A Letter to My White Friends

“…The world won’t get no better, if we just let it be; The world won’t get no better, we gotta change it yeah, just you and me…”

“Wake Up Everybody”—Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes

I am grateful to those of you who have reached out to me and my family over the past few weeks offering expressions of support and encouragement. The deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, the examples of Amy Cooper (NYC Central Park) and other people like her, and the scores of incendiary tweets using sad racial milestones as metaphors are painful reminders of the injustices black people endure today and every day, for the last 400 years.

In this letter, I describe some of the experiences and relationships that form my outlook on the issue of race in our country. I believe my perspective, as a black man who is often mistaken for white, is a special one that may, at times, confuse and even upset you. Nevertheless, I hope you will indulge me and read on. This is not meant to be a short or easy read; it is intended to illuminate and create both an internal and external dialogue. My request at the end is for each person who reads this to share at least some piece of it within their networks, social and professional.

WELCOME TO MY WORLDS

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.”—Maya Angelou

Periods of rising hatred and indifference to the suffering of others thrust me into a long and rugged journey, with many twists and turns, to the depths of my own soul. To those Places in the Heart (movie), where I reconnect with hurts and trauma and discover both scars and open wounds that I didn’t even know were there. But the only path to healing is found in not turning away, or letting go, but in wallowing in the discomfort and absorbing everything, then wrestling with the questions that arise.

Having traveled this stony road before, I know that so much of my pain stems from words and actions of people I consider friends. From the times in my life when I just didn’t know what to do and made excuses for avoiding confrontations with bias and racism. From the gulf between people’s perceptions of me not “really” being black—based on my fair or “passing” skin tone—and the reality that I have always self-identified as black, even while living the majority of my life in a white environment.

The dissonance between the perceptions and realities of my black and white worlds and the personal relationships forged within them has resulted in me living so much of my life feeling what W.E.B DuBois might call “betwixt and between”—knowing intimately how much discrimination black people have faced and continue to face, yet rarely experiencing it myself the same way.

Even today, I continue to see where my presence alongside darker-skinned family and friends lends credibility or legitimacy in certain commercial interactions or affords us the benefit of the doubt that they wouldn’t receive if I were not there. These benefits include getting better seating in certain restaurants or being perceived immediately in upscale shops as a “buyer,” receiving respectful and prompt attention.

This gap in treatment can cause emotional separation from Cherisse, my chocolate-skinned wife, at those moments she needs me to empathize with her feelings the most. For instance, I often take for granted how my fair skin enables me to go running or walking comfortably to the outer edges of our neighborhood, arousing no second looks or suspicions, while she thinks twice about what she wears in our neighborhood and how she comports herself. Other experiences where she feels pressure that I do not include times when she’s been pulled over by the police. While feeling frightened herself, she’s also felt compelled to “pay it forward” and be extra nice and kind to the officer with the goal of positively influencing his or her perceptions, and treatment the next black person receives.

I also think of already living in my current home for almost fifteen years and a new neighbor, who reached out to me days after our initial introduction to give me a “heads up” that she had seen a black woman (not having met Cherisse) lounging in the hammock in my backyard!

What was going through her mind? Likely the same racist assumptions that I witnessed 40 years ago as a teenager working in my neighborhood grocery store. One day at the checkout register as I loaded several bags of groceries into the cart of a black woman with obvious financial means, and remembering our awkward pause when the white lady behind her, someone I also knew and liked, asked her, “How are you going to get all of those bags on the bus?” Well-practiced in making white people feel comfortable, we silently agreed not to lay bare this lady’s prejudice.

That grocery store was in Squirrel Hill, the community in Pittsburgh that I still call home and is an essential stop on the journey through my worlds. I grew up there after my parents moved us from the neighborhoods where they were raised. Less than two years ago, this community achieved notoriety for the attack at the Tree of Life Synagogue in which people I knew were killed.

