Antioch College Committee on Racial Equality (ACRE) race relations meeting, Willett Hall, Summer 1963, 1963
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
You may wonder why we're having the | 0:02 | |
hall meeting (inaudible) | 0:05 | |
in this series that we've had | 0:08 | |
with 10 halls on campus. | 0:10 | |
What we're going to try and discuss tonight | 0:13 | |
is race relations at the personal level, | 0:18 | |
mainly the level between say my self or (inaudible) | 0:22 | |
just the individual and the individual. | 0:27 | |
There is a problem I would say | 0:30 | |
specifically by being in this community. | 0:35 | |
In this very liberal community of ours | 0:38 | |
and a thoroughly integrated community. | 0:41 | |
I was sitting with three other Negroes today | 0:44 | |
at dinner | 0:49 | |
and one happened to be my family's best friend | 0:51 | |
and they remarked on one woman who had the daughter here, | 0:54 | |
Martha. | 0:58 | |
What a thoroughly integrated community this is | 0:59 | |
and how she really liked it and so forth | 1:01 | |
for her daughter, you know, she really went for it. | 1:04 | |
And I can concur with that in large part. | 1:07 | |
But then the question arises, | 1:12 | |
we are all products of our society | 1:15 | |
which means we're products of the prejudices in the society, | 1:19 | |
and segregation | 1:22 | |
and discrimination that exists within the society. | 1:23 | |
And we come here and it's a totally different atmosphere, | 1:26 | |
totally different in many ways | 1:32 | |
(inaudible) toward integration. | 1:33 | |
And then we go back out on our job | 1:35 | |
and we leave Antioch and back into the same old society. | 1:38 | |
And then sometimes you wonder, | 1:43 | |
well many of us like to forget that | 1:45 | |
that problems exist, that people are different, | 1:48 | |
when we're here. | 1:51 | |
And that everything, you know, | 1:53 | |
everybody is one big happy family. | 1:55 | |
You know, while we're here, we're all the same. | 1:57 | |
There are no Negroes, no whites, no this that and the other. | 1:58 | |
You know, we're all the same here. | 2:02 | |
And this is what we'll mainly be discussing in one part. | 2:04 | |
I can give you a panorama of what we've discussed | 2:11 | |
in the other hall meetings. | 2:13 | |
We've discussed this. | 2:15 | |
We've discussed the similarities and our differences. | 2:16 | |
Do you look at, say, | 2:19 | |
do I look at whites as being white. | 2:21 | |
Do I feel myself Negro 24 hours a day. | 2:23 | |
Or do you feel yourself as being white. | 2:27 | |
We've discussed this. | 2:31 | |
We've discussed why white people | 2:32 | |
are in the integration movement. | 2:34 | |
Some of the hall meetings have lasted | 2:38 | |
two and a half to three hours long | 2:40 | |
and the only the reason that they stopped | 2:42 | |
is that we got up and left. | 2:44 | |
All of the hall meetings that we've had | 2:47 | |
have been quite intensive, | 2:48 | |
quite drawn out and they've taken quite a bit | 2:51 | |
out of the participants. | 2:54 | |
Not only myself, or Dick, or Larry or others. | 2:56 | |
They've taken quite a lot out of all the people | 3:00 | |
who have participated and then we hope that the people | 3:03 | |
who have participated have gained knowledge | 3:05 | |
in a way and will start to think about this | 3:07 | |
in their own realm. | 3:11 | |
We're not here in this hall meeting to - | 3:14 | |
we don't know the answers as you'll find out | 3:18 | |
I'm just as confused as anybody on the subject. | 3:20 | |
We don't know the answers. | 3:23 | |
We're trying to find out the answers in a way. | 3:25 | |
I find out something new in every hall meeting | 3:28 | |
and this has been my eighth one. | 3:30 | |
And we're here to share in our knowledge. | 3:33 | |
To share in our experiences. | 3:36 | |
So, probably to start out, | 3:40 | |
and also, | 3:45 | |
I would hope that you'll have a, | 3:47 | |
you'll want to talk in a way. | 3:52 | |
Don't-- I'll ask each and every person, | 3:54 | |
don't judge another person by what their (inaudible) is | 3:56 | |
They're right or wrong. | 3:58 | |
'Cause there is no right or wrong on this, | 4:00 | |
you know what I'm saying. | 4:03 | |
And feel free, | 4:04 | |
this has been one of the incidents in the past | 4:05 | |
people sort of felt that others were judging them | 4:08 | |
by what they were going to say. | 4:10 | |
Because I'll start it off right now. | 4:12 | |
I am prejudiced. | 4:15 | |
I'm prejudiced towards white people. | 4:16 | |
And I'm not afraid to tell or to say how I feel. | 4:19 | |
And the first question that | 4:25 | |
I'd like to start it off with | 4:29 | |
and also another thing before we start off, | 4:32 | |
just feel free to talk. | 4:33 | |
Don't raise your hand. | 4:34 | |
I'm not the moderator. | 4:35 | |
We're all here together, | 4:37 | |
one big happy family. | 4:38 | |
(laughing) | 4:40 | |
The first question I'd like to raise is, | 4:42 | |
do you think | 4:44 | |
there are differences between whites and Negroes | 4:46 | |
or even better than that, | 4:51 | |
do you conceive of yourself as being white? | 4:52 | |
(guess I'm going to talk first) | 4:59 | |
(laughing) | 5:02 | |
Woman | When you say that, | 5:07 |
when you say differences, | 5:08 | |
the things that I think of are | 5:09 | |
there's differences between whites and Negroes | 5:13 | |
just as there's differences between every person | 5:15 | |
or there's differences between Jews and gentiles | 5:18 | |
because they come from a different cultural heritage. | 5:22 | |
Or there's differences between people | 5:27 | |
who have descended from Germans | 5:28 | |
and people who have descended from Japanese. | 5:30 | |
It's just that they're used to different traditions | 5:32 | |
and rituals. | 5:36 | |
Interviewer | Let's put it on an individual basis. | 5:37 |
And this is I think I agree with your analysis of this, | 5:41 | |
your general analysis. | 5:44 | |
But let's put it on an individual basis. | 5:45 | |
Can you think of that difference? | 5:47 | |
Do you feel that difference? | 5:49 | |
Woman | I'm not conscious no. | 5:53 |
I'm not conscious or aware. | 5:55 | |
That I'm white unless someone reminds me of it | 5:57 | |
Interviewer | You're never consciously aware? | 6:02 |
Woman | I'm conscious when I see a person maybe, | 6:04 |
if I don't know a person. | 6:07 | |
But it's a physical characteristic | 6:11 | |
that you're conscious of everybody you don't know. | 6:12 | |
The first thing you see, it | 6:18 | |
makes up an image in your mind. | 6:20 | |
Man | When you look at me, | 6:23 |
do you notice that I'm white? | 6:24 | |
Question again, when you look at Crip, | 6:25 | |
do you notice he's black? | 6:27 | |
Woman | I don't. | 6:29 |
I'm 100% open. | 6:30 | |
Man | When you first look at. | 6:32 |
(faint dialogue) | 6:33 | |
Man | Just talk. | 6:38 |
Woman | I feel based on (inaudible) | 6:39 |
When I interact with somebody who's a Negro, | 6:43 | |
so I mean, (inaudible) | 6:46 | |
I also feel that they are different. | 6:52 | |
I think part of this is thinking that | 6:56 | |
your conscious of the fact that | 6:58 | |
they come a part of a suppressed group | 7:02 | |
and I think (inaudible) | 7:05 | |
I'm white, and you're Negro and the (inaudible) | 7:10 | |
It's not like a continuing thing | 7:17 | |
that I - it enters as a factor | 7:20 | |
To be perfectly frank | 7:23 | |
Man | (inaudible) say alright, | 7:30 |
I'm looking at you, you're Negro. | 7:33 | |
It doesn't necessarily say that I'm thinking | 7:34 | |
that you are different | 7:36 | |
or that I'm different from you. | 7:37 | |
You can just be aware of it and | 7:39 | |
I don't see how the hell you can | 7:41 | |
not be in the society we have today. | 7:42 | |
Where it's consciously constantly compressed into us. | 7:44 | |
Woman | I don't think it's a question of society | 7:48 |
but like Mary has blonde hair, I mean- | 7:50 | |
Man | It's a different awareness than that. | 7:55 |
Woman | It's an awareness but does, alright, | 7:57 |
let's say that you notice there is a difference | 8:00 | |
is this necessarily bad? | 8:03 | |
I mean thank God there is a difference. | 8:05 | |
(laughing) | 8:07 | |
I know but Craig was, I was almost afraid he was saying | 8:08 | |
you know, accusingly, if you notice a difference. | 8:12 | |
You know what I mean? | 8:19 | |
Or maybe I'm wrong, I might be. | 8:21 | |
Man | Um, I think the problem probably | 8:24 |
the difference if you notice these different things | 8:28 | |
between yourself and somebody that has blonde hair | 8:31 | |
and noticing the difference between yourself and a Negro | 8:35 | |
is that in our society we are struggling to | 8:40 | |
(inaudible) to go along with the concept of Negro | 8:45 | |
having to deal with | 8:49 | |
feeling that white | 8:54 | |
is better somehow than Negro and that uh | 8:56 | |
everybody should be white | 9:01 | |
Woman | If you notice a difference | 9:06 |
does that necessarily mean that you feel | 9:07 | |
the concepts about (inaudible) | 9:09 | |
(faint speaking) | 9:11 | |
No I don't feel that there is no amount of difference. | 9:14 | |
I'm aware that someone else is Negro | 9:18 | |
and I don't think that everybody should be the same. | 9:19 | |
Woman | I never feel a very strong difference | 9:21 |
unless, say, I'm walking on that side of town | 9:25 | |
on the other side of the tracks- | 9:28 | |
Man | Why do you feel the difference | 9:30 |
when you are on the other side of the tracks? | 9:32 | |
Woman | Because of the living conditions | 9:34 |
and the community there. | 9:37 | |
Man | What do you mean, the living conditions? | 9:39 |
Woman | Well the shacks and the kids playing and- | 9:41 |
Man | You mean you notice these things? | 9:45 |
Woman | Yeah, then it really hits me. | 9:46 |
But right now I'm not- | 9:48 | |
Man | You said you felt the difference | 9:51 |
but do you react differently? | 9:55 | |
Do you hold your purse closer? | 9:56 | |
Or watch behind you more? | 9:57 | |
Woman | No, I just, I'm more curious I guess. | 10:00 |
My eyes are open wider | 10:03 | |
and that feels like a real racial difference. | 10:10 | |
Interviewer | If a Negro is approaching | 10:15 |
in that neighborhood, let's say, to speak with you. | 10:18 | |
Then what would your reaction be? | 10:21 | |
You know, let's talk about | 10:25 | |
(inaudible) | 10:30 | |
Then would a difference come out? | 10:36 | |
What kind of difference? | 10:38 | |
Is it just the fact that they're, let's say, poorer than you | 10:40 | |
Or that they're, you know, in poverty? | 10:43 | |
If a person were to approach you | 10:50 | |
what would your reaction be? | 10:51 | |
Woman | I would be very surprised. | 10:53 |
Interviewer | Not surprised but, | 10:56 |
how would you react to them? | 10:57 | |
What would your feelings be toward them? | 10:59 | |
Woman | If they were just to come up to me and say | 11:01 |
(inaudible) I would probably think of that | 11:03 | |
just because I didn't expect someone | 11:08 | |
to approach me in that part of town | 11:11 | |
because my implication of people | 11:15 | |
who live in that part of town is-- | 11:17 | |
[Other Woman] Is it that kind of town | 11:20 | |
or is just that any stranger coming up to you? | 11:23 | |
- | Well, that too but | 11:27 |
It's just that you have a preconceived idea | 11:31 | |
of people who live in that kind of area. | 11:34 | |
- | What part of town? | 11:37 |
Well in that part of town (inaudible) | 11:39 | |
with extremely bad grammar | 11:42 | |
low education level and probably unemployed and- | 11:44 | |
- | Why? | 11:49 |
- | Well, you know it usually is that | 11:51 |
You know it's just sort of a total feeling. | 11:55 | |
Man | But are Negroes the people from that part of town | 12:01 |
or are they just people? | 12:04 | |
(inaudible) | 12:08 | |
it's very different (inaudible) black and white | 12:19 | |
feeling violent where I expect - | 12:24 | |
once the expectation's here | 12:27 | |
my implication would be different | 12:30 | |
- | Can anybody think of this situation we are talking about? | 12:34 |
Woman | Can I say something? | 12:42 |
(inaudible) | 12:45 | |
(inaudible) | 12:51 | |
(laughing) | 12:58 | |
I mean really, there are differences between races. | 13:00 | |
We can see these differences. | 13:04 | |
We all have eyes. | 13:05 | |
- | Other than the | 13:10 |
color difference, could you be more specific please? | 13:11 | |
- | I can speak for myself only. | 13:16 |
- | I know, go ahead. | 13:19 |
- | That's right (inaudible) | 13:20 |
- | This is what I want to say, | 13:23 |
is that I notice when people are Oriental | 13:24 | |
and I notice that they are Negro | 13:27 | |
and I think it's interesting. | 13:29 | |
I'm glad that there's all different | 13:30 | |
kinds of people in the world. | 13:31 | |
Interviewer | Is it just color? | 13:33 |
Is it something else? | 13:34 | |
- | And sometimes I wish I was oriental, | 13:36 |
or sometimes I wish I was Negro. | 13:38 | |
(inaudible) | 13:41 | |
There are all different kinds of people. | 13:45 | |
I have prejudices against people for different reasons. | 13:46 | |
I mean any prejudice I think is bad. | 13:50 | |
I don't know where mine come from. | 13:53 | |
Interviewer | What's the difference | 13:55 |
between a Negro and a white beside his color? | 13:57 | |
