Can a white man ever understand what it means to be a black man?

[LawDem]

Can a white man understand what it means to be a black man in America? In any comprehensive sense, the answer must, of course, be no. We can try to follow Atticus Finch’s teaching that, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb in his skin and walk around in it.” But try as we may to understand, our skin will remain white. We can imagine what it’s like to be black, but we can only imagine.

Still, perhaps imagining is enough to understand, at least a little. So, for those of us who are white, let’s consider some common experiences related to law enforcement, while trying the best we can to climb into a black man’s skin.

While shopping, have you ever noticed you were being followed? That you had somehow ignited the always flammable suspicion of store security? Remember how insulting it felt. That bastard thinks I’m a thief! Now, imagine things like this happening almost every day of your life, but in much worse ways.

While driving, have you ever suddenly realized a police cruiser was driving behind you, and in response you started to panic a little? Thoughts raced through your mind. Is he following me? What speed was I driving? Now, imagine that in addition to worrying you’ll be stopped for one of these reasons, you also have to worry about be pulled over and hassled, just because of the color of your skin.

Have you ever had the experience of watching, for the first time, your child driving off alone, proudly grasping his or her new drivers license. Remember the fear you felt? Is he ready? Will she have an accident? Now, imagine, in addition to all this, you also have to worry that your child, especially your son, could be pulled over by the police for the crime of “driving while black,” and that if the encounter were to go badly, he could actually end up being shot.

That, I suspect as a white man, is a small part of what it feels like to be a black man in America.

[PoliticAverse]

1. "Black Like Me"...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Like_Me

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

8. That was my first thought also.

It's still in print.

I read it many years ago, around the time it first came out.

[Ms. Toad]

2. It is pretty much impossible to replicate -

We're wrestling with diversity issues at my school. One of the white male students shared about his experience in another country in which he was spit on, called names, etc. because he was white.

Rather than creating empathy, he came away from the experience believing that the victims of hate should just access the resources available to remedy discrimination.

Because of his experience growing up as a white male, he had no (or at most very limited) experience in the system failing him.

Because of his experience growing up as a white male, he had a strong self-image and understanding that his experience in another country was not how things are supposed to work - and that the wrong was outside of him, not inside. Internalized self-hatred is a real thing.

Because he was in another country temporarily, as a white male he had the ability to leave and escape to a place where his kind are the majority and treated as special.

He had no concept of how exhausting it is to live 24/7/365 for his entire lifetime in the skin of someone who is hated/feared, of having to pick and choose which insults are significant enough to respond to (since there's not enough time in the day to respond to all of them), and no concept of the cumulative impact of daily micro-aggressions.

Rather, the message he took from his experience was that Blacks (and others oppressed by society) are overly sensitive.

[GusBob]

3. Atticus Finch

After I read “Go Tell A Watchman” the prequel to the other fictional book
My opinion changed

[Cuthbert Allgood]

9. It's more of the first draft than a prequel.

For me (I taught the book in high school English classes for a over a decade), Watchman made more sense with what Lee wanted than what got published. I know the world was ready for what she wanted to say, but Finch was always problematic for me. Don't get me wrong, love the book, but on top of the white savior nonsense, there are a lot of moments of "really?" that pop up for me. Specifically the several times Atticus is like &quot they) are a good person even though they did this thing." Nope. They are a piece of shit. Mrs. Dubose is an evil woman. Stop excusing her. Yeah, she kicked her morphine habit before she died, but she was HORRIBLE to people and we saw no redeeming qualities. And she was racist as fuck.

[GusBob]

10. It has always bothered me

If Harper Lee was such a great writer, how come only one book?

I think Truman Capote wrote it

Speaking of which, have you read

Furious Hours, the last trial of Harper Lee?

[Cuthbert Allgood]

13. She hated the attention that came with the book.

Check out the biography Mockingbird.

From what I've read, if anything, Lee wrote a lot of In Cold Blood instead of Capote writing Lee's book. For sure Capote would never have gotten In Cold Blood written without Lee there to get people to talk. And she did most all of the leg work and research. Capote's ego was too big for him to even give her any level of credit. And that pissed Lee off a bit. I have not read Furious hours, but I'll add it to the list.

[kimbutgar]

4. I remember a movie from 1970 called the Watermelon man with Godfrey Cambridge

Where a bigoted white man wakes up black. He is a real bigot and it was hilarious how the tables get turned on him. It appears on TCM sometimes. I don’t know though if that movie could be remade now. It would definitely send the Fox propogeanda channel into a fit and drive the racists crazy.

Godfrey Cambridge was a black comedian and they turned him into a white man for this movie!

[soldierant]

15. There was a reason

that Finian's Rainbow from 1947 didn't get made into a movie until 1968. I suppose it's not entirely impossible that its release at that time may have led to inspiring the 1970 Watermelon Man.

An updated remake of either would be great. Sadly, many couldn't tolerate the directness of Watermelon man, but almost anyone can learn something, even if it's only a little something, from the outrageous fantasy of Finian.

