“Racism is a Visceral Experience, that Dislodges Brains, Blocks Airways,…Breaks Teeth” — Ta-Nehisi Coates
As the sun rose this morning, I began to ponder one of life’s greatest questions — Is White Supremacy a Thing Today? The question haunted me while I showered. Before I was dressed, I resolved to Hunt for White Supremacy today. I ran downstairs excited about my day’s mission only to be sidestepped by my daughter’s forlorn experience. “Dad, school is so hard,” she said. I sat down on her rocking chair and didn’t think twice. “Look, in ten years, you’ll going to come see me in my rocking chair. You’re going to say how thankful you are that I enrolled you at _____. You will hug me and say College was a breeze compared to high school.” My fourteen-year-old daughter rolled her eyes at me and smiled a Twyman smile. I offered to take her to Starbucks before the library at the University of San Diego (USD). She readily agreed.
Mindful that I was searching for White Supremacy, I didn’t want to bias my findings. I chose my silver car over the white car. On the car ride to Starbucks, I asked my daughter about her studies. As I drove, I wondered whether we would face White Supremacy at Starbucks. I primed myself for the slightest micro aggression. Nothing. No Whites Only signs greeted us. No white bigots cut in line in front of us. The barista offered pleasant service, no slurs or hate speech to be had. All of the customers ignored us as they were engrossed in their work, cell phones or each other. There was no White Supremacy here.
I had hopes for the ride from Starbucks to USD. The drive was a few miles and there was ample opportunity to experience Driving While Black. Sadly, there were no cops to be seen. I looked and looked. As we pulled into USD, we saw worshippers leaving a mass service. Now, if White Supremacy were a thing today, my daughter and I would suffer the unexpected n-word, the random slur that we return to Africa from whence we came. (Ironically, my Native American ancestors from 12,600 years ago might have something to say about our family’s deepest of roots in North America. According to Gedmatch.com, I match the DNA of the earliest known Native American family who buried a small child in Clovis, Montana.) I waited and waited. Nothing. I see people enjoying life on a Sunday morning. I saw families creating memories together. I joked with my daughter that, one day, I would be driving her kids to study at USD. She quickly corrected me. She would be living in La Jolla, so I wouldn’t be creating this tradition with her kids. Her face bespoke OMG!
As we walked to the library, my daughter strained her neck to look at a parked Tesla. I get no thrill from cars I cannot afford. My daughter remarked that USD was “a pretty campus” as two small kids played “tag, you’re it,” outside the library steps. Prominent at the entry to the library was a sign trumpeting “It’s Time to Interact. Use your voice to put an end to sexual violence.” I turned my head towards the left and took in an endless blue sky with the Pacific Ocean in the distance. Cool breezes caressed my arm. The temperature was 73 degrees. If Colin Kaepernick was right, oppression waited for me in the wings. I breathed with anticipation waiting, waiting for the rogue cop to run up the steps of Copley Library and handcuff me. Or, maybe oppression would appear as a monster, the devil himself, a white male. I waited and waited for evil.
Look there. Yes. I do declare. A white male. I smiled. He was enthralled in his own world on his cell phone. I took note of his backwards cap. I listened intently for the first words of hate…I waited. I wasn’t hearing oppression. He was wasting his time with one of his bros. I saw another white male. Nothing. He didn’t see us as he headed into the library. College is for study, you know, not perpetual protest.
I was disappointed. Was Colin Kaepernick wrong?
A mixed-race kid walked by.
As I entered the library and turned to the right, I saw a shrine to the Patron Saint of All Things Racial, Ta-Nehisi Coates. Between the World and Me is prominently displayed along with all things negative about the Black Experience. I kid you not. There is a book titled Race and Social Justice. (How about Race and Black Achievement?) Not to be outdone, the next book is titled African-American Males and the U.S. Justice System of Marginalization: A National Tragedy. Filling out the bench of gloom and doom ruminations would be Race and Justice: Wrongful Convictions of African-American Males, Black Lives to Black Liberation, and Against the Wall: Poor, Young, Black and Male. Heaven help us! If I had internalized this catastrophic thinking as a youngster, I would have been a goner.
I could write a treatise on the everlasting harm of Coates but my time is limited and this essay is about overcoming divisions. Suffice it to say few writers have ruined the spirit of Black Americans more than Coates. He will have much to atone for when history is written.
Oddly enough, the Coates display energized me. Surely, millions of white and black Americans see something in Coates. The overhang of White Supremacy must be suffocating. I am now downright convinced White Supremacy will oppress me before day’s end.
I continued my Hunt for White Supremacy.
Another white male enters the library. Nothing. Another and another. Same non-story.
To while away the hours while my daughter studied AP Euro History, I began reading Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa by Keith Richburg. Richburg’s book had been recommended to me by a reader of one of my published opinions. Of course, my daughter was ready to go as I savored Chapter 1. Since my wife was sick in bed with a bad cold, my daughter and I decided to bring home dinner from Noodle & Company, one of my daughter’s new discoveries. I saw a USD police car and prepared for a “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” moment. I was sorely disappointed as the officer paid me no mind. I saw a second police car and, once again, no police brutality to speak of. Not even a ticket. This was not going well at all. We ordered our pasta dishes and I observed a one-armed white man who appeared to be employed and a two-armed homeless black man. And as we drove home and talked about Mom sick in bed, I forgot about police cars and my search for White Supremacy.
My daughter stressing AP Euro History on a Sunday afternoon is a Thing. My wife sick in bed with a bad cold is a Thing. But as for White Supremacy? Is that a Thing today? I think not.
The best case against Coates is life itself. (And for the curious reader, this essay has a happy ending. My daughter received an A in her AP Euro History class and a “5” on her Euro History Advanced Placement test.)