The lessons from growing up in Squirrel Hill are rich and deep. I remember the Jewish Community Center, the epicenter of the neighborhood, where I played basketball and learned how to swim and play the piano. I see the Tree of Life and other synagogues, where as a Christian, I attended more bar and bat mitzvahs than I can possibly remember. Squirrel Hill is where I was first exposed to the horrors of the Holocaust, having so many neighbors, including Moshe Taube (from Schindler’s List), who suffered tragic loss of family and friends and often couldn’t bring themselves to talk about it. I wish that more of my Jewish friends could see and publicly acknowledge how closely linked the threats of racism and anti-Semitism are today.

Which brings me to Charlottesville (and The University of Virginia), a community I worked hard to “build up” in the mid-1990s, serving as the director of development for the Darden Graduate School of Business, raising money for their new grounds (buildings) and working with their stakeholders to expand opportunities in business for people of color. Charlottesville is where Cherisse and I were married in 1997, with my two worlds coming together briefly. While being at a wedding or private event amongst large numbers of white people was/is not unique for my black friends and family, few of my white friends had, to that point (or since, I expect), ever attended any celebration with so many black people. In 2017, we celebrated our 20th anniversary in Charlottesville, only to be deeply saddened just a few days later by the neo-Nazi, white nationalist rally that drew international condemnation and attention when a man drove his car into a crowd of protestors.

Next, this journey takes me to a metaphorical tent, the one Abraham Lincoln built to shelter the Republican Party. On this stop down memory lane, I remember my first job after college serving as a legislative correspondent and frequent personal driver for the late U.S. Senator John Heinz (R-PA), who so impressed me with his integrity and respect for all his constituents. I remember important lessons and inspiration from General Colin Powell while working for him as vice president of development at America’s Promise, before he became Secretary of State under President George W. Bush. I also think of a family friend, the late U.S. Senator Edward Brooke (R-MA), who inspired my interest as a kid in his brand of politics, ultimately leading to my own run for the Virginia House of Delegates in 2005, falling just short of the GOP nomination.

This tent, which no longer shelters people like me, has been co-opted by a media conglomerate whose agenda is openly hostile towards black people and contemptuous of even conveying a basic understanding of the public policy critical to black people’s survival. Rather, their sound bites and narrow, divisive and repetitive representations of people of color suggest to white audiences that the only real problems we face stem from big government and generations of poor moral choices.

My father and grandfather both succumbed to prostate cancer in their 60s, and at the age of 43, I was diagnosed with an even more aggressive form. I am alive today because an early PSA test and biopsy detected the cancer and my private insurance paid for the surgery to remove it. That early intervention happened because national healthcare policy and research focused on the hereditary health challenges of black people. Black Lives Matter! Government can address certain problems and save lives.

THE SOULS OF WHITE FOLK

“Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill-will.”—Martin Luther King, Jr.

Recently I talked to Coach Greg Schiano, my good friend, fraternity brother, and prayer partner, about my struggles in writing this letter. He mentioned a quote that had stuck with him, and it also resonated with me. “The deepest levels of empathy happen in the fellowship of suffering.” He said that my letter was important because it might encourage a white friend(s) to set out on his or her own journey within.

This caused me to think of white friends who have begun to confront and realize for themselves how their whiteness has created an advantage or buffer in their own lives. They’ve moved beyond their prior comparisons to challenges faced by their Italian or Irish great-grandfathers and viewing every discussion about racial privilege as an attempt to promote socialism or to penalize or stigmatize them personally because of their hard work and success.

I recall my joy and relief a few years ago when one of those friends—the owner of a prominent Pittsburgh company—at his own initiative used his social capital to forcefully admonish a group of our mutual white friends for their uninformed statements downplaying the generational impact of how Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena (then home of the Penguins) eroded and displaced entire black communities and created wealth for everyone except those families who had lived there.

I was gratified recently when another friend confessed a new understanding of his immediate reaction years ago to the mug shots of the Central Park Five—hang-them-high rage—versus the Duke Lacrosse case—let’s not rush to judgement. And acknowledging his all too common distinction when telling a story of describing “a guy” (white) or “a black guy” even when there was no material relevance.