Woman | I do not know and I cannot say. | 13:59 |
- | It is possible that Sue really feels this way. | 14:03 |
(cross talk) And you keep trying to to push her | 14:05 | |
into saying she feels some other way. | 14:09 | |
Interviewer | No she didn't say this, that we pushed | 14:12 |
She just kept saying Negroes and whites. | 14:14 | |
- | What is wrong is (inaudible) draining. | 14:16 |
Woman | Oh cause I was in a very good mood that day | 14:20 |
so anybody who walked in with prejudice | 14:22 | |
I had this little dream rolling in | 14:26 | |
that the man giving it to me (inaudible) | 14:28 | |
Interviewer | Is that true? | 14:32 |
Woman | No, that is true. | 14:34 |
(inaudible) | 14:36 | |
(laughing) | 14:40 | |
Interviewer | Here's the thing about it. | 14:45 |
We both sit here | 14:47 | |
and we gonna say, yeah there are differences | 14:50 | |
and we understand differences. | 14:54 | |
We like the differences in life. | 14:57 | |
But, you know, like, let's get down to the basics. | 15:01 | |
I look at a white person and I have | 15:05 | |
a definite view of them when I look at him. | 15:08 | |
You know, and I say there's a white person. | 15:11 | |
White. | 15:15 | |
W. H. I. T. E. | 15:16 | |
And I have a basic mistrust of him when I meet him. | 15:19 | |
Now, wait a minute wait a minute | 15:23 | |
alright it's too bad. | 15:29 | |
I don't care whether it's too bad or not. | 15:30 | |
Wait a minute. | 15:32 | |
Now see, like all of us about it, | 15:34 | |
we will react to what I said in one way, | 15:37 | |
it's too bad, you know I didn't know Crip felt that way | 15:41 | |
(laughing) | 15:45 | |
Or, you know, it's bad that he feels this way. | 15:48 | |
What does he have, what's he trying to carry on? | 15:50 | |
A cross or something? | 15:53 | |
But this isn't what we're after. | 15:55 | |
I'm not after this. | 15:57 | |
And I don't want to hear your pity. | 15:59 | |
I don't want to hear your sympathy | 16:00 | |
and I don't want to hear your bullshit about this. | 16:01 | |
And I'm quite sure it won't help any- | 16:04 | |
it won't help me, it won't help you. | 16:06 | |
But see, many of us will turn the car right around | 16:08 | |
will look at a Negro and right almost automatically | 16:11 | |
because society's made it so we have a distrust | 16:14 | |
of the Negro. | 16:17 | |
Wait, wait a minute let me finish this. | 16:19 | |
(inaudible) | 16:21 | |
Not really because, first of all many of us | 16:22 | |
have not had contact with Negroes. | 16:27 | |
This is one thing. | 16:29 | |
And society has said, from our own mores and so forth | 16:30 | |
"he is this way, he is that way." | 16:34 | |
Then all of us will draw, I went to high school | 16:38 | |
with this Negro you know. | 16:40 | |
Some of my best friends with us or | 16:42 | |
I knew this person, I knew that person | 16:44 | |
but you know, one girl was going over | 16:48 | |
the other night she was talking about her high school | 16:52 | |
being fairly integrated. | 16:54 | |
She never thought of Negroes as being Negroes. | 16:56 | |
She never thought of white people being white people. | 16:58 | |
They were all one and the same. | 16:59 | |
But then I questioned her very seriously | 17:01 | |
I said well look, these same buddies you had in high school | 17:03 | |
were you socially buddies? | 17:06 | |
Well she said, well no because they lived | 17:08 | |
in that section of town. | 17:11 | |
Well I said if you were such great buddies | 17:13 | |
then, I mean, why didn't you run over and visit each other | 17:14 | |
(inaudible) in the same social group in other words. | 17:17 | |
But she said "well..." | 17:19 | |
And I said, Well yes I understand. | 17:22 | |
And she said, you know I never thought of it that way. | 17:24 | |
And many of us going this way, you know | 17:27 | |
We went to these high schools and | 17:29 | |
only in a few places like, say, Yellow Springs | 17:32 | |
might be different obviously different than a high school. | 17:34 | |
But we went to the high school and we never | 17:37 | |
associated with these people actually because | 17:40 | |
you always knew that little line. | 17:42 | |
Where to go and where not to go. | 17:44 | |
And if you did go over that line | 17:46 | |
well you knew what you had to face | 17:47 | |
from your other white people. | 17:50 | |
Woman | I think what you are describing | 17:55 |
as sudden distrust for Negroes. | 17:57 | |
I found for what I would class as hillbillies. | 18:02 | |
Where I lived across the street (inaudible) | 18:08 | |
(inaudible) | 18:13 | |
When you have this distrust for either | 18:22 | |
you have this distrust for what I would classify as humans. | 18:25 | |
And to me I was trying to figure out | 18:29 | |
what this would be since the reason | 18:31 | |
I had this distrust for them was | 18:35 | |
I knew very little about them. | 18:37 | |
I don't (inaudible) | 18:40 | |
I feel strange when I feel different | 18:43 | |
when I'm talking to them. | 18:46 | |
Interviewer | What's your stereotype of them? | 18:48 |
What is it for hillbillies? | 18:49 | |
Woman | My stereotype of a hillbilly is, uh, | 18:51 |
freckles and long eye brows and strong (inaudible) | 18:55 | |
and rides around town with a (inaudible) most of them | 19:02 | |
(inaudible) | 19:07 | |
Interviewer | Yeah but what does that mean? | 19:13 |
Woman | That symbolizes a lot of other things. | 19:16 |
Interviewer | Like what? | 19:18 |
(inaudible) | 19:20 | |
Woman | It symbolizes to me somebody | 19:28 |
that I feel uncomfortable with because | 19:31 | |
if you're carrying on a conversation | 19:38 | |
it may be because I'm a girl and I have to be standing | 19:43 | |
(inaudible) | 19:47 | |
When I get in the car and ride around the countryside | 19:54 | |
and talk about (inaudible) | 19:58 | |
Interviewer | (inaudible) | 20:11 |
I wouldn't imagine the same reaction. | 20:23 | |
What I'm trying to get at, I think - | 20:26 | |
But it wouldn't be the same type of reaction though. | 20:29 | |
You wouldn't fill up full of anger for him. | 20:31 | |
That's the point. What I'm trying to get at is | 20:35 | |
It seems to me that I'm not so very sure | 20:38 | |
but there is something beyond the physical characteristics | 20:46 | |
of how they talk and what they talk about. | 20:49 | |
It has something to do with what I think they represent | 20:51 | |
- | could you make it more explicit? | 21:04 |
Woman | (inaudible) | 21:07 |
Man | Well I have an idea if | 21:15 |
somebody is ignorant, of somebody who is prejudiced | 21:17 | |
of somebody who is being mobs in the South. | 21:22 | |
Somebody who is not only ignorant but has | 21:30 | |
the audacity to think he is not ignorant. | 21:32 | |
(inaudible) | 21:37 | |
(inaudible) | 21:41 | |
(inaudible) | 21:49 | |
Woman | In Yellow Springs you're in your own culture | 22:05 |
your own environment. | 22:08 | |
And whatever values that are around | 22:10 | |
kind of resettle, people have passed them onto you | 22:13 | |
at what - two, three, four, whatever age you were | 22:16 | |
so that you could understand what other people have said. | 22:22 | |
Not necessarily your family, maybe the people in school. | 22:25 | |
The people around you. | 22:29 | |
And you get a preconceived idea. | 22:31 | |
Not just from yourself but from your environment | 22:34 | |
and people around you. | 22:39 | |
And as far as being Negro or being white | 22:41 | |
I consider that that comes from the same thing | 22:45 | |
because biologically, it's a biological fact | 22:49 | |
that there's really no difference. | 22:52 | |
Proven difference. | 22:57 | |
Interviewer | Well in principle there is | 22:58 |
(inaudible) | 23:02 | |
But (inaudible) the boy that says that | 23:04 | |
biologically or, let's say means of biologically | 23:06 | |
and culturally he says that culturally | 23:11 | |
why Negroes are brought together | 23:13 | |
is because of, uh, a common hurt | 23:16 | |
and a common plight and so forth. | 23:23 | |
But he says biologically and so forth | 23:26 | |
it's very hard to pick what a Negro is | 23:28 | |
because you can see in this room a range of Negroes. | 23:31 | |
Different colors, different shapes of noses | 23:35 | |
mouths and so forth. | 23:37 | |
But we keep getting side tracked. | 23:40 | |
This is very good that you can bring this out. | 23:43 | |
Like if you bring out, in me you know, I wonder | 23:48 | |
we come here to this school and do we | 23:51 | |
can we also forget what society has put into us? | 23:56 | |
Or what we've learned from society? | 24:01 | |
Because maybe some of the mistrust that I have of whites | 24:04 | |
comes from what I hear at home | 24:07 | |
even though I thought I did not | 24:08 | |
have prejudice when I came here. | 24:10 | |
And I didn't know any white people, you know. | 24:13 | |
I didn't know any white people before I came | 24:16 | |
and as I mentioned I didn't have any | 24:18 | |
prejudice before I came here and then | 24:21 | |
I'm saying I'm going through years and | 24:23 | |
for a while thought of all of us as being one and the same. | 24:25 | |
You know, I'm Negro but that really doesn't matter. | 24:28 | |
You look upon me as a human being really. | 24:33 | |
And I look upon you as being a human being. | 24:37 | |
But I wonder is that really true? | 24:41 | |
Man | We must recognize that that | 24:44 |
doesn't necessarily imply mistrust. | 24:46 | |
Interviewer | It does. | 24:48 |
I don't think so. | 24:50 | |
Woman | He feels that. | 24:51 |
Man | Because I can recognize somebody as Negro | 24:52 |
(inaudible) but I don't. | 24:54 | |
- | But, but I said | 24:56 |
- | I mean, you take any situation where you meet | 24:59 |
somebody that you don't know in any situation | 25:01 | |
coming here or if somebody comes up to you in a dark street. | 25:03 | |
And this has happened to me both white and Negro | 25:09 | |
come up to me you know | 25:14 | |
and it was either a mug or a beg. | 25:16 | |
And in both cases I was scared. | 25:20 | |
But it didn't make any difference you see. | 25:24 | |
I didn't distrust any more the Negro or the white. | 25:25 | |
- | it made no difference to you? | 25:31 |
- | No | 25:33 |
If I were Negro? | 25:35 | |
- | If the person who approached you | 25:37 |
- | I can give you some concrete examples in Chicago. | 25:39 |
- | Well I'm saying the way I really felt, you know | 25:43 |
- | And the same thing just meeting people socially | 25:45 |
a person is a person until you find different | 25:50 | |
Woman | Well can I say something? | 25:53 |
You said something before about mistrusting whites | 25:56 | |
and how you felt in this kind of situation. | 26:00 | |
Well I think Antioch, well not Antioch | 26:04 | |
but rather the people who come to Antioch | 26:09 | |
or, let's take a white person | 26:13 | |
in being in a situation, you're saying, | 26:16 | |
where there was this mistrust | 26:18 | |
you know you want to believe that you | 26:20 | |
looked at me and you saw me as a person | 26:22 | |
and I looked at you and I saw you as a person | 26:23 | |
and not that we saw each other as white and Negro | 26:26 | |
but I'm just wondering whether the | 26:27 | |
Antioch liberal comes to Antioch and meets the Negro | 26:31 | |
and has a different reaction than | 26:37 | |
perhaps in an ordinary human situation | 26:41 | |
than an ordinary person, in that | 26:44 | |
they meet and even when instead of mistrust | 26:45 | |
they completely deny that there is any mistrust | 26:48 | |
and they bend over backwards to make more of an effort. | 26:50 | |
Am I making myself clear? | 26:54 | |
- | You made one point clear | 26:56 |
you made an interesting distinction between | 26:57 | |
a Negro and the ordinary person | 27:00 | |
but all of that's fine. | 27:02 | |
(laughing) | 27:04 | |
Woman | Alright now. | 27:06 |
Man | I'd like to know what the difference is. | 27:07 |
(laughing) | 27:09 | |
Woman | I think the difference each | 27:10 |
this is an individual thing. | 27:12 | |
With some people this may be true. | 27:14 | |
I don't think you can say this is true | 27:15 | |
for all whites that come to Antioch. | 27:17 | |
(inaudible) | 27:20 | |
Interviewer | When you said to the effect of | 27:32 |
everybody is a person, think of the kind of person. | 27:37 | |
- | When you meet somebody and you | 27:43 |
don't know anything about them | 27:45 | |
it's a blank slate and maybe you can make a snap judgment | 27:48 | |
and people usually do on looks, | 27:51 | |
whether the person is good looking | 27:54 | |
or they're dressed nicely or they're overdressed | 27:56 | |
or whatever the situation. | 27:59 | |
Well when you think of a person you know | 28:01 | |
when you have in your mind a picture of a person | 28:04 | |
in that (inaudible) what race is he? | 28:06 | |
Woman | White. | 28:09 |
(inaudible) | 28:11 | |
Man | Of course he's white, for Cript's sake | 28:13 |
90% of America is white. | 28:14 | |
I don't see how you can say you can meet | 28:16 | |
a person you don't know on 47th street in Chicago | 28:18 | |
who's a Negro and there's nothing else but Negroes around | 28:22 | |
and you can say you can be completely comfortable | 28:26 | |
knowing that you're white and knowing | 28:28 | |
that they may hate your guts. | 28:30 | |
Interviewer | Alright wait a minute- | 28:32 |
Man | Just wait, let me finish. | 28:33 |
I don't see how you can really be honest | 28:36 | |
and really say that you can be comfortable that way | 28:40 | |
because- | 28:42 | |
- | I don't know I just- | 28:44 |
- | Alright thank you for answering- | 28:46 |
Interviewer | Talking in terms of Chicago | 28:48 |
what's the difference between | 28:49 | |
being approached by a white on West Madison | 28:51 | |
and a Negro just across the Midland? | 28:57 | |
Man | Well let me tell you. | 29:01 |
I was approached by three Negroes. | 29:02 | |
And they tried to rob me. | 29:04 | |
I was wearing a leather jacket | 29:06 | |
and that's what they wanted. | 29:08 | |
Alright, I saw them, I knew the way they were dressed, | 29:10 | |
they had on long coats, a hat, | 29:13 | |
immediately I said you know, no, that Negro | 29:15 | |
He's after my leather jacket! | 29:18 | |
(laughing) | 29:21 | |
I can realize that alright, you know, he's a person also. | 29:22 | |
I realize that he grew up the way he did. | 29:27 | |
He wants my coat for a certain reason. | 29:30 | |
Now in that same neighborhood I might have been jumped | 29:33 | |
by, I don't know, three Irish Catholics. | 29:35 | |
(laughing) | 29:41 | |
They would be after me for different reasons | 29:46 | |
and I think different things about them. | 29:48 | |
And that is - he didn't say | 29:50 | |
oh there's a person and there's another person | 29:52 | |
there were differences | 29:54 | |
Interviewer | Immediately you look at, | 29:56 |
Oh go on I'm sorry. | 29:58 | |
Man | I'd like to say the same situation | 30:00 |
and I'm walking down the street | 30:01 | |
and I'm approached by a Negro or white | 30:02 | |
well if it's in a neighborhood that I think | 30:04 | |
there is gonna be some bodily harm to me | 30:07 | |
by these people, I wouldn't say person | 30:08 | |
mostly I might say animal. | 30:11 | |
And this animal, even though he may be a Negro or white | 30:14 | |
he's just as capable as harming me | 30:18 | |
so I'm not gonna discriminate against him | 30:22 | |
(they're both animals) (speak up) | 30:25 | |
I'm not gonna say the Negroes are gonna | 30:29 | |
be nicer to me because I'm a Negro too | 30:32 | |
because I know that's not true. | 30:33 | |
Woman | (inaudible) | 30:36 |
Interviewer | I wouldn't feel any different. | 30:38 |
That's why I say both of them are gonna rob you. | 30:40 | |
Well go on Julie I'm sorry | 30:45 | |
Woman | You know it's funny- | 30:46 |
(inaudible) | 30:48 | |
and one of the biggest problems that I had | 30:51 | |
was the fact that ever since I was (inaudible) | 30:54 | |
I don't want to hear that word in this house | 30:59 | |
and my parents some of their closest friends (inaudible) | 31:03 | |
our family friends were Negroes but not closely enough to me | 31:07 | |
to say that when I came to Antioch my greatest fear | 31:11 | |
was that any overtures of friendship that | 31:16 | |
I made to a Negro would be misinterpreted. | 31:19 | |
Because that had been said and so forth. | 31:21 | |
Of this - my parents (inaudible) | 31:23 | |
I was really frightened the first several weeks. | 31:27 | |
For fear that every overture I made | 31:30 | |
would be completely misconstrued as being a facade | 31:32 | |
(inaudible) | 31:35 | |
I felt safer on 55th between 'L' and the lake | 31:43 | |
than I felt on the Lower West Side of Chicago | 31:48 | |
that is populated primarily by | 31:50 | |
fourth or fifth generation Polish people and Mexicans | 31:52 | |
I feel perfectly unsafe at 3000 South and 3000 West | 31:58 | |
And any human being who is concerned with body and soul | 32:05 | |
who doesn't want to run into the Egyptian Cobras | 32:08 | |
Man | I can cut all that apart | 32:12 |
- | I'm no more comfortable on the Lower East Side | 32:14 |
for the same reason | 32:16 | |
I don't like having improper overtures made to me by anyone | 32:18 | |
Now whether they're Negro or anyone else | 32:21 | |
if I'm in bodily harm. | 32:23 | |
This is the only point that's necessary. | 32:25 | |
And I don't think of it in terms of Negro or anything else. | 32:28 | |
I think of it in terms of (inaudible) | 32:29 | |
Man | Julie I really doubt that. | 32:32 |
I can cut it apart and I can put you in instances where | 32:34 | |
I think you'd reject everything that you just said | 32:37 | |
but really what we're getting at here is | 32:40 | |
too much something that's based on geographical distinction | 32:43 | |
and economic distinctions and all this kind of stuff | 32:46 | |
and we're moving away from the main point. | 32:48 | |
But I would like to return to something that Amy brought up | 32:51 | |
and that is this bending over backwards. | 32:54 | |
I think Amy touched on something | 32:57 | |
that's very true here at Antioch. | 32:59 | |
And that is you very definitely get the impression | 33:01 | |
that a lot of people, white people, come to Antioch | 33:04 | |
come to Antioch knowing that Negroes | 33:06 | |
are a privileged class here. | 33:09 | |
I mean I can walk in that cafeteria and never crack a grin | 33:11 | |
and people will just smile at me so nice. | 33:16 | |
So proudly and all this crap. | 33:18 | |
(laughing) | 33:20 | |
Forget it. | 33:21 | |
And that's only because of the feeling that white people | 33:22 | |
have here that for some reason that at Antioch | 33:27 | |
Negroes deserve special treatment. | 33:31 | |
Let me give you a better example. | 33:33 | |
All the time that civil rights all this business is going on | 33:35 | |
whether I was deaf and blind and completely | 33:39 | |
unaware of everything going on. | 33:43 | |
There are white people here who would ask me | 33:45 | |
every hour of every day what's the | 33:47 | |
latest development on civil rights? | 33:49 | |
It's just assumed that every Negro here first | 33:53 | |
is absolutely connected with civil rights. | 33:55 | |
Just been brought up in the barber shop business | 33:59 | |
but even more than that it is assumed | 34:02 | |
that every Negro here is deserving special treatment. | 34:04 | |
That you have to look at him a special way. | 34:07 | |
Woman | Now wait a minute Crip | 34:10 |
I have gone to my own home town and | 34:12 | |
and people will ask me how The Village is | 34:14 | |
and they'll call me "Beatnik." | 34:16 | |
I mean it's the same thing. | 34:19 | |
People think in generalizations. | 34:20 | |
Interviewer | People think in terms, | 34:21 |
and this is what we're trying to get at. | 34:23 | |
When I look at you Julie Wilkins I know you. | 34:24 | |
But say if I didn't know you | 34:27 | |
and I came into this room and I look at you as white | 34:29 | |
and more often than not you look at me as Negro | 34:32 | |
and I have my general concepts of you as being white | 34:34 | |
and I have my little dictations of what white people are. | 34:37 | |
And that's fine. | 34:42 | |
That's what we're trying to get at. | 34:43 | |
A lot of us claim this is bullshit | 34:45 | |
and like we go into, this is a depressed area | 34:46 | |
this is this type of area and you always - | 34:49 | |
and this as, like James Conant mentioned in his book | 34:50 | |
"Slums and Suburbs" | 34:53 | |
That people don't like to mention the word Negro | 34:54 | |
or this that and the other. | 34:56 | |
They're always trying to get around it. | 34:58 | |
This is one thing I hate about northern white people. | 34:59 | |
They're always trying to just bail up all their prejudices | 35:02 | |
and say this isn't prejudice. | 35:04 | |
I have my prejudice against this because | 35:06 | |
this is a lower social economic area. | 35:08 | |
But it comes right down to one thing. | 35:11 | |
You're white and I'm Black and with each other- | 35:13 | |
Woman | No, you're wrong Crip. | 35:17 |
You can't understand it on any other terms. | 35:19 | |
Woman | You can't justify your own prejudice | 35:20 |
just by calling me prejudice. | 35:22 | |
I don't give a damn whether you're Black, white or green. | 35:23 | |
I notice it, yes because I've been | 35:25 | |
brought up with the vocabulary. | 35:26 | |
Interviewer | In other words- | 35:28 |
Woman | Listen, no listen, it's because you have eyes | 35:30 |
(inaudible) | 35:32 | |
Yeah, and if you're a bastard I can't stand you. | 35:34 | |
If you're a nice guy, you're a nice guy | 35:35 | |
and you're like (inaudible). | 35:37 | |
If you're fresh, it annoys me. | 35:39 | |
If you're polite, I'm intrigued. | 35:41 | |
I notice that Carol is blonde. | 35:44 | |
I notice that Pat is a brunette. | 35:46 | |
I notice some people are fat. | 35:49 | |
But this does not dictate how I feel about them. | 35:51 | |
- | Hang on a second, wait a minute. | 35:54 |
We have a whole mess of undefined terms floating around | 35:56 | |
when this girl who left was talking | 36:03 | |
she noticed that when she went on the other side | 36:06 | |
of the tracks she definitely didn't feel "it." | 36:09 | |
Only we never did find out what "it" was. | 36:11 | |
And now we're talking about Negroes versus ordinary persons. | 36:14 | |
Now what the point is that we do think | 36:18 | |
along these undefined generalities. | 36:22 | |
Now I don't want to attach a value judgment to them | 36:25 | |
I mean this early in the discussion | 36:27 | |
but let's just think about this. | 36:31 | |
When I was a kid in my Crayola crayon box | 36:33 | |
you know skin color was my color. | 36:35 | |
There's a bluegrass song that we don't sing anymore. | 36:39 | |
(laughing) | 36:42 | |
And it goes | 36:43 | |
there'll be no distinction there | 36:45 | |
there'll be no distinction there. | 36:46 | |
For the Lord is good and the Lord is right | 36:48 | |
and we'll all be white in that heavenly life | 36:49 | |
so if there is a distinction there. | 36:52 | |
And this is the people's idea of, I think, of integration. | 36:53 | |
Everybody is gonna be white and | 36:59 | |
everybody's gonna be the same. | 37:00 | |
And even if we're not the same | 37:02 | |
The intellectual sophistication as Crip said, quote-unquote, | 37:04 | |
that we have here at Antioch is | 37:07 | |
okay people aren't the same, I notice the difference | 37:08 | |
but this doesn't effect my value judgment because | 37:10 | |
even if I'm prejudiced against Negroes this way | 37:12 | |
I'm also prejudice against Indians and Orientals | 37:15 | |
and other people. | 37:16 | |
(laughing) | 37:18 | |
(Now wait) (Let him keep going) | 37:20 | |
Woman | Crip I get the feeling that you're sitting here | 37:23 |
waiting for people to say yes I feel a difference. | 37:27 | |
You're Black and I'm white you know. | 37:30 | |
This is the feeling I get that you're | 37:32 | |
pressing people to say this, you're saying no you're wrong | 37:35 | |
that's not what you feel, you feel this. | 37:37 | |
Interviewer | I'm not, I don't mean | 37:39 |
to put a value judgment on this, and I'm sorry | 37:41 | |
if I say no that you're wrong but what I am pointing out | 37:43 | |
is that it seems, and this is one thing that there is a flip | 37:46 | |
right between Jim and myself on this. | 37:47 | |
Is that I cannot see, it's very hard for me to see this | 37:51 | |
and maybe I could be convinced I'm wrong | 37:55 | |
I've been I think wrong in some conceptions | 37:57 | |
of Yellow Springs Ohio | 38:00 | |
that separate from Antioch the people living here | 38:02 | |
and their relationships between whites and Negroes. | 38:05 | |
That's probably one thing that I've been convinced | 38:08 | |
was maybe wrong. But I can not see, | 38:11 | |
this is one thing that you're all gonna argue with me, | 38:13 | |
and this is why I'm trying to find out. | 38:15 | |
How whites can look at people, and I don't mean | 38:17 | |
to question you say you believe this and | 38:22 | |
I have to accept this cause I said I know | 38:26 | |
you are telling the truth in your own life | 38:28 | |
but coming from myself, I cannot see how whites | 38:31 | |
can say that they don't see this difference. | 38:34 | |
Now that I know that you say that | 38:37 | |
I accept everybody as a human being. | 38:40 | |
That's why I have a basic mistrust of white people. | 38:42 | |
But after I got to know them as individuals | 38:45 | |
and especially in Antioch, it's easier this way. | 38:48 | |
But when I go out on a co-op job | 38:51 | |
I react a certain way and usually most | 38:52 | |
white people act a certain way. | 38:55 | |
Like we had at the other hall meeting | 38:57 | |
a person asked me, do I feel self conscious | 38:59 | |
with white people if I take them home? | 39:02 | |
And I said well, not with Andy Weissman, my roommate. | 39:06 | |
(inaudible) I agree that Andy Weissman | 39:10 | |
was an unusual white person. | 39:11 | |
An unusual white person. | 39:16 | |
Man | Well any friend that you would hold | 39:19 |
you wouldn't feel uncomfortable just | 39:22 | |
because they were white. | 39:24 | |
Interviewer | Mmm not necessarily. | 39:26 |
Man | No you said if you take a white person home | 39:27 |
do you feel uncomfortable with them. | 39:32 | |
So it's either they are Andy Weissman who | 39:34 | |
you say is an unusual white person | 39:35 | |
and they are just a friend you have | 39:38 | |
or maybe it's Jeff Cash, you wouldn't feel | 39:40 | |
uncomfortable with Jeff Cash would you? | 39:42 | |
Interviewer | Well the thing like, | 39:43 |
what I mentioned is that Andy can handle himself. | 39:45 | |
