MANSFIELD: A Small Favor, Please

A number of years ago a Hispanic friend who happens to be a Republican invited me to a political event in one of the wealthiest eastern suburbs. Needless to say, I was the only guest of color there, unless you count my friend, who is a white Hispanic. The hired help (which was all black) didn’t count.

When we left he commented how amazed he was that I was so at ease in the environment and situation. I just sort of laughed, because white people neither intimidate nor cause me to be awe-struck. The fact is, I live so far above the color line I sincerely believe any adult that is still prejudiced because of pigmentation is either a child or a fool and so I treat them accordingly. So, no, I really don’t suffer fools gladly.

I suppose my comfort level around whites stems in part from the fact I know I’m as intelligent as the brightest of them, and also, because, back in 1948, when I started kindergarten at Sterling Elementary School that sat on the corner of Cedar and East 30th Street, it was totally integrated. Due to the fact the Old Cedar Estates (the CMHA projects which are still there today) were segregated and all white back then, half of my elementary school classmates were white. It’s indeed hard to be in awe or fear of someone with white skin when you played with them in the sandbox at recess and punched them in the nose if they used the “N” word.

But with that said, I want to ask my many white friends (whom I hope and pray will understand where I’m coming from), please, if you want to invite me to break bread, select a restaurant that both blacks and whites patronize, perhaps somewhere downtown. Again, I’m completely comfortable being the only black person in a white establishment, but at this point in my life, why do I want to be? I don’t care to witness firsthand how segregated we still are as a nation up close.

Also, I care little for being any kind of trailblazer, and I know that the ice in an all-white establishment is no colder than the ice in an integrated restaurant. Nor do I care to play the “good Negro” who white folks can be comfortable with (as long as we’re in an all-white establishment). I don’t care to impress anyone by using the right utensil or demonstrating my ability with the King’s English.

I fondly recall an incident at an all-white Christmas party I was invited to years ago at an art gallery in Tremont. When I was queried as to what I did for a living by this couple who were obviously wondering why I was there (the sculptor who was throwing the party is a good friend of mine), instead of saying, “I have my own business, and I mind it very well,” I told them I was a writer, a journalist.

The woman then sniffed and haughtily asked, “Yes, but do you know Shakespeare?”

I responded, “Let me get a drink first.” And then, with drink in hand, I began to quote Othello’s soliloquy from Act III where he is debating with himself if he should kill Desdemona or not:

“It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,–

Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!–

It is the cause. Yet I’ll not shed her blood;

Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,

And smooth as monumental alabaster.

Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.

Put out the light, and then put out the light:

If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,

I can again thy former light restore,

Should I repent me: but once put out thy light,

Thou cunning’st pattern of excelling nature,

I know not where is that Promethean heat

That can thy light relume. When I have pluck’d the rose,

I cannot give it vital growth again.”

Needless to say, after the first line or two, with my booming voice, I had attracted the attention of virtually all of the 50 or so people in the gallery — which was exactly what I had intended to do. The couple, as expected, was stone-faced. It was one of my most delightful moments and memories, I must say.

They had no way of knowing that as a budding thespian decades ago I studied Shakespeare, and the reason he is still considered the reigning genius of the English language is that, once you memorize his words you never forget them. I’ve asked other actors and they virtually all are in agreement. Buy me a drink sometime and I’ll demonstrate my ability for you.

But I digress.

Look at it this way: Just how comfortable would that same white person be if I invited them to lunch at Hot Sauce Williams down in the ’hood? So please, I love all of my white friends (I really do) but again, please, let’s meet somewhere on more common ground. And besides, if I’m driving to or from a restaurant in Westlake somewhere, I might get pulled over by the cops for no other reason than I’m black, and end up getting the shit kicked out of me for standing up for my rights. Who needs that?

I’m sure all of my white friends will easily understand. Thanks.

From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.

 

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