The Education of a WASP

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-two The unraveling of black and white relationships that began in the summer of 1966, when Stokely Carmichael yelled Black Power, accelerated by fall. I felt that the black pride that surged up at the sound of those two words finally allowed men like Carmichael to express their disillusionment with white liberal help. Now, even whites who could accept Black Power were told to step to the rear of the ranks and take orders instead of running the show. After years of dedication to nonviolence and integration, people like Stokely Carmichael were saying in disgust, "All right, you don't want us. Give us decent schools, decent housing, and stay as far away as you want. We want you even less." This attitude distressed some white people we knew. Tina Kesson, the active, bubbly professor's wife who had chosen the neighborhood just as we had, seemed shaken by a SNCC benefit in late September of 1966. She had sold dozens of tickets, she said, for the benefit movie. Before the screening a black man with a beard told the predominantly black audience , "We don't need whites. Why don't you honkies go home?" Tina and her professor husband had stayed, but the speaker 's hostility disturbed her. She came over the next morning and filled my ash trays with partly smoked cigarettes. "But I thought they wanted integration," Tina said. "If they don't, what am I supposed to do?" Talking with Tina forced me to examine my own feelings. Labor unions had fought their battles alone, I told Tina. Women had conducted their own fight for feminine voting rights. If black people wanted to continue their battle without white help, it might be because they preferred to owe nothing when they won. Tina snubbed out another half-smoked cigarette. Maybe, she said, but she enjoyed her friendships with black people. It would be bad if they ended. I tried to imagine how it would feel if every black friend we had now rejected us. It seemed that this could not change our beliefs. Through friends we had learned what happened to people who were black, but my concern could not be reserved for friends. It must apply to people I didn't know and whom I might not like if I did. Marc Moses' anti-Semitism had ended my trust in him as a friend, but he deserved-had the right of a human being to-justice. And of course, anti-black or not, so did Dave Goldstein. Wasn't justice the right even of the unjust? Answering Tina's question in this way opened another personal inquiry. I still did not know what motivated my emotional involvement in civil rights. If it was because of some need for appreciation, for gratitude from black people, then the new black attitudes would alienate me. Barbara Hamilton had said, "Black Power neatly eliminated phoney white liberals who were more interested in their power than our progress." It would also eliminate whites who couldn't work without black gratitude. I said to Tina that Black Power might let us find out if we were interested in rights or self-righteousness and that I wanted to know. The change to what is now called black militancy didn't affect what Barbara Hamilton and I were doing. We were both devoting most of our time to the Panel of American Women. The Panel reached white audiences and at least created discussion. Often I felt depressed by the persistence of the old myths and misinformation, but if they existed, the Panel was one step toward trying to change attitudes. As a white person, I had gone "home" to speak to my own kind. Barbara was willing to join people like Debbie, Claire Cassidy , and me. Meanwhile, the Buchanans, the Negro couple who had moved into Folcroft, moved out. The all-white community had harassed them for three years. Chet Buchanan had said, "I can't let them win or no other Negro family will ever be able to move anywhere." But their daughter, Lucy, was growing up. They could see signs of damage from the awful tensions under which she had been raised. Betty Buchanan felt there was no choice. A seven-year-old child needed playmates. The Buchanans moved into our neighborhood. Even people who wanted to welcome them kept thoughtfully away for a while. In October 1966...