Andy can handle himself. | 39:50 | |
And Andy can jive the cats on the street | 39:53 | |
just as much as they can jive him you know. | 39:55 | |
Man | Well I wasn't talking about in the context | 39:58 |
with someone else. | 40:00 | |
- | Well I know that but in feeling self-conscious | 40:01 |
Alright with most white people in this room | 40:04 | |
if I took them to Nashville Tennessee | 40:06 | |
and my home was as private or the same as theirs | 40:07 | |
I'd feel awfully self conscious. | 40:10 | |
Even if I knew them for a good while. | 40:12 | |
I would feel awfully self conscious. | 40:13 | |
Woman | Can I say, I have a whole bunch of things | 40:15 |
that I understand what you mean. | 40:18 | |
One thing that bothered me about what Crip says | 40:21 | |
is that you think people here bend over backwards. | 40:24 | |
Maybe these same people feel the same way | 40:27 | |
to Negroes all over. | 40:29 | |
Maybe they just don't know them well enough. | 40:31 | |
They just don't know what to do. | 40:33 | |
Man | Don't you think there's something wrong with that? | 40:35 |
I don't want to be accepted because I'm a Negro | 40:38 | |
and I've suffered through all these years or something. | 40:40 | |
Woman | Now wait a minute, wait a minute. | 40:43 |
There are some people who have grown up | 40:45 | |
in a white community who haven't had the chance | 40:48 | |
to associate with Negroes and their parents | 40:51 | |
don't believe in prejudice and they're told | 40:54 | |
all the time as Julie was told | 40:56 | |
you know they're nice even if they are Negroes | 40:59 | |
and there is no difference between Negroes and whites | 41:01 | |
They are just as good as anybody else. | 41:04 | |
Now when this person meets a Negro for the first time, | 41:06 | |
which this has happened to me which now | 41:10 | |
I think I've gotten out of it because | 41:12 | |
I know enough Negroes. | 41:14 | |
Interviewer | You know they're just like anybody else. | 41:16 |
Woman | No, now I don't. | 41:19 |
When I was growing up, when I was a little child | 41:21 | |
I was aware when my father's best friend was a Negro. | 41:24 | |
I was aware that this person was a Negro. | 41:28 | |
And I always had, I was always told that | 41:31 | |
all people are just the same as everybody else | 41:34 | |
and this whole bit. | 41:38 | |
And I use to tell all my little friends | 41:38 | |
you know because when you're a little kid | 41:41 | |
you notice the difference. | 41:43 | |
But the thing is if you never get a chance | 41:45 | |
to know a person as a human being | 41:48 | |
if you never get a chance to become close to them. | 41:50 | |
You might feel uncomfortable. | 41:52 | |
Alright you say you don't like this. | 41:55 | |
Well I don't think they're doing it to patronize you. | 41:57 | |
I don't think they're doing it- | 42:02 | |
I think they're doing it because | 42:04 | |
they don't know how to handle themselves | 42:06 | |
They don't know what else to do. | 42:08 | |
- | And why should they be (inaudible) Sue? | 42:10 |
(inaudible) | 42:13 | |
because he's a Negro he won't expect your friendship | 42:17 | |
because you want to be friends with him. | 42:21 | |
This is what Julie would say, she's saying | 42:23 | |
she didn't dare go and try to be friends | 42:26 | |
with any Negroes because she was afraid | 42:28 | |
they'd think that she was being friends with them | 42:29 | |
just because she felt that they hated her. | 42:31 | |
- | I would say it's a basic | 42:34 |
psychological fact that people are not motivated that way. | 42:36 | |
People are motivated because of selfishness | 42:39 | |
that when you say you're afraid | 42:41 | |
that they will think you're prejudiced | 42:43 | |
I would throw back at you and say | 42:45 | |
you know, that has something | 42:47 | |
to do with the way you think about yourself. | 42:49 | |
Woman | Well it probably does, who knows you know. | 42:52 |
- | The point is, the fact is | 42:55 |
that there was some type of distinction. | 42:59 | |
Woman | Now wait a minute. | 43:03 |
I don't think that- | 43:04 | |
I'm sorry there is something that I really | 43:06 | |
disagree with here and nobody's gotten the point yet. | 43:07 | |
There is a difference. | 43:10 | |
Negroes are Negroes and whites are whites | 43:11 | |
and Orientals are Orientals. | 43:13 | |
We notice the difference and I don't | 43:16 | |
want everybody to be the same. | 43:17 | |
Interviewer | Yeah but three times tonight, | 43:19 |
three times tonight we have said | 43:20 | |
in defining this difference we have annihilated | 43:23 | |
the whole Negro race as a separate entity. | 43:26 | |
We are talking about everybody. | 43:29 | |
And then we were talking about those that are different. | 43:32 | |
- | Larry, I refuse to think in general distinctions | 43:35 |
Woman | Now some people spoke in this way. | 43:37 |
- | What do you do with the people | 43:43 |
who are Negroes and have blue eyes? | 43:44 | |
How can you classify people? | 43:47 | |
- | What I'm saying is, I don't want to classify them | 43:50 |
and take away, but what I'm saying is | 43:54 | |
that there is a difference and I don't think | 43:56 | |
it's bad to notice that people look different. | 43:58 | |
Interviewer | But you are basing a relationship | 44:01 |
on a difference what the heck is that. | 44:03 | |
Woman | Now wait, I'm not saying- | 44:05 |
Interviewer | You are! | 44:08 |
Woman | I am not. | 44:08 |
When did I base the relationship- | 44:10 | |
Interviewer | Didn't you just say awhile ago- | 44:11 |
Woman | You just grouped everybody together | 44:13 |
under Negro because of their general looks. | 44:15 | |
- | The point is that I think | 44:17 |
the thing we hate to realize here | 44:20 | |
is the stigma attached to realizing a difference. | 44:24 | |
Now here's a bit. | 44:27 | |
My hair is black | 44:30 | |
Larry's hair is a lot lighter a | 44:31 | |
and there's the same difference | 44:32 | |
between your hair and blonde hair. | 44:33 | |
Now this is the stigma attached to it | 44:37 | |
on the level of our society. | 44:40 | |
And we get it established on a personal level. | 44:42 | |
There's this tension again. | 44:44 | |
Alright we can call it reverse prejudice tension. | 44:46 | |
We could say that you felt funny | 44:48 | |
about making friends with the Negro | 44:51 | |
because the facade might be interpreted | 44:53 | |
as bending over backwards and et cetera et cetera. | 44:56 | |
The fact is, not that you noticed the difference | 44:58 | |
but that this difference made a difference | 45:00 | |
In your actual people to people relations. | 45:04 | |
This is ticklish, this is ticklish. | 45:07 | |
Woman | It seems to me that in relation | 45:12 |
to what Sue said before that she hadn't had | 45:15 | |
or rather that many people who have been | 45:17 | |
told of these ideas of equality and liberty et cetera | 45:19 | |
had not had any real contact with Negroes | 45:22 | |
that they would approach a Negro more with curiosity | 45:25 | |
rather than overt friendship or overt aggression. | 45:28 | |
Sue | Or else, or the minute that you are aware | 45:33 |
that some people are prejudiced against Negroes | 45:36 | |
like I remember my feelings as a little kid | 45:40 | |
alright these people, they have it rough. | 45:44 | |
They can't get jobs. | 45:47 | |
They're poor. | 45:48 | |
You know this is a tough situation. | 45:49 | |
There's discrimination all over the United States | 45:53 | |
they don't have equal opportunities. | 45:57 | |
So you're a little kid and you realize | 45:59 | |
that somehow or other the Negro is oppressed | 46:02 | |
and that these people have dark skins and I have white skin. | 46:05 | |
So I see a Negro | 46:09 | |
and I think of all these sad things that happened | 46:10 | |
So I want to be nice to em. | 46:12 | |
- | But do you really want to? | 46:14 |
- | No, oh God, I'm much beyond this | 46:16 |
but this is the point I was at before I knew any Negroes. | 46:18 | |
(inaudible) | 46:23 | |
- | Let me interject. | 46:25 |
First of all when you say you were | 46:31 | |
looking at the difference. | 46:34 | |
Well little kids don't know the difference. | 46:37 | |
(talking at once) | 46:41 | |
Woman | Let me say something about my brother. | 46:44 |
When he was about three years old | 46:46 | |
and he was walking along with my father one day | 46:48 | |
and he saw a Negro and he was really evident, really dark. | 46:48 | |
And he looks at my father, he says daddy she's black. | 46:52 | |
He was three years old. | 46:57 | |
And you know, so my father tries to explain to him | 46:59 | |
well you see a long time ago they lived in the sun | 47:01 | |
and you know, what do you do with a 3 year old kid? | 47:03 | |
but he saw the difference. | 47:06 | |
And he hadn't learned enough to be prejudiced yet. | 47:08 | |
But you do learn prejudice as well I feel. | 47:12 | |
And he hadn't old enough to learn | 47:14 | |
but my gosh, she was black. | 47:16 | |
And he noticed the difference. | 47:19 | |
He had never seen a black person before. | 47:22 | |
He wanted to know why. | 47:24 | |
(inaudible) | 47:25 | |
- | But this is a bit different now | 47:29 |
from what you were saying though. | 47:32 | |
Because you developed your point you didn't say | 47:34 | |
as long as you don't notice the difference. | 47:37 | |
And what I was implying was that- | 47:40 | |
Woman | Yes, that there was a quality in it | 47:42 |
when I was a little kid. | 47:44 | |
Interviewer | Right, that this is different | 47:47 |
than saying that she is black. | 47:49 | |
That most little kids don't have an idea | 47:51 | |
of what black is supposed to mean. | 47:53 | |
And in other societies. | 47:56 | |
Woman | But they see the difference. | 47:58 |
Interviewer | Right, okay. | 47:59 |
Man | It doesn't mean anything when you're a little kid. | 48:01 |
Woman | Yeah, no but they see that there's a difference | 48:02 |
at least in color. | 48:05 | |
Man | I don't even remember noticing Negroes | 48:06 |
until I was about four or five. | 48:08 | |
- | Oh gosh, you remember before you were 4 years old? | 48:10 |
- | I also remember when I was a little kid in grade school | 48:16 |
and I used to draw pictures, I used to | 48:19 | |
draw pictures of basketball games | 48:21 | |
and the crowd, you know? | 48:23 | |
And the Negroes would just be like | 48:25 | |
well here's a circle with darker and here's one that's light | 48:26 | |
you know and the Negro circle would be in the middle | 48:29 | |
of all the white circles and I didn't even realize | 48:32 | |
that Negroes usually are together | 48:35 | |
or have been forced together and so on. | 48:37 | |
You don't realize this until you are older. | 48:39 | |
- | But there's two steps beyond this. | 48:41 |
Woman | Why should you make- | 48:45 |
if you're coloring in your coloring book | 48:47 | |
and you color all the people white | 48:50 | |
it's not strange if you live in a white community | 48:51 | |
and all the people you have ever seen are white. | 48:53 | |
- | No it isn't but the point is, | 48:55 |
it's not strange at all. | 48:58 | |
This is the point that it's not strange. | 49:00 | |
That in fact it is not strange | 49:02 | |
that among us here, among the white people when we think | 49:06 | |
of people we think of white people. | 49:10 | |
But this is our society that it is not strange in. | 49:12 | |
It doesn't seem strange though, but it is very strange. | 49:15 | |
Man | This is true. | 49:17 |
Ordinary people, undefined term, equals white | 49:18 | |
becomes a self conscious definition. | 49:21 | |
- | But in fact for a man from Mars | 49:22 |
for a man from Mars it would be a very strange fact. | 49:24 | |
No, OK, let me go on | 49:28 | |
Given this that it is not strange in our society. | 49:30 | |
Woman | I don't mean in our society | 49:36 |
I mean it's not strange if this is all you've seen | 49:37 | |
to interpret this as what is in your mind. | 49:41 | |
- | Well that's society, what you see, what you're used to | 49:44 |
- | No as a human being we can only remember what we know | 49:47 |
Interviewer | But there's one step beyond this. | 49:50 |
One step beyond this is, um, | 49:53 | |
The South | 49:56 | |
Where it's not a question of segregation | 49:59 | |
we're in prejudice but this is not the South at all | 50:02 | |
It's that Negroes aren't recognized in the system. | 50:07 | |
You see signs on churches for instance | 50:11 | |
or restaurants saying everybody welcome. | 50:13 | |
Whites only. | 50:18 | |
Now most of the time the sign doesn't even say whites only. | 50:21 | |
But they don't even have to bother putting it up | 50:23 | |
Because nobody in their right mind | 50:25 | |
would even assume or think about, in a million years | 50:28 | |
that a Negro would come up. | 50:30 | |
Man | Well it's just in the North the sign is invisible | 50:32 |
like Northern is gonna laugh here at Southern, you know | 50:36 | |
like your Northern white's gonna laugh at the Southern | 50:40 | |
And your sign is invisible | 50:43 | |
- | But the sign does not say Negroes excluded. | 50:45 |
The sign says everybody welcome. | 50:49 | |
Okay, now because of this institutionalized- | 50:50 | |
no, okay, you say these feelings are just, in any society | 50:59 | |
That when we think of white people we also exclude Indians | 51:02 | |
or we also exclude the Tasmanians | 51:06 | |
but we don't discriminate against the Tasmanian. | 51:09 | |
Okay I will say this. | 51:13 | |
That these feelings are not peculiar to the race issue. | 51:14 | |
These things are true in every society. | 51:17 | |
But it became institutionalized in our position. | 51:19 | |
That they are here and racist. | 51:22 | |
In fact they are almost inevitably here | 51:25 | |
Woman | Okay but we recognize these things | 51:27 |
also as apart from the race issue because | 51:30 | |
it happens- | 51:32 | |
Man | Yeah, but they exist apart from the race issue | 51:34 |
but this isn't the point. | 51:36 | |
There is nothing unique in any of the attitudes to | 51:39 | |
(inaudible) | 51:45 | |
There are no feelings that are unique | 51:52 | |
between whites and Negroes that only | 51:53 | |
exist between whites and Negroes. | 51:56 | |
But these feelings have become institutionalized | 51:58 | |
between whites and Negroes you see | 52:00 | |
because of our society. | 52:03 | |
Now the recognition of this fact in my opinion | 52:07 | |
leads to two conclusions. | 52:12 | |
One is it's the white man's fault | 52:13 | |
and two that every white man shares in that guilt | 52:15 | |
that it doesn't do any good to say | 52:18 | |
well this is Crip's problem that he feels this way. | 52:21 | |
Or that lets work with Crip to prove to him that | 52:25 | |
not all white people are bad, look at me. | 52:30 | |
Or that it doesn't help you when you're in Harlem | 52:34 | |
and everybody is always testing you | 52:39 | |
with whether you're prejudiced or not. | 52:40 | |
That just as all Negroes share in discrimination | 52:43 | |
all whites share in the guilt of perpetuating this thing | 52:45 | |
Accepting this is hard. | 52:48 | |
Woman | Accepting it is being prejudiced. | 52:54 |
It's saying Negroes as Negroes and whites as whites | 52:55 | |
and not as people as people. | 52:59 | |
Woman | Accepting that is accepting the reality. | 53:01 |
Woman | Yes, it's accepting a reality | 53:03 |
but it's also- | 53:06 | |
Woman | It's not feeling something. | 53:07 |
Woman | You're just delving into a fever | 53:10 |
because you're accepting something- | 53:12 | |
- | So may I ask something | 53:14 |
you know nobody else is getting a chance to talk | 53:16 | |
Woman | I'm sorry I really am. | 53:18 |
Woman | I have two things to say. | 53:21 |
First of all I have this feeling that | 53:22 | |
what you say about people being overly friendly to you | 53:25 | |
because you're a Negro | 53:29 | |
is probably true, I don't know. | 53:32 | |
I have no excuse. | 53:37 | |
Particularly right here and now (inaudible) | 53:40 | |
I didn't know there was supposed to be a difference | 53:43 | |
between somebody who had darker skin than I have | 53:47 | |
Until I started to want to read the front page | 53:51 | |
and I started reading about all this stuff down in the South | 53:55 | |
and then I became very conscious of it. | 53:58 | |
And I remember there was a certain period in high school | 54:00 | |
where, I would try not to do this but every time | 54:03 | |
I talked to the Negroes that I didn't know | 54:07 | |
I felt like I wanted them to be sure | 54:09 | |
that I didn't think of them, I wasn't prejudiced. | 54:13 | |
I didn't do this with people that I knew very well. | 54:16 | |
But just with Negroes that I didn't know. | 54:20 | |
I felt like I could hear myself talking this way | 54:23 | |
and feeling this way though I didn't intend to | 54:29 | |
I didn't want to. | 54:32 | |
And I think now there are certain people | 54:35 | |
when we were trying to decide (inaudible) | 54:40 | |
There are some people that I definitely think of as Negro | 54:47 | |
and then there are other people that | 54:51 | |
it doesn't enter my mind at all. | 54:53 | |
And there were other times like when | 54:56 | |
I was at a Baptist picnic (inaudible) | 54:59 | |
(inaudible) | 55:04 | |
Man | Washington (inaudible)? | 55:10 |
- | It was a Baptist picnic | 55:12 |
I was the only white person who was (inaudible) | 55:16 | |
And I felt very very white. | 55:22 | |
I don't know if I felt that the people around me were Negro | 55:26 | |
but I felt very white. | 55:30 | |
I felt very out of place. | 55:33 | |
I had no idea of the personalities of these people | 55:37 | |
I don't think it was necessarily because | 55:42 | |
they had a different color skin | 55:44 | |
but because of where I was | 55:46 | |
Riding in New York, on a train and (inaudible) | 55:51 | |
I felt the same way. I know nothing about them | 55:55 | |
I didn't even know (inaudible) | 55:57 | |
I think, Crip, a lot of times I just think of you | 56:06 | |
as a Negro, because when I think of you, Crip | 56:09 | |
I think of the NAACP (inaudible) | 56:13 | |
and that's who I associate you with | 56:18 | |
I don't know you well enough to associate you with | 56:22 | |
(inaudible) | 56:25 | |
(inaudible) | 56:30 | |
- | See the same thing- | 56:38 |
This is what I was bringing up. | 56:39 | |
I wanted to ask a question. | 56:42 | |
So basically it's a thing that's been bothering me | 56:43 | |
and you know I wonder how we can address ourselves. | 56:47 | |
As I said, when I look at white people | 56:52 | |
it's different when I'm here at Antioch | 56:56 | |
because you're so thoroughly integrated here | 56:58 | |
and you can tend to forget that you're brown | 57:02 | |
that I'm brown. | 57:08 | |
Like when I'm in Nashville at home | 57:09 | |
I don't think of myself as being Negro | 57:13 | |
unless some stupid ass comes and | 57:15 | |
calls me some names or something. | 57:17 | |
And then I suddenly realize that I am a Negro. | 57:20 | |
But I don't think of myself as anything. | 57:23 | |
I think of myself as a human being | 57:25 | |
whenever I am at home. | 57:28 | |
And when I am here, more often than not | 57:30 | |
I think of myself as being just like anybody else | 57:32 | |
whether it be white brown blue or green | 57:36 | |
in most instances. | 57:38 | |
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. | 57:41 | |
But when I get out of Antioch | 57:43 | |
no matter, excuse me, whether I'm with Antiochians or not | 57:45 | |
with Antiochians I have a safer feeling | 57:48 | |
because I am sure that if something happens | 57:51 | |
to me or them that we can understand it. | 57:53 | |
Hopefully can understand it. | 57:56 | |
But when I am out of Antioch | 57:58 | |
I suddenly become aware when I come in contact | 58:00 | |
with white people that I am a Negro. | 58:03 | |
That I am brown. | 58:06 | |
And then I'm wondering, this is the thing | 58:07 | |
that has been bothering me like | 58:12 | |
we go here for five years and do we go | 58:13 | |
back living into our segregated communities? | 58:16 | |
And do we just see each other and say | 58:19 | |
maybe my home over on my side of the tracks | 58:21 | |
or your home over on your side of the tracks | 58:24 | |
and we say oh God how bad things are. | 58:26 | |
But still there's a definite split | 58:30 | |
and that I would have to wonder | 58:32 | |
before I go over to anyone else's home of whether | 58:35 | |
it would be acceptable. | 58:38 | |
Whether your neighbors would think this of you. | 58:39 | |
This that and the other | 58:42 | |
I must always be aware of the racial etiquette. | 58:44 | |
And I think that many a time we come here | 58:48 | |
and we often forget about this because | 58:51 | |
we have a definite racial etiquette. | 58:52 | |
The north has a definite racial etiquette. | 58:54 | |
The Chicago suburbs have the most definite | 58:57 | |
racial etiquette that this world has ever seen. | 59:00 | |
(inaudible) | 59:05 | |
And then, you know, you go on. | 59:08 | |
You see I appreciate a Southerner | 59:11 | |
and I appreciate a Southerner because | 59:13 | |
I know where I stand. | 59:15 | |
Julie | But Crip I want the privilege | 59:18 |
of forgetting that you are a Negro. | 59:20 | |
And I've had that privilege. | 59:21 | |
I've lived with Negroes that I've walked in | 59:22 | |
and I've asked them to suntan with me | 59:23 | |
and she looked at me and said, what!? | 59:25 | |
Oh dear, you know. | 59:27 | |
I had this privilege. | 59:29 | |
She and I argued with another guy | 59:30 | |
who was in the same building over Black Muslims | 59:32 | |
and what really pisses me off is | 59:33 | |
not only the fact that you refuse me the right | 59:37 | |
to forget that you're Negro | 59:40 | |
to forget that this has been built into me | 59:42 | |
and every other Black kid around | 59:45 | |
To forget of you as a Negro and | 59:47 | |
start thinking of you in the same terms | 59:49 | |
that I think of anybody else. | 59:52 | |
Crip | But see Julie I'm not saying | 59:53 |
I would like for you to, because the worst thing | 59:55 | |
that can be said, now listen to this | 59:58 | |
and listen very carefully, of me is to be a Negro. | 1:00:00 | |
Now I'll tell you why. | 1:00:04 | |
I'm proud of my black color. | 1:00:05 | |
I'm proud of this. | 1:00:08 | |
Extremely proud. | 1:00:09 | |
But to me the worst term that society | 1:00:10 | |
can make of a person is to call him a Negro. | 1:00:13 | |
This is the worst term to me. | 1:00:16 | |
Yeah, no, but see how do I know | 1:00:18 | |
Are you gonna separate yourself from | 1:00:21 | |
the rest of the white people in this world? | 1:00:23 | |
Wait wait wait wait wait wait a minute. | 1:00:26 | |
Can you separate yourself? | 1:00:28 | |
Julie | I'm saying you can separate me | 1:00:31 |
from the rest of the ones who feel the same way. | 1:00:33 | |
Crip | Well okay. | 1:00:35 |
Then I'm asking, you know. | 1:00:36 | |
This is okay. | 1:00:38 | |
I want to feel like I'm a human being. | 1:00:40 | |
Like I'm- | 1:00:44 |
- | I want to feel like I'm a human being, | 0:03 |
like I am not Negro. | 0:07 | |
- | I want to let you feel that way. | 0:08 |
- | All right, all right, | 0:10 |
but you want to let me feel this way, | 0:10 | |
but then you must answer yourself, can you? | 0:13 | |
Are you gonna live in an integrated neighborhood | 0:15 | |
and so forth? | 0:20 | |
Do we have to feel about these racial etiquette | 0:20 | |
lines and so forth? | 0:24 | |
- | Wait a minute. | |
- | Wait a minute, all right. | 0:25 |
Can we forget, can we forget what the outside world | 0:27 | |
is actually like? | 0:31 | |
This is all well and good. | 0:33 | |
One thing, this is making a better understanding | 0:36 | |
between you, the rest of us, me, the rest of us | 0:39 | |
and you because we're putting on the line our feelings. | 0:41 | |
I'm putting on the line my feelings toward you | 0:44 | |
as a white person. | 0:47 | |
As I said, it would be very difficult for me | 0:49 | |
because my world is Antioch, which happens to be white, | 0:51 | |
this is a white world. | 0:57 | |
- | Could you (mumbles)? | 0:58 |
- | It's a white world. | |
Those are my own words | 1:01 | |
between you and white with me. | 1:03 | |
(faint speaking) | 1:04 | |
- | You think it's what I want? | 1:06 |
Well, no, and people have said that in America. | 1:08 | |
I wasn't (faint speaking) to hate you in America. | 1:11 | |
- | This is all in hood. | 1:13 |
- | To hate you | |
and (faint speaking) it. | 1:15 | |
- | This is all well and good. | 1:16 |
- | And I also want the privilege to turn down a date | 1:17 |
with you because I don't want to go out with you | 1:20 | |
not because you're going to (faint speaking). | 1:22 | |
- | This is all well and good but see, this is it. | 1:25 |
- | Okay, how do I know? | 1:28 |
- | But see, but see, | |
you have that freedom, you have that freedom already, | 1:29 | |
it's around you. | 1:33 | |
- | Man, I don't have that. | |
- | Yes, you do have that freedom to tell me. | 1:35 |
- | Look! | 1:38 |
- | But see. | |
- | You tell me what I'm supposed to do when a 38-year-old | 1:39 |
man who's up to here in debt who's not quite divorced | 1:41 | |
who's a janitor or an almost photographer | 1:45 | |
who's running around screaming his neuroses | 1:48 | |
into the world, if he asked me out, | 1:51 | |
look man, I want nothing to do with you. | 1:54 | |
You're a nice guy. | 1:56 | |
We'll sit around and we'll talk shop, | 1:58 | |
we'll both (faint speaking) in the same house, | 1:59 | |
but I'm damned if I'm gonna go out with you. | 2:02 | |
I don't want to get screwed up in your marital problems. | 2:04 | |
Well, he asked me out three times and I said no every time. | 2:07 | |
Every time I go to (faint speaking). | 2:10 | |
Finally, I hear via the grapevine, which happens | 2:13 | |
to be the same (faint speaking) in the office. | 2:16 | |
- | It's what? | 2:20 |
- | I'm sorry, I was bringing up (faint speaking) language. | 2:21 |
The color. | 2:23 | |
- | The color? | |
- | Yeah. | 2:24 |
- | I know, I know. | 2:26 |
- | Okay. | 2:29 |
- | But just the same as your face (faint speaking). | 2:30 |
- | Is this? | 2:33 |
- | Sure, if you stay | |
it's a very derogatory term. | 2:35 | |
- | This isn't the way. | 2:37 |
- | Oh no. | |
Well. | 2:39 | |
- | No, it's not. | |
(people talk over each other) | 2:43 | |
No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. | 2:44 | |
- | I tried to have the (faint speaking) | 2:45 |
that the reason he thinks I tell you no, | 2:47 | |
not that he's 38 and not divorced yet, | 2:49 | |
not that he's up to here in debt, he's Negro. | 2:52 | |
This is why he thinks I turned him down. | 2:56 | |
How can I get with a hypocrite? | 2:59 | |
I tried, I answered him the same way I would answer anyone | 3:01 | |
and he goes of with something that has never been. | 3:06 | |
- | Julie, here is something else. | 3:09 |
I think that, I can't answer the question | 3:13 | |
'cause I don't think you've answered the real question. | 3:16 | |
You mentioned part of the discussion | 3:22 | |
but we had brought out a point | 3:25 | |
if you wanna just bring it out again, and it would start out | 3:28 | |
in general saying that (faint speaking). | 3:31 | |
You said that, to show the fact that you had forgotten | 3:34 | |
that this girl was colored, that she was Negro, | 3:38 | |
you asked her for sun tan lotion | 3:42 | |
Only white people use sun tan lotion | 3:46 | |
- | But this was my friend. | 3:49 |
She had cosmetic (faint speaking). | 3:50 | |
- | You forgot she was Negro | 3:52 |
you thought she was white. | 3:53 | |
- | (inaudible) do you have any suntan lotion? | 3:54 |
- | Do I have suntan lotion, you said? | 3:56 |
No, I don't. | 3:57 | |
- | Yeah, but (faint speaking). | 3:58 |
- | Okay, they think | |
it means you're white instead of Negro. | 4:00 | |
- | It may mean white | 4:02 |
- | No you made her white | 4:03 |
You made her the same instead of equal. | 4:04 | |
- | You made her (faint speaking). | 4:08 |
- | I know, (faint speaking) bunch. | 4:09 |
(people talking over each other) | 4:12 | |
- | I have cosmetics | 4:14 |
(people talking over each other) | 4:16 | |
- | I don't think I made her white. | 4:19 |
- | Well so what, she. | 4:22 |
(people talking over each other) | 4:23 | |
- | Suntan lotion commercial. | 4:25 |
(people talking over each other) | 4:26 | |
- | Is the fact that she's a Negro. | 4:28 |
- | If you become colorblind | 4:30 |
does this mean that you're thinking | 4:32 | |
of everybody is white? | 4:34 | |
- | Yeah. | |
- | Suppose you go up to her and say | 4:36 |
do you have toilet paper? | 4:38 | |
(people laughing) | 4:39 | |
So yeah, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute! | 4:40 | |
(people talking over each other) | 4:42 | |
- | Now wait, now wait, now wait, now wait! | 4:43 |
Now wait, wait, wait, wait. | 4:45 | |
The point the lad's trying to make is not ridiculous at all. | 4:46 | |
It's not ridiculous as we want. | 4:50 | |
Wait a minute, wait a minute. | 4:52 | |
All of us gonna say okay, she was white, you know? | 4:53 | |
But now look, if I asked you for Silky Straight, | 4:55 | |
you'd about die. | 4:58 | |
You know what Silky Straight is? | 4:59 | |
- | Yeah, yeah. | 5:01 |
- | Yeah, yeah. | |
- | Yeah, all of you'd just about die, you really would. | 5:02 |
(people talking over each other) | 5:06 | |
- | All right, all right. | 5:16 |
(people talking over each other) | 5:19 | |
Wait, wait, wait. | 5:20 | |
Wait. | 5:21 | |
(people chattering) | ||
- | Here's the thing (faint speaking). | 5:22 |
(people talking over each other) | 5:23 | |
(woman laughing) | 5:25 | |
Part of this person, part of your friend, | 5:26 | |
part of her people, her human-ness. | 5:28 | |
- | She was a girl! | 5:33 |
- | So wait a second. | |
Part of her people, part of the thing that made her human | 5:35 | |
was the fact that she was a Negro | 5:38 | |
or is it the fact that she came | 5:41 | |
from a certain culture, et cetera? | 5:43 | |
You can't, in my opinion, be mad at her. | 5:45 | |
Deny, yeah right! | 5:48 | |
And you can't accept her as a person without accepting her | 5:48 | |
as a Negro. | 5:52 | |
You were accepting her as a white person. | 5:53 | |
- | No, no. | 5:55 |
(people talking over each other) | 5:56 | |
- | What? | 5:57 |
- | What? | |
- | What, oh. | 5:58 |
(people talking over each other) | 5:59 | |
- | The same situation, my best friend, | 6:00 |
or Tony was my best friend, (faint speaking). | 6:03 | |
I told him we were going to the beach, | 6:05 | |
that I need suntan lotion, yet I thought he was a Negro | 6:08 | |
and he didn't need it. | 6:11 | |
And I can't think of him as white. | 6:12 | |
- | I know, it's unconscious. | 6:18 |
(people talking over each other) | 6:20 | |
- | Suntan lotion, you know. | 6:21 |
- | No, but it's not, it's not. | |
(people talking over each other) | 6:23 | |
- | Recognize. | 6:27 |
- | Jim, no! | |
- | What you gonna say? | 6:29 |
- | Can I borrow | |
It's not that Julie made her white | 6:30 | |
Julie didn't make the girl white. | 6:31 | |
Julie made, oh, let's see, not Negro. | 6:34 | |
Made her not, she didn't necessarily have to make her | 6:38 | |
not Negro, she made her a person that was | 6:41 | |
That she was familiar with, right | 6:45 | |
- | Julie forgot that she was necessarily white. | 6:49 |
(cross talk). | 6:53 | |
(woman laughing) | 6:56 | |
- | You would ask | |
Julie asked for suntan lotion. | 6:58 | |
She didn't necessarily have to be white. | 7:00 | |
She had said, "I want suntan lotion." | 7:02 | |
It meant that she had forgotten that Negroes | 7:04 | |
don't use suntan lotion. | 7:05 | |
- | I had forgotten that Negroes are different from whites. | 7:09 |
- | Yeah, yeah. | 7:13 |
- | Right. | |
- | You're damn right I forgot | 7:14 |
and I hope to God my children never learn. | 7:16 | |
- | No, she thought she was (faint speaking) | 7:18 |
with a person, any person who she borrowed | 7:19 | |
the suntan lotion from! | 7:22 | |
- | Being any different | |
than white, being the same from white, I say so. | 7:24 | |
(people talking over each other) | 7:26 | |
- | You had thought she was the same as white | 7:28 |
but she's not. | 7:30 | |
- | No, she's not. | |
(people talking over each other) | 7:32 | |
- | Julie. | 7:33 |
(people talking over each other) | 7:34 | |
- | Hold it, hold it, hold it! | 7:37 |
Let me say some stuff. | 7:41 | |
- | Julie! | |
(people laughing) | 7:43 | |
(people talking over each other) | 7:45 | |
- | I'll get to you later, huh? | 7:46 |
- | Wait a minute, wait a minute. | 7:48 |
(people talking over each other) | 7:49 | |
Wait a minute. | 7:51 | |
(people talking over each other) | 7:52 | |
Julie left (faint speaking) | 7:53 | |
- | I think there was one thing | 7:54 |
- | She left mad. | 7:56 |
(people talking over each other) | 7:58 | |
- | What Crip is really saying to Julie | 8:00 |
is that Crip can't think of Julie's thinking | 8:02 | |
in this way in the same fashion that Julie does. | 8:06 | |
Crip can't and I can't, and Jim, I really doubt | 8:11 | |
if you can or Karen or anybody. | 8:14 | |
wait a minute! | 8:16 | |
Please! | 8:17 | |
- | I'm sorry. | |
- | Or any Negro sitting in this room can really think | 8:19 |
that Julie feels that there is absolutely no difference | 8:23 | |
between a Negro and a white. | 8:26 | |
- | Oh, well you, wait a minute! | 8:28 |
- | Yeah. | 8:29 |
- | Julie is in a position, | |
I think, where she can say this. | 8:31 | |
Julie's white, that's what it all boils down to. | 8:33 | |
- | Oh. | 8:37 |
- | Wait a minute. | |
I'm not objecting to it, I'm not criticizing it, | 8:38 | |
I am saying it's good. | 8:41 | |
I think it's fine and I think it's great that Julie | 8:42 | |
can do this and thank God for Julie's coming into the world, | 8:44 | |
but nonetheless Crip and I | 8:49 | |
(inaudible) | 8:54 | |
(people laughing) | 8:56 | |
- | We can't feel that way and because we can't look at it | 8:56 |
from the same standpoint because we're gonna know | 8:59 | |
no matter what else, we're gonna be black | 9:02 | |
even if we feel the same way. | 9:05 | |
- | That's true. | 9:07 |
- | This is what Crip | |
is trying to present to Julie. | 9:09 | |
- | Yeah, but. | 9:10 |
- | Wait a minute, let's get Cal | |
a couple of uninterrupted, un-frustrated minutes. | 9:12 | |
Go on. | 9:14 | |
- | Well how then, all right, I see that you two can't | 9:16 |
'cause I can't understand, but how come Jim can? | 9:19 | |
I wish you'd let Jim say something for a change. | 9:21 | |
- | Go for yourself. | 9:22 |
- | I was about to say. | 9:25 |
(people laughing) | 9:27 | |
When I look at a person, I can look at a person as a person. | 9:29 | |
Now okay, now we come up and we speak. | 9:31 | |
Now you two have criteria that you have set. | 9:37 | |
You say these white people are this way. | 9:40 | |
Well, that's something I don't have. | 9:43 | |
I don't say, when they come up to me, I don't say | 9:44 | |
these people are gonna oppress me all of my days | 9:46 | |
and I'm gonna distrust them and I'm gonna trust | 9:48 | |
the Negro quicker than I'm gonna trust them. | 9:52 | |
I can't say that myself. | 9:56 | |
You people have said you can say it. | 9:57 | |
You don't see how I can see it. | 9:59 | |
- | No, we didn't say that. | 10:00 |
- | It's the easiest | |
thing in the world. | 10:01 | |
Okay, but then. | 10:02 | |
(people talking over each other) | 10:04 | |
Go on baby, go on. | 10:06 | |
(people talking over each other) | 10:07 | |
Go ahead and talk. | 10:08 | |
(people talking over each other) | 10:09 | |
Here's the thing, I'm not getting on Julie. | 10:10 | |
I wish we may depart. | 10:14 | |
I'm glad this she feels that way and I hope | 10:16 | |
that there are a million other people. | 10:19 | |
But see, I know better, that there aren't | 10:21 | |
that million of other people. | 10:23 | |
This is one of the reasons that we're having a hall | 10:25 | |
meeting now, and we don't know. | 10:26 | |
This is one of the reasons, this is one of the main reasons. | 10:29 | |
- | All right, this is where you find the difference | 10:32 |
that's when you and him, he knows better, | 10:34 | |
he's learned better. | 10:37 | |
- | I know I'm the personal jury | 10:38 |
(faint speaking) and one others, | 10:40 | |
but I'm not gonna judge all of them. | 10:42 | |
I'm not gonna say there aren't maybe nine or 99,000 | 10:44 | |
but the thing Jim, here comes the point. | 10:47 | |
I say I have a basic mistrust, but my best friend | 10:50 | |
(faint speaking) after I get to know them, | 10:52 | |
I said a Negro, I don't have that big barrier. | 10:55 | |
One of the biggest barriers between whites and Negroes | 10:57 | |
is the big difference. | 11:00 | |
A lot of us don't want to talk like this. | 11:01 | |
Tremendous barriers! | 11:03 | |
Many of you have felt this if you had Negro friends | 11:04 | |
and I felt this, and even with whites | 11:06 | |
because I felt. | 11:09 | |
- | Don't tell me what I saw. | |
- | I've gotten frustrated because I wanted to tell him, | 11:11 |
go look, you know, I mean this, that, and the other, | 11:16 | |
but I couldn't because I didn't feel that I was comfortable, | 11:19 | |
Or I didn't know how. | 11:22 | |
But see, this is it. | 11:24 | |
I have learned through history, | 11:25 | |
through studying between relationships between whites | 11:29 | |
and Negroes, listen, I'm hoping for the day | 11:32 | |
that I don't have to feel this way. | 11:35 | |
I'm hoping for the day that history will definitely | 11:37 | |
be reversed where whites don't oppress Negroes. | 11:39 | |
- | Well. | 11:42 |
- | Where you don't have to be | |
on your guard 24 hours a day when you come in contact | 11:44 | |
with whites or whether they're gonna hurt you or not | 11:46 | |
or whether they would hurt you. | 11:48 | |
- | Well, can we bring it down to a person level? | 11:49 |
- | This is not. | 11:51 |
- | Now wait, wait, wait, | |
wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. | 11:52 | |
- | You have this basic fear, not fear necessarily, | 11:56 |
whatever you call it, of the whole white race. | 11:58 | |
Now you come to Antioch and somebody introduces you | 12:01 | |
to a person and I said. | 12:04 | |
- | I made the distinction | |
between Antioch, it's easier to not (faint speaking). | 12:08 | |
- | Antioch, not Antioch. | 12:10 |
- | All right, pick York, | |
yeah, New York. | 12:12 | |
- | Okay, let's say your roommate comes up to you | 12:13 |
and introduces you to a person, he's white. | 12:15 | |
Is there a barrier against him | 12:18 | |
or is there? | 12:19 | |
- | There's a barrier | |
right there, there is a barrier, | 12:20 | |
I admit that there's a barrier. | 12:22 | |
- | Well, how can you place this barrier on this one person? | 12:24 |
- | You know what, I can place a barrier because Jim, Jim, | 12:28 |
wait a minute, let's be realistic. | 12:31 | |
Time after time after time after time | 12:33 | |
whites have placed that barrier between the Negro | 12:38 | |
because they definitely felt this way. | 12:40 | |
Now wait, I'm gonna make this point. | 12:42 | |
A person made this point earlier today, | 12:45 | |
no matter how educated the Negro is, | 12:46 | |
no many how many degrees he has behind his name, | 12:48 | |
there's just so far that he can go. | 12:50 | |
That means there's a barrier placed on him right there | 12:53 | |
and I'm saying all right, my barrier is really unfortunate, | 12:56 | |
it really is unfortunate. | 13:02 | |
- | I agree | |
- | I agree there too, it is unfortunate, | 13:04 |
but it's the only barrier and I'm so, | 13:07 | |
Jim, I've been, you know, like you would in D.C. | 13:10 | |
D.C. just became integrated 8 years ago baby, you know. | 13:13 | |
- | Yeah, I know. | 13:16 |
- | You know. | |
You know, that there were many places that you didn't go | 13:18 | |
