

I was flooded with thoughts I could barely process. I was stunned. I was pissed. I wanted to run away. I felt like I might pass out. I was actually strangely embarrassed, as if I had done something wrong. Maybe I shouldn't have been talking to my wife and her friends.

Melissa and I might have exchanged words. We might not have. I think I said something to the effect of, a woman told me to get out of here. There were some "reallys" and a couple of "whats."

Within seconds, another server came out and pretended to do her job. She didn't have a water jug. She didn't bus any tables. She didn't drop or pick up any checks. She just stocked the area. And by the area, I mean me.

Finally, Melissa couldn't take it. "This is my husband." "Oh," the waitress said, looking at nobody in particular. "We thought you were selling something."

She thought I was selling something? "That's my wife and my daughter," I said. "We just ate here earlier today." "Oh, we thought you were selling something," she said. "Sorry."

In Berkeley, selling something is code for homeless. What she was saying was, we thought you were homeless. First of all, I was wearing a knit cap, a hoodie, jeans, and sneakers. I was dressed like Mark Zuckerberg in winter.

But I knew the part of me that looked homeless wasn't my clothes. It was my skin, specifically how my skin was getting so close to a bunch of white moms and their white babies. But Juno only looks white. She's a double agent.

Waitress again, "I'm sorry." Me, "I bet you're sorry. OK. I'm going to take a walk and think about racism." That's actually what I said. I didn't yell it, but I didn't say it into my chest either.

Melissa stayed behind to give the waitress a piece of her mind. Then we went home, and Melissa cried. We hugged each other and were preoccupied with it, really bothered, really obsessive, and stuck in it. We knew we had to do something.

I blogged about the whole thing and posted a picture of myself wearing exactly what I'd worn when I was at the Elmwood, and also holding my book on the Lovings. Within a couple hours, the story had spread around the Bay Area. People online started debating every single point.

People debated whether what happened was racist, whether or not I was racist. People blamed me for marrying a white woman. It became the righteous indignation story of the week.

It's hard to know what to want after something like this happens. I didn't want an apology from the owner, though we got one. I didn't want the waitress to be fired, though she was.

Melissa and I wanted something more substantial. We wanted a public conversation between us and the cafe owner and the employees involved. We wanted the community to show up and talk about their experiences with things like this. We wanted a reckoning.

And we found out a lot of people wanted that. So many people wanted to discuss the Elmwood Cafe that our idea to have a public discussion snowballed. So with our daughters in our mind, before I could say Rosa Parks, we had a venue and an event planner. The cafe owner was there and a full-on panel of vetted academics and activists. There was a detailed itinerary and a moderator.

Moderator

So I'm sure that many of you have heard the story of the incident that happened on January 26.

W. Kamau Bell

On a Friday in March, Melissa and I sat on a stage at a middle school in a packed auditorium. My main concern was that somehow all the planning and structure was going to lead to an event that was careful, sanitized, and maybe the worst thing, boring. It wasn't, due in large part to two amazing women on the panel, Kadijah Means-- who we'll get to in a minute-- but first, Nikki Jones.

Nikki Jones

OK. I'll put on my professor voice.

W. Kamau Bell

Nikki Jones teaches at UC Berkeley. She said something that, for me, made sense of the world, not just about the small racial injustices that happen in cafes but the bigger, deadly ones that are happening all around America. She asked us to think of the world in terms of black space and white space.

She credits Elijah Anderson for this theory, but tonight she made it her main point. Nikki says people have ideas about black spaces. It's tied to blackness and poverty and the ghetto. It's impossible to say the word ghetto in America without thinking about black people.

See a black man in a suit, your brain does a calculus. What poor neighborhood did he or his parents rise up out of, or his parents' parents? It all goes back to the ghetto.

Nikki Jones

And the ghetto itself is believed to be carried on the bodies, on and in black people. And that presents special dilemmas when black people are in white space. And what's white space? Well, just about everywhere else. Right?

W. Kamau Bell

She says UC Berkeley, where she teaches, white space. Almost all education, public and private, white space. Movie theaters, restaurants, some of my own stand-up shows-- I'm looking at you, Spokane-- white space. Public Radio, white space. And of course, the Elmwood cafe.

Nikki Jones

So in these white spaces, black people have a special burden, and they face a number of dilemmas. They have to prove that they belong there. The burden is on them to prove that they belong in a particular space.

Now let's go back to the incident. Who belongs in that space? What is the presumption about what Kamau is carrying on his body?

W. Kamau Bell

Of course, not belonging can work both ways. A white person in a black space lacks a similar trustworthiness. But think of how rare it is that a white person goes to a black space. Like a tourist in another country, you can leave whenever you choose.

But the highlight of the night, high school senior, Kadijah Means. She's 18 and made a name for herself in the Bay Area as an activist. She's an awesome public speaker who, importantly to me, knows how to open with a joke.

Kadijah Means

So number one, I want to say that I've been black all of my life. That's a pretty good amount of motivation for me to be a social justice advocate.

W. Kamau Bell

And then she said something that made me take extra notice. She talked about being younger than my daughter, Sami, when she learned about race.

Kadijah Means

I learned about race at a really young age, maybe like two or three. My dad has a really good way of teaching about fractions. When he would make me toast, he would cut it in half and be like, this is half. This is a fourth.

So I learned about race in a kind of similar way, learning that white didn't mean white like paper, but it was a construct. Yeah, I learned that pretty young. That was weird.

W. Kamau Bell

My oldest daughter is four. She has just begun to understand that people are different colors. I can't imagine somehow connecting that to the fact that race itself is a construct.

I'm not sure I could define the word construct to another adult, let alone a four-year-old. Kadijah then closed with a few tips on how we can all be less racist, like this one.

Kadijah Means

Focus less on color blindness, because honestly, you're not going to get a gold star for that. Be more color competent. Be more--

[APPLAUSE]

Thanks.

W. Kamau Bell

And this one.

Kadijah Means

Please don't call people articulate. Don't come up to me after and tell me I'm articulate. Please do not do that. And there's a whole bunch of reasons why that we don't have time for.

W. Kamau Bell

You might want to grab a pen and some paper, because she's on a roll.

Kadijah Means

Your mind makes generalizations. That's what it does. It's not bad to that. It's bad to think that that one generalization is what everyone is.

You also have to take a step outside of that and remember that people are individuals. People have different lives. Just because I'm black doesn't mean I act like other black people. Black people built this country, whether you like it or not. Love us, please. Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

W. Kamau Bell

I was so impressed by Kadijah. I began to think about her dad, the one who taught her about fractions and race. Kadijah was completely versed in the evils of racism. But she was also idealistic about the future.

She understood how well-intended people could do racist things, but how that doesn't always make them bad people. She got the broad strokes and the nuances. And Kadijah also knew how to do something that is absolutely essential to your survival as a black person in America.

She saw and identified racism in her everyday life, and she didn't internalize it. But she also didn't ignore it. She just judo flipped it and kept walking. I wanted some advice on how to raise a kid like that. Who was this dad? I imagined him to be a mix of '60s era Berkeley hippie and hope and change era Obama.

Cliff Means

I don't smile a lot. So I'm not the smiling black man.

W. Kamau Bell

Yeah. That's Cliff Means. He's a self-described businessman who means business.

I like to imagine that his business card reads on one line, "Cliff Means," and under that, "Business." In fact, when we ask Cliff to do the interview, initially he said, "I don't know you. I don't know your audience. So no."