But these friends feel like the minority. While the overwhelming majority of my white friends agree in concept that prejudice towards African Americans does exist and that black people suffer disproportionately, too few will remove the blinders on issues of race and embrace the validity of Black experiences and anxieties. Too many still refuse to soak in it, to allow the discomfort of the moments like these to meaningfully penetrate their consciousness or soul.

Rather, like Vladimir and Estragon discussing the existential questions of life in Waiting for Godot, the epitome of the real problem is those friends who are content in waiting and don’t want to see, do or hear anything that disturbs their peace, tranquility, equilibrium, and perception of themselves as “good people.” They’re shocked by gruesome videos and sometimes willing to give money to “safe” causes, but nothing more, and they never see the real costs of their own inaction or years of indifference.

Many of them can only make sense of things through their own cultural lenses, ones they truly believe to be universal and objective—free from all bias. Socialized into believing that race is irrelevant to opportunity in America, they think they advance race-blind issues and causes that benefit everyone, whereas people of color are only concerned about identity politics and political correctness. They either cannot see or will not acknowledge the advantages they enjoy are often the result of settled politics and public policy aimed at sustaining their positions in the top 30 percent of Americans.

They read about issues of race with their skeptic hats on, looking for “gotchas” in how an argument is framed or flaws like a cross-examination of a witness. They had a great black friend(s) when they were a kid or in the military or on their sports team, so they can’t possibly be racist! They don’t realize how they and society have changed, that as adults they’re not as unbiased as they believe.

It is indeed “the shallow understanding from people of goodwill” that’s most frustrating and dangerous. A deeper understanding of race and racism will only emerge from intentional self-reflection and empathy. And intentional self-reflection and empathy will only happen if you pause long enough to create that opening. I hope you’ll re-read this section now in that spirit.

INSPIRATION AND CONFLICT

“…But Thou, oh Lord, are a shield for me; My glory and the lifter of my head…”  “Thou, Oh Lord”—The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir

It’s in times like these when I most strongly feel God’s presence in my life, and His hand at work in the affairs of the world. Prayer, scripture and music soothe me and enable me to appreciate my many opportunities and blessings, especially family and friends.

I feel the presence and perseverance of my forebears. My parents who made sure I had black friends and experiences as a kid. My namesake grandfathers, who were two of only a handful of pioneer black physicians in Pittsburgh in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, motivated by service and not a patient’s ability to pay. Lena K. Lee, my maternal grandfather’s sister, a sixth-grade teacher and attorney who, in 1966 at 60 years of age, became one of the first black women elected to the Maryland General Assembly. She told me, unapologetically, that she didn’t have time to be nice; too much was at stake, so she used her voice to “kill” bills that she believed were detrimental to the hard-won gains of black people and women. 

I remember her protege and successor in her state-level seat, the late U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), who stated for her obituary that he would not have been in politics if not for her. I could identify with his pain when, in one of his last acts as chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee, he defended the “honor” of his friend, then U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), after his blatant intent in using a black staffer as a prop during a critical committee hearing.

But beyond these sources of inspiration, I feel conflicted as well. Why do I still call people “friend” when they possess such low racial IQs and can’t explain their MAGA attraction or identify when America was “great” for its black citizens and how my ancestors had access to the same opportunities I do today?

Friends who believe “deep-state” conspiracy theories with white men as the victims, but who care to know nothing about the history of J. Edgar Hoover’s tactics and offer lame excuses for why the problems with state and local law enforcement aren’t systemic as well.

Friends who did not want to see the severe irony at this year’s State of the Union when The President of the United States recognized the heroism of a Tuskegee Airman and immediately thereafter presented the Medal of Freedom to someone so opposed to justice and freedom for black Americans. They could only talk about The Speaker of the House of Representatives ripping up the President’s speech.

For the past 20+ years, I have officiated high school football in Virginia, including my fair share of games at T.C. Williams High School, made famous by the movie Remember the Titans. Whether in reflecting upon my experiences as an official or observer of sports in general, I’m always surprised at the number of white friends who are also sports fans and don’t “get” race, and really don’t want to spend the time or effort to do so. They don’t want to pull the string and uncover what’s behind their blood vengeance towards Colin Kaepernick or the other “overpaid” black athletes who took knