The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
White guilt, black rage and revolutionary love
It was my freshman move-in day at UCLA in 1972. My brother, my roommate and I were returning to campus and as we drove in, an unmarked LAPD car turned on its lights and pulled us over. Two plainclothes officers got out with their guns drawn — one with a shotgun — ordered us out of the car and told us to lay face down in the street, literally in front of our dorm as other parents and freshmen, mostly white, watched this drama unfold. One cop took the backseat out of our 1966 VW bug and tossed it to the sidewalk while the other cop stood over us with his shotgun pointed at us saying vile things, inappropriate things, things I cannot repeat in this paper. After finding nothing, they said nothing, got back in their car and drove away.
In 1983, I completed my Ph.D. at Yale in economics, becoming the first African-American male to accomplish this. I was also awarded a $195,000 three-year fellowship from the Commonwealth Fund of New York to continue my studies. I had job offers from Georgetown, Brandeis and Hunter College. With my fellowship, I was effectively “free” to these fine institutions. I had an interview with Hunter College president Donna Shalala, who is now a congresswoman from Florida. Around the time of my interview, there had been a murder of a white woman, a shopkeeper, in Greenwich Village. I knew the woman and the store because I had a side hustle selling handbags and other art from Kenya, and she was one of my customers. In the investigation, the police found out she owed me $40 for merchandise I put on consignment at her store. The NYPD called me and asked me if I knew anything that could help them solve the crime. I said I did not, but would be happy to answer any questions they might have. I also told them about my upcoming meeting with Dr. Shalala. They asked me to come to their precinct after my interview with Dr. Shalala.
When I got the precinct, they took me to a back room — one of those rooms where you know there are detectives on the other side of the glass observing. As soon as I sat down, one of the detectives told me they could hold me right now for the murder because a black man my height and complexion had been seen running from the scene. I saw immediately this was not going the way I had anticipated. I demanded to talk to my wife, who is a lawyer. They said it was not necessary, they were going to let me go, but they wanted me to prove to them over the next couple of weeks that I could not have committed the murder. Fortunately, I had phone records that did just that.
These two incidents are not uncommon for African-American men. They are the norm. This is the source of the black rage that began with our unlawful capture and forced servitude.
Along with this rage is white guilt. White folks know slavery was wrong. White folks know that their status has been supported on a foundation of white supremacy. I will not go so far as to say that everything white folks have is because of racism, and everything black folks do not have is because of racism, but it is an argument with merit.
I can forgive white people. I can forgive the white police. But healing our country will only come with white people’s acknowledgment of the wrong that was done — even if it was not them who directly enslaved my ancestors.
It is only through revolutionary love that we will heal our deep societal wounds. What is revolutionary love? Revolutionary love is a feeling, but more importantly, it is based on action. The feeling is obvious to anyone who has watched Americans of all races march through the streets over the past three weeks during a pandemic. I participated and organized marches and protests while I was at UCLA over police brutality and abuse. I was the president of the UCLA Black Student Alliance my senior year in 1975-76. There were only a sprinkling of white students at those protests then. Now, the protests in most streets are predominantly white. This gives me hope that white Americans are confronting the first condition of revolutionary Love — they feel our pain.
However, this feeling must be followed by action. These actions must come from President Biden — no, that is not a mistake, he will be president next year — and they must come from those individual white protesters, companies, educational institutions and government at all levels. That action agenda includes the elimination of the gaps that have plagued this country for generations.
We must commit to close the achievement gap between white students and black students.
We must commit to close the wealth gap between white families and black families.
We must commit to close the homeownership gap between white families and black families.
We must commit to close the wage gap and the unemployment rate gap between black workers and white workers.
We must commit to close the health disparities gap between blacks and whites.
We must commit to close the board gap on boards of directors of public companies.
We must commit to close the poverty gap between black families and white families.
We must commit to close the capital access gap between blackowned businesses and whiteowned businesses.
We must commit to close voting access gap between black voters and white voters — look at what happened in Georgia this past week in their primary where black voters had to endure long lines in order to cast their votes, while white voters in predominantly white neighborhoods just walked in and out of the polling places.
We must commit to close the incarceration gap between whites and blacks.
We must commit to closing the environmental pollution gap that has black communities suffering more than white communities.
We must commit to close the policing gap that treats black men differently from white men.
If we commit to these efforts, not only will we have the possibility of achieving the goal of America being that shining city on the hill, we will reinvigorate this nation’s economy to achieve the type of sustainable growth that is good for everyone. History has demonstrated, when the lives of black Americans improve, the lives of all Americans improve. That is revolutionary love.
Fred McKinney is the Carlton Highsmith Chair for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and director of the Peoples United Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Quinnipiac University School of Business. He is on social media at @drfredmckinney.