[kimbutgar]

16. I always watch Finians rainbow when it appears on TV

So ahead of it’s time. I didn’t know it was written in 1947!

[soldierant]

20. Technically, it was written in 1946...

must have been "The original Broadway production opened on January 10, 1947 at the 46th Street Theatre, where it ran for 725 performances." Ten days could not have been enough to write, produce, cast, direct, rehearse it.

Ahead of its time indeed ... not only in race relations but unions and progressivism in general. Credit for that goes to Fred Saidy and Yip Harburg. Yip in particular had the nickname "Broadway's social conscience." Another of his lyrics was "Brother, can you spare a dime?" which may help to explain how somehow I thought Finian was even older - possibly late 30's.

I really believe the outrageousness of the fantasy was the only way those ideas could be put on the boards at the time. Fantasy does have its uses.

[Scrivener7]

5. I guess only men's experience of this matters.

[soldierant]

18. I think there's some perception that white women,

by virtue of being women in a patriarchal society, are already part way there. As indeed we are ... but we don't all realize quite how large that "part way" can be. Hence, we get "Karens." I'm sure it's more complicated than that.

But in any case, movies gat made and books get published, not on the basis of what is important, but on the basis of what people will pay money to see or read. And those two thinhgs are as different as black and white.

[Scrivener7]

25. Yes, but the OP cares about none of that.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

6. I don't think I can, not fully.

The examples you provided all happened to me when I was a teenager, especially if I was with a group of my longer-haired friends, but it certainly didn't persist throughout my entire life. My father was emphatic about me always keeping my hands visible if I was ever pulled over by a cop, so he was apparently worried about those encounters too.

It would've been so frustratingly tiresome after several more years, though!

Edit: I also realized it was a temporary for me, because of my age. So that's quite different from anticipating it forever!

And to have people like cops automatically assume that I acquired expensive items illegally? Like an expensive car? That would be so insulting that I'd probably not even try anymore.

[Mosby]

7. I think a lot of people experience bigotry and racism.

I know I have.

[MissMillie]

11. Probably not

but I think we should all try to walk a mile in another person's shoes from time to time.

[sanatanadharma]

12. There a truth that needs be told to the young and reminded to the old

Every individual human is exactly alike.
We are all born into a given time, place and circumstance as though like improvisational actors entering an ongoing show. We are given a minimum of costume (body), no script and no rehearsal.

Before long we have a name and a growing identity as members of varied societies. The individual creates an identity, a character built of desires and habits, some perhaps older than birth.
Each human is always center-stage in their own role within the screen play.

For all, our activities may be considered as being modifications of eating, sleeping, mating and defending.
And in the center of the often confused, yet knowing, aware consciousness that informs each individual stage presence is an actor.
An actor playing a role, an actor with the common name "I".
Some want to be stars, others are happy simply being on the stage, others envy the audience.
Some expect a Director-God to eventual critic their performance.

[soldierant]

22. You left out the crew.

It's not just actors and audience. Set designers, stage managers, costumers, makeup artists, props people, scene changers, and other crew are all important to the success of a production. That's where I see myself, actually.

[sanatanadharma]

24. So many roles interpreted by a single actor moving from play to play

So many roles interpreted by one actor tossing costumes casually aside, moving from play to play, role to role, without the actor becoming any one character.

Imagine that the writers, producers, directors, actors, audience, set designers, stage managers, costumers, makeup artists, props people, scene changers, lighting, promoters, critics, and all others are actually only one extended, trough and trough, single existent-consciousness in all roles; the creator-presenter-enjoyer of the show.

One being, the same in all and then some, whether the world movie be in full technicolor or B&W.
The one who says "I am" and uses 'me' and 'mine' is the one who will know the denoument.

[Rustyeye77]

14. Oh hell no !

[krawhitham]

17. no

[JanMichael]

19. No. I really do not think that is possible. Except for Watermelon Man of course.

As for Watermelon Man I had never heard of it until it showed up on Amazon.

On another note The Color of Fear is a good intro to what non-white men like myself never have to contemplate. But I still have never felt what it was like to not be me. There is a fear that I have never had that other have. As we all should know fear is a terrible thing for anxiety and overall health...

I am honest when I say I totally get why older white men are persona's non gratis now. For the most part we are the PROBLEM in America; yes there are decent white males that we all know in media or personally but there are far far far far more of us that are varying degrees of horrible racist misogynistic turds. Other countries probably are similar. We need some leveling.

[stillcool]

21. it's a funny thing how we humans communicate...

it's not the facts so much as the feeling that is knowing. It's impossible to put oneself in a given situation, imagine what it would feel like, but when a person shares their feelings, shows themselves, the shared experience of an emotion can be powerful stuff. Things like loss, terror, powerlessness. Even if you don't know on what level you're communicating, seems like you're learning way more than the words spoken would convey. Ah...I'm weird today.

[Goodheart]

23. If you knew the answer why did you ask?