or you stayed away from because you know that | 13:20 | |
if you went in there, you would be humiliated. | 13:23 | |
It's the same thing in Nashville. | 13:26 | |
I ain't never got humiliated that much | 13:27 | |
'cause I didn't go anywhere. | 13:28 | |
I never left my side of town. | 13:30 | |
Or let's say we go to Dayton. | 13:32 | |
Man, a lot of us would like to go, say we were, | 13:33 | |
some of us together, we're gonna have a big night | 13:35 | |
out on the town. | 13:37 | |
I'm saying, look baby, let's be aware of where | 13:38 | |
we're gonna go because I don't want to be embarrassed | 13:39 | |
and I don't want to have that humiliation down here, | 13:42 | |
and this is where that barrier comes, | 13:45 | |
unforgivable as it is, this is where it comes. | 13:48 | |
- | That you don't want to be embarrassed? | 13:52 |
- | That I don't want to be embarrassed and whites | 13:53 |
and whites inevitably mean for me to be embarrassed, | 13:56 | |
this is what they, they pictured this, | 13:58 | |
that they can embarrass me, they can humiliate me | 14:00 | |
and they can keep me down as far as my natural | 14:05 | |
ability can take me, all right? | 14:07 | |
They can push me, this is true. | 14:10 | |
But they also, I know that all white people | 14:14 | |
aren't Antiochians | 14:17 | |
I know this for a fact | 14:19 | |
- | And they all aren't bad. | |
- | I am not saying they all are bad, but my criterion | 14:22 |
when I first meet them is that, if we can operate | 14:25 | |
from the (mumbles) that they're all bad | 14:28 | |
that there's some good can come out of that | 14:31 | |
because I can look at them after a while, | 14:33 | |
after the barrier's removed, after they know how I feel | 14:35 | |
and I may know that they have prejudice. | 14:37 | |
I'll tell you this, I like a Southern white person | 14:39 | |
better than I like a Northern white person | 14:43 | |
because I understand what this person comes from | 14:45 | |
and she understands what I come from, | 14:48 | |
and when we become friends baby, that's it! | 14:50 | |
- | Well, but let me throw this out. | 14:53 |
Maybe it's easier for a white to be people to people | 14:58 | |
with a Negro than it is for a Negro | 15:02 | |
to be people to people with a white | 15:05 | |
because the Negro knows, as Chris has been putting that out | 15:07 | |
and everybody else, the oppression, the humiliation, | 15:10 | |
all this stuff, whereas the white is living, | 15:13 | |
it's his society baby, and he knows that this is his | 15:15 | |
and he isn't gonna be humiliated. | 15:20 | |
Well, if you don't like him, tough. | 15:21 | |
But the Negro can be put down and humiliated | 15:24 | |
in the white society. | 15:26 | |
And naturally, I think the Negroes can be more mistrustful | 15:28 | |
of the white than the white is gonna be of the Negro | 15:30 | |
and it's a lot easier for a white | 15:35 | |
to say "well Negro, so what?" | 15:36 | |
And then if the Negro turns out to be something | 15:39 | |
he doesn't like, okay. | 15:42 | |
Turns out to be somebody he does like, great. | 15:44 | |
- | You know, (inaudible) mentioned in this book | 15:47 |
that some of you have read | 15:49 | |
is that the Negro has played a walk-on part | 15:50 | |
in white society for so long and has been taken for granted. | 15:54 | |
Like, we all in our own way are trying to achieve | 15:59 | |
or trying to live in a white community. | 16:03 | |
The nature of my work after Antioch will naturally | 16:07 | |
take me into the white community | 16:10 | |
even though I will always have an interest in civil rights, | 16:11 | |
it will take me, Prexly and Jim, | 16:14 | |
and (faint speaking) into the white community. | 16:16 | |
That means that we have to be accepted there | 16:19 | |
in our own way, but see, the white community | 16:21 | |
doesn't necessarily have to accept the Negro community | 16:24 | |
because the only thing that it's meant to him | 16:27 | |
in any way, is being paid welfare money, keeping them happy | 16:29 | |
so they don't stir up too much trouble | 16:33 | |
so we don't have to use too much to keep them down. | 16:34 | |
This is what it's meant to them | 16:37 | |
and a free and a cheap labor source. | 16:38 | |
This in essence is what the white and Negro society | 16:43 | |
has meant in the main. | 16:46 | |
I'm not talking about your exceptions. | 16:48 | |
This is what Negro society has meant | 16:50 | |
to the white world, and this is why, | 16:52 | |
and you can understand this in a way, | 16:55 | |
you can understand as unforgivable as the way I feel, | 16:58 | |
you can understand this and I can understand | 17:02 | |
the way Jim feels and Prexly feels, you know? | 17:03 | |
And I enjoy (faint speaking). | 17:08 | |
- | I'm keeping my mouth shut. | 17:12 |
- | Yeah, I'd like to tie in a couple loose ends | 17:14 |
in these discussions. | 17:16 | |
You were sort of (faint speaking) | 17:19 | |
and admitting and realizing what our feelings are | 17:22 | |
because we're afraid of them, | 17:25 | |
we're afraid that they're bad like (faint speaking). | 17:26 | |
Now here's the problem as I see it. | 17:31 | |
There's a problem that I really do think | 17:35 | |
that this barrier does exist and whether or not | 17:37 | |
we choose to admit it, so I'm speaking from the standpoint | 17:43 | |
that I think it's for real. | 17:47 | |
Now if we have trouble understanding | 17:51 | |
what Crip's trying to say, remember what Susan said | 17:53 | |
about the subway train in east Harlem. | 17:57 | |
You feel awful white there and you can be conscious | 18:01 | |
in a sense in a way you wouldn't be conscious at Antioch. | 18:05 | |
I think you can negate completely this race problem | 18:11 | |
on the personal level, I really do. | 18:16 | |
I think that you can be comfortable and relaxed | 18:19 | |
with anybody that you know well, no matter what background | 18:21 | |
she comes from, | 18:25 | |
but it's with people you don't know that you sometimes | 18:31 | |
realize prejudices, people you don't know | 18:35 | |
in mobs sometimes like, crowds and crowds of people | 18:37 | |
on 110th Street and this is, I think, the barrier | 18:41 | |
that we have to realize before you can break it. | 18:46 | |
I think we're all the same and we're all in this | 18:50 | |
for the same reasons and we all want the same things. | 18:56 | |
There's so much bullshit. | 18:59 | |
We're not gonna take this anymore. | 19:00 | |
(faint speaking) | 19:05 | |
- | And can I just say one thing, though? | 19:11 |
- | Yeah. | 19:14 |
- | Could it be also, | |
I mean could one think of it that | 19:15 | |
you say it's all bullshit. | 19:17 | |
Could it be that some of us maybe really | 19:19 | |
have gotten past it, have accepted this barrier (inaudible) | 19:20 | |
and yet you and Prexly and Krip | 19:24 | |
and Larry and some of these people won't let us drop it | 19:27 | |
because you keep telling us the barrier's there, | 19:31 | |
the various things you must accept, | 19:33 | |
that it's there, it's there, it's there, | 19:34 | |
and then it's maybe we really have (inaudible)? | 19:36 | |
I'm not saying I really have. | 19:39 | |
- | Sue, even if- | 19:40 |
- | Isn't it possible | |
that it could have been dropped | 19:42 | |
and that she won't let us try? | 19:43 | |
- | Well the point | |
I was trying to make before, | 19:45 | |
the point I was trying to make before was, well, | 19:46 | |
it's not the point to (faint speaking) | 19:52 | |
we have been saying. | 19:59 | |
- | Yes, go on | 20:01 |
- | You see | |
That this is the first step and that's one purpose | 20:04 | |
of the hall meeting. | 20:08 | |
Here. | 20:10 | |
The other purpose or, uh, another purpose | 20:12 | |
(faint speaking) | 20:15 | |
Another purpose is to get across the point | 20:16 | |
that it's not enough to say I didn't say it, | 20:19 | |
that this is not saving, that you're a member | 20:22 | |
of the society, that you will have to operate | 20:26 | |
in a society on the basis that nobody will accept you | 20:29 | |
would say that, in fact, you can't even prove | 20:33 | |
yourself (faint speaking) that you just can't take | 20:36 | |
when you go I'm saved, some of my best friend's are Negroes | 20:40 | |
- | Oh! | 20:44 |
- | And it won't work. | |
It has to be something else. | 20:52 | |
I have to go, to a meeting in Washington to march. | 20:54 | |
Incidentally | 21:02 | |
- | If people here would like to go to the march, | 21:06 |
it will be this coming Wednesday. | 21:09 | |
(woman laughing) | 21:12 | |
And you can give your money to Vic. | 21:12 | |
Yeah, tonight 'cause we have to have the money tonight. | 21:15 | |
It's gonna be, (inaudible) are talking 250,000 to 700,000, | 21:19 | |
the biggest thing that ever happened to this country. | 21:24 | |
Anyway, if you want to go, it's $16. | 21:26 | |
Let me go on with my point. | 21:30 | |
(woman laughing) | 21:32 | |
- | Isn't this nice? | 21:33 |
- | I won't be here for (inaudible) | 21:35 |
- | I said, it doesn't, | 21:39 |
the point is not that you would say | 21:42 | |
and to forget about it. | 21:45 | |
The point is that. | 21:47 | |
- | Why should I frustrate myself | 21:50 |
worrying about the rest of society? | 21:52 | |
Oh! | 21:55 | |
- | Oh, get it. | |
(people laughing) | 21:56 | |
(people talking over each other) | 21:59 | |
- | Until they effect me. | 22:01 |
- | They might kill you! | 22:03 |
(faint speaking) | ||
They might kill you. | 22:05 | |
- | Bess, would you respond? | |
- | The rest of my white and all the rest | 22:07 |
of (faint speaking) might kill me. | 22:09 | |
Well boy, I might get in a traffic accident tomorrow. | 22:10 | |
- | No, it's not that, | 22:12 |
it's very immediate. | 22:14 | |
Every time | 22:16 | |
(people talking over each other) | 22:17 | |
- | I'm Canadian! | 22:18 |
(faint speaking) | 22:20 | |
(people laughing) | 22:22 | |
- | I knew. | 22:23 |
- | Yeah, I bet you have the same problem in (faint speaking). | 22:23 |
Tell 'em I'm not in town and I'm gonna walk into Chicago | 22:25 | |
to show how immediate it is. | 22:28 | |
- | You're gonna say you two looked at each other? | 22:31 |
- | Well, what he's mentioning is that, | 22:34 |
when I had my roommate with me | 22:37 | |
and we were walking in a pretty good section of Chicago | 22:39 | |
and these fellas wanted to ask him what are you | 22:43 | |
doing here, white boy? | 22:46 | |
And they wanted to jump him and we got in the house | 22:49 | |
in a pretty good section. | 22:53 | |
- | So it does effect you | 22:58 |
whether you want it to or not. | 23:00 | |
- | You're stereotyping, (faint speaking). | 23:03 |
- | If you could line alone in society, all right | 23:08 |
- | Well, speaking of racial prejudice. | 23:14 |
(faint speaking) | 23:18 | |
Well anyway (faint speaking). | 23:21 | |
I've been doing a lot of reading lately | 23:24 | |
and necessarily for courses | 23:25 | |
But something I found out, and we can't say | 23:27 | |
that we would, in an equal society, | 23:32 | |
society meaning the American society, | 23:35 | |
we could not (faint speaking) | 23:38 | |
and we tend to think of levels. | 23:41 | |
We talk about the good neighborhood, the bad neighborhood. | 23:43 | |
What does that mean? | 23:46 | |
That means the economic, social, race, | 23:47 | |
any context you want to give it | 23:51 | |
and that's as much a part of it as anything. | 23:53 | |
Maybe you're never even taught a racial prejudice | 23:59 | |
but you know that Negroes live in | 24:03 | |
a certain part of town, they live here, | 24:05 | |
there, or the other thing. | 24:08 | |
- | Whether they're pushed there or not | 24:09 |
let's say they're not | 24:11 | |
just for the time being. | 24:13 | |
Maybe they can't afford it. | 24:16 | |
- | But if they're all living in the same section of town. | 24:17 |
(faint speaking) | 24:20 | |
- | All right. | 24:21 |
They're pushed there out of an economic | 24:21 | |
- | Feel guilty for (faint speaking) social interest. | 24:23 |
I have several friends at home, that | 24:26 | |
They want to be completely open-minded and sane, | 24:29 | |
but they grew up in the South | 24:33 | |
and they had associations and they couldn't, | 24:35 | |
they were having a hell of a time getting rid of them | 24:37 | |
- | Can I mention a problem that at home in my high school | 24:40 |
the past couple years, things have been kind of boiling | 24:45 | |
and they've just had some civil rights. | 24:50 | |
I mean, it's in New York. | 24:54 | |
It's 30 miles outside of New York City, | 24:57 | |
but still in our little dinky town, they used to have some | 25:00 | |
problems that the policemen were picking on Negro people. | 25:04 | |
(faint speaking) | 25:08 | |
Anyhow, the deal is, there is a Negro section in our town | 25:09 | |
and Negroes aren't paid as well | 25:15 | |
and our classes in the high school are grouped | 25:20 | |
homogeneously according to your IQ or your achievement | 25:22 | |
or whatever, and there's the most tremendous stigma. | 25:26 | |
There's the seventh grade of oh, you're the smart kids. | 25:30 | |
(alarm ringing) | 25:32 | |
(people talking over each other) | 25:38 | |
(faint speaking) | 25:42 | |
(people laughing) | 25:44 | |
(people talking over each other) | 25:49 | |
- | Anyway. | 25:51 |
- | One thing I'd like | |
to bring up is the heightening of racial tensions, | 25:53 | |
