It's Just Lunch

When it comes to race relations, I’ve often said that it seems like perpetual lunch hour at high school. Whom will we choose to sit with? If it’s our choice, it’s probably going to be people most like ourselves – those who look like us and think like us. This is our free time in an otherwise stressful day, so we want to do what’s most comfortable. Do we really want to sit with the “others”? Will we even be welcome?

For many of us, our default position in life is not to have our assumptions challenged, or learn anything new that might force us to think differently. We cling to our world view because, well, it’s there. Rocked boats and upset apple carts cause anxiety. It’s easy to maintain order in a closed mind – the furniture stays where we put it, and where we put it eventually gets to be where it belongs.

Often, when we encounter “others,” those encounters reinforce, rather than break, the stereotypes. White police officers tend to encounter black people only in the context of law enforcement situations, meaning, when there’s real, or perceived, trouble. And it works in reverse. When the encounter is over, the participants go back to where they were before, except with their stereotypical views of each other solidified. And once a gun is involved, they are rock-hard.

Our race is something we have no control over, and what people see of us is only what our particular collection of genes puts out front. I’ve also often said that if we all took one of those increasingly popular DNA tests, we’d find all kinds of flies in the ointment we weren’t expecting. We may think we’re white or black or yellow, but then we find other races in our backgrounds – genes which could only have gotten there one way. A man and a woman of different races had to have intimate contact – something that either happened in recent history or many generations back. But clearly, as is often pointed out, we are much more alike than we are different.

If we’re all going to just get along, as Rodney King once said, we have to learn to walk and chew gum at the same time: celebrate our diversity while also celebrating our sameness. It’s lunchtime, and maybe just once, we can try to sit with those “others” at their table. We will be uncomfortable, and we’re likely not going to feel welcome. But we have to start someplace.