Race: It still divides people

The Boston Herald

BEVERLY BECKHAM

There's Michael Jackson doing his best, singing his heart out, spreading the message that skin color is superfluous, that people are people and "it don't matter if you're black or white."

And it doesn't. That's what most of us start out believing. There are exceptions, of course. Some people teach their children from the day they are born to hate anyone who's different from them. But this isn't about these people. This is about people whose hate is new, whose hate makes them uncomfortable, but whose feelings are born of frustration, anger and fear.

Where does the hate come from? When does it begin? Why does it not abate? Why does it continue to spread and grow?

It begins, I think, with the first slight, the bully's raised fist, the hurtful word, the unprovoked attack. And then it's reinforced again and again because of the human tendency to tar all people with the same brush. If we're driving down the street and a teenager blows past us, we think, look at that kid. Isn't that just like all kids - no manners, no respect. He thinks the rules are made for everyone but him. All kids think the rules are made for everyone but them. And there we go condemning an entire group for the actions of an individual.

We know one cop who's a bad guy, who's on a power trip, who doesn't play by the rules and suddenly it's all cops don't play by the rules. We watch one pompous ass with a Brahmin accent and a real Rolex treat a waitress like dirt and without a blink we suspect that all rich guys are like that.

We tend to focus on incidents which support our prejudices. We collect them, and pretty soon we don't even notice all the kids who are good drivers, all the honorable cops, all the rich guys who respect people.

This tendency to see only what we're looking for and only the negative is reinforced, of course, by newspapers and television, which excel in the bad-news business.

Last Friday night, for example, the firing of a gun during a screening of the movie "Juice" made the news because it news. Some 350 people, mostly black teens, were in Loew's Beacon Hill Cinema when a fight broke out. Guys pushed guys; girls shoved girls and then someone fired a gun.

The next day, the paper had pictures of black kids fighting and a story about gang violence and the need for beefed up security when films about black gangs attract crowds of black youth. And along with this report came the news that in Chicago at a showing of the same movie, a 16-year-old girl waiting in line was struck and killed by a stray bullet. In a Philadelphia suburb, an 18-year-old was shot in the neck and paralyzed from the neck down. In Michigan, a 17-year-old was shot in the leg. In New York a 16-year-old stabbed another 16-year-old. From Alaska to Arkansas violence has accompanied this film.

You know what all this does? It reinforces the most divisive conceptions. It implicates all young blacks, male and female. It says that as a group they are dangerous, trouble makers, people to avoid. Because of the actions of the fringe lunatics who have made war zones of our cities and fortresses of our schools, all young blacks suffer.

It makes me sick because to be young and black in America today is to be stigmatized, and the sorriest thing is that the stigma is imposed from inside the black community. The very films that could be changing things, films like "Boyz 'N the Hood" and "Juice," which all of white America should see, aren't being seen because the same few kids who hold cities hostage have now staked out theaters.

Hate grows when people are angry and afraid. And people angry and afraid. Good people, white and black, are angry because they can't drive or walk in certain parts of the city where the hoods own the streets. They're afraid to send their kids to the movies. They're afraid to send their kids to school. They're afraid, even in their homes.

On the news every night, the perpetrators of crime are invariably young and black. The white community generalizes that all young blacks are to blame. The black community knows better, but the perception remains.

Hate grows when people are afraid