which is a sideline of agitation for civil rights | 25:58 | |
because I know in my town, there was a big well, | 26:02 | |
(faint speaking) that you've heard of, | 26:05 | |
(faint speaking) about segregation in schools | 26:07 | |
and I know among my friends there was a great | 26:11 | |
heightening of racial feeling and racial awareness | 26:16 | |
and in some cases, racial hate because of this | 26:21 | |
and I'm wondering if this is an inevitable. | 26:26 | |
- | You know, already I have this feeling | 26:30 |
and this is another reason for the hall meeting, | 26:33 | |
that if people know how the other person feels | 26:36 | |
or how it could feel, like, if I knew one of the reasons | 26:39 | |
I enjoy home, had gone to every last one of them | 26:42 | |
is to see how whites feel towards us, | 26:44 | |
really how they're feeling because what we don't come, | 26:46 | |
our real, all of our feelings, but you can gather | 26:48 | |
from some people how you feel toward Negroes | 26:53 | |
or how you interpret your role into a Negro | 26:55 | |
and a Negro towards you, and you can also see | 26:58 | |
from the hall meetings the way Negroes feel toward whites | 27:02 | |
and the way Negroes feel toward Negroes, | 27:04 | |
and when you understand this | 27:07 | |
this has been one of the main reasons | 27:08 | |
for heightening of tensions because it's usually been | 27:11 | |
where you don't see each other, you never discuss | 27:15 | |
the way you actually feel racially | 27:17 | |
and the tensions usually come out of this. | 27:20 | |
Well, tensions can come anyway, | 27:25 | |
but after say, a discussion on the plane | 27:26 | |
that we've had them, I don't think you would have | 27:29 | |
the real heightening epiphany that we had, | 27:34 | |
(faint speaking) with each other. | 27:36 | |
The last question we'd like to bring up | 27:38 | |
Jim phrased it another way than I thought. | 27:47 | |
When we had hall meetings (faint speaking) | 27:52 | |
You posed the question did I believe in | 27:57 | |
did I want white people in integration | 28:01 | |
- | That's 'cause you believe that integration | 28:03 |
should be accomplished | 28:04 | |
without white people. | 28:05 | |
- | Without white people, | |
but that's one way of phrasing it | 28:07 | |
and what would (faint speaking)? | 28:10 | |
- | Well, it was. | 28:14 |
It's a sort of complicated question | 28:16 | |
in that white people are in a sense being denied | 28:18 | |
a place in the Negro movement or the Civil Rights Movement | 28:24 | |
There was a big furor when Jack Greenberg | 28:29 | |
took over Thurgood Marshall's place | 28:31 | |
as the staff captain of the NAA. | 28:32 | |
A lot of people didn't like the fact that he was white | 28:36 | |
and in organizations fighting for equal job opportunities, | 28:40 | |
why couldn't you find some Negro lawyer | 28:45 | |
that counts as the NAA. | 28:47 | |
Anyway, actually, the truth is they didn't want him | 28:49 | |
in a leadership position. | 28:52 | |
Now Larry worked for SNCC, he was a | 28:53 | |
field secretary, that's as high as he can go | 28:55 | |
as a white person | 28:57 | |
You cannot work in any administrative, | 28:58 | |
policy-making position in SNCC | 29:04 | |
you can only be a field secretary. | 29:08 | |
The sole reason is cause he's white | 29:10 | |
Now (inaudible) panic | 29:13 | |
(woman laughing) | ||
Here's something, I think, that merits our analysis | 29:17 | |
in a way, it's related to the discussion | 29:21 | |
we've had tonight. | 29:23 | |
Like Jim says, can you have integration | 29:25 | |
without white people and why in the Civil Rights Movement | 29:27 | |
are white people in a very funny way. | 29:30 | |
(faint speaking) | 29:35 | |
- | Well, I think it's pretty easy to see both sides | 29:38 |
of it though of the argument. | 29:41 | |
Now it's just like you have a 10-year-old | 29:44 | |
and you don't want grown-ups in there | 29:46 | |
because you just (faint speaking). | 29:48 | |
You have a teen club, okay, and | 29:55 | |
(people laughing) | 29:58 | |
You don't want grown-ups in the hierarchy | 30:02 | |
because that spoils everything. | 30:05 | |
However. | 30:10 | |
- | You know. | |
- | You're right, you're right. | 30:12 |
(faint speaking) | 30:14 | |
- | It's totally because they're grownups | 30:14 |
- | Right? | 30:16 |
- | Right | |
- | There's enough (mumbles) in that. | 30:18 |
(people talking over each other) | 30:20 | |
- | Civil rights mostly. | 30:20 |
(faint speaking) | 30:22 | |
(people talking over each other) | 30:22 | |
- | In the Civil Rights Movement, | 30:26 |
personally I don't see any reason why | 30:29 | |
there shouldn't be white people. | 30:32 | |
I believe that if somebody's capable, | 30:34 | |
he's capable and if he's gonna help you get something | 30:36 | |
you want, then he should be there too to help you. | 30:39 | |
Now you can go ahead | 30:44 | |
and say I'm wrong. | 30:45 | |
- | Are you saying that white | |
people will get control of it and start cutting corners | 30:47 | |
and stuff like that? | 30:50 | |
- | Well you're naturally | |
not gonna put in people in your organization | 30:51 | |
that you don't believe will help you. | 30:54 | |
- | Well, it seems like if there are people, | 30:56 |
people will decide (faint speaking) what he does. | 30:59 | |
Then, even though the person is capable | 31:02 | |
and it was, he might not feel that they would | 31:06 | |
be helping out (mumbles). | 31:10 | |
(faint speaking) | 31:12 | |
(people talking over each other) | 31:14 | |
- | Wait, I think it ought to be made clear. | 31:16 |
What Krip's saying isn't something | 31:17 | |
that's a very subtle kind of a thing. | 31:19 | |
This is a very dynamic part | 31:21 | |
of Negro organizations, especially now. | 31:23 | |
It isn't at all hidden | 31:27 | |
This is coming out more and more that Negroes | 31:29 | |
feel whites shouldn't be leading us | 31:32 | |
onto what we want, the whites aren't able to lead us on, | 31:34 | |
they don't know what we want. | 31:38 | |
Krip is not wrong at all in what he's doing. | 31:40 | |
Krip has voiced this kind of thinking | 31:43 | |
in perhaps its mildest, this is perhaps its mildest | 31:45 | |
manifestation with its most extreme being the Muslims, | 31:48 | |
it's all tied into the same thing. | 31:53 | |
But you asked when we first brought this up, | 31:55 | |
why worry about it? | 31:57 | |
Isn't that what you said, something like that? | 31:58 | |
(faint speaking) | 32:00 | |
It's more than this. | 32:02 | |
Everything, integration can be all so much | 32:04 | |
on a one way kind of a thinking. | 32:06 | |
It's all moving one way and the scope, | 32:09 | |
everybody forgets about the scope of the whole thing, | 32:11 | |
but you've got to be aware, especially you people | 32:13 | |
right here, you Antiochians, you've got to be aware | 32:17 | |
cause you will play harder, liberal (faint speaking) | 32:21 | |
solution to the whole damn thing. | 32:24 | |
You've got to be aware of exactly what attitude | 32:27 | |
Negroes are gonna have towards you. | 32:30 | |
This is why they're bringing this up now, | 32:33 | |
this is why there's questions (faint speaking). | 32:35 | |
- | Let me clarify that the way Crip feels is not good | 32:38 |
(people laughing) | 32:42 | |
Crip does not feel, Crip is quite confused | 32:45 | |
on this whole issue as you well know, | 32:49 | |
I'm quite confused on those. | 32:51 | |
And those of you who tell me you know | 32:53 | |
the answer to this, I'll tell you you're a goddamn liar. | 32:54 | |
'Cause I doubt if any of you has given this as much thought | 32:59 | |
or has read as much as I have on this issue. | 33:01 | |
(faint speaking) | 33:04 | |
Maybe I don't have the mind to analyze it, | 33:06 | |
but the whole way I feel is that I'm confused | 33:08 | |
because I have, as I said, a basic distrust | 33:11 | |
of whites, in a way, and I know what whites have done | 33:14 | |
to Negro organizations all the way through history | 33:18 | |
through say, you know, the NAACP is a white organization, | 33:21 | |
all your organizations except one is white. | 33:25 | |
It's run by white people. | 33:28 | |
All your Negro colleges in this country | 33:29 | |
are run by whites and such. | 33:31 | |
You people don't know this. | 33:33 | |
Nothing in this country is run through the Negro. | 33:35 | |
- | Why? | 33:37 |
- | One thing. | |
- | I say one. | 33:38 |
(faint speaking) | ||
Hmm? Well the Muslims are. | 33:39 | |
(people laughing) | 33:42 | |
- | Look at it now. | 33:44 |
Now we're coming into a more militant era, | 33:46 | |
it looks to me, if you look at it, | 33:48 | |
like the Negroes have been waiting for the chance | 33:50 | |
to take hold of these organizations | 33:53 | |
and they've been using the whites, | 33:55 | |
and the whites haven't been going too far, | 33:56 | |
but they're all that the Negroes had. | 33:58 | |
So they kept them going, they kept in the white | 34:01 | |
you know, lawyers et cetera, who cut corners, | 34:04 | |
and who people say go slow. | 34:07 | |
But now you're getting more Negro lawyers | 34:08 | |
who are willing to get in there, | 34:11 | |
you're getting more Negroes who are willing to work, | 34:12 | |
you're getting more Negroes who are up there | 34:14 | |
giving money who can do things. | 34:16 | |
So the Negroes are taking over | 34:18 | |
they're throwing the whites out | 34:20 | |
and they're going where they want to | 34:21 | |
and they just use the whites and I think | 34:23 | |
that that's the whole thing. | 34:25 | |
People, most whites, think of integration | 34:26 | |
as whites living with the Negroes | 34:30 | |
and looking at everyone as a person, | 34:32 | |
but I think the Negroes now in the United States | 34:34 | |
look at the integration movement | 34:37 | |
as a means of getting equal rights with whites, | 34:39 | |
that is where they can achieve financial status, | 34:46 | |
where they can get anything they want | 34:49 | |
that a white can get, that they can be equal in that way. | 34:52 | |
Maybe they can live apart from the white, | 34:53 | |
maybe they can live with them, but they can do | 34:57 | |
whatever they want and I've gotten this | 34:59 | |
out of these hall meetings and I think that whites | 35:01 | |
however have the, you know, Utopia type thing | 35:03 | |
where everyone's living together | 35:06 | |
and that Negroes have just been using the whites | 35:08 | |
and now they don't need them, | 35:11 | |
they're throwing them aside and they're going off | 35:14 | |
where they want to. | 35:16 | |
- | You've got also to point out | 35:17 |
that whites use Negroes to keep them balanced, | 35:20 | |
to be aware of what the Negroes are doing. | 35:22 | |
As I said, I'm confused on this matter. | 35:26 | |
I don't know which way I would feel | 35:28 | |
or what my--probably it would be | 35:30 | |
just practically, I would keep whites in the movement | 35:33 | |
just practically speaking, because I look at the Negro | 35:37 | |
movement as my movement and Jim's movement, | 35:41 | |
Karen's movement, (faint speaking) movement. | 35:44 | |
I don't look at it as your movement, | 35:46 | |
as you are being really a part of it. | 35:48 | |
I look at it as you helping me. | 35:50 | |
- | But aren't we a part of what you want | 35:53 |
to get? | 35:55 | |
- | No. | |
- | No, so see, | 35:57 |
- | Well, that's the question. | 35:58 |
- | This is it. | 35:58 |
White people represent | 36:00 | |
and this is very funny, the oppressor. | 36:01 | |
Some people look, say it's the system. | 36:05 | |
- | Do you want to be our oppressor | 36:07 |
or do you want to be? | 36:08 | |
- | No, no, I don't want | |
to be your oppressor, I want to have the same things, | 36:09 | |
I want to do the same things that you do. | 36:12 | |
I want to go to Dayton. I want to go to Dayton | 36:13 | |
and do anything you can do as a white person, | 36:17 | |
as a with the law, of course, an individual. | 36:20 | |
A white person, this is a person. | 36:23 | |
If you go to a motel, they won't look at you, | 36:25 | |
they'll look at if you have the right kind of clothes | 36:28 | |
and you look okay, | 36:29 | |
but they don't look at your skin | 36:30 | |
except (faint speaking). | 36:32 | |
- | Then you don't want really, I'm not sure | 36:35 |
we can be integrated and you don't want to be integrated, | 36:39 | |
but this way you just want equal rights. | 36:42 | |
- | You see, this is why the big slip comes. | 36:45 |
- | Is this what? | 36:47 |
- | I don't know, | |
I really don't know. | 36:49 | |
See, I point out my own personal dilemma. | 36:51 | |
I will be working in a white world, | 36:53 | |
my friends are white, but I have these definite feelings of | 36:56 | |
- | You want to be equal in your own world, in your own right? | 37:01 |
- | I want to be equal, I want to be equal in the same way | 37:05 |
that you're equal. | 37:11 | |
- | Do you want to be separate but equal, | 37:13 |
you want to be as equal as the white man | 37:15 | |
or do you want to be? | 37:17 | |
- | He wants to have this. | |
- | I want to be. | 37:19 |
- | Do you want | |
to be freedom to be separate or? | 37:20 | |
- | I want to be free if I want to be. | 37:21 |
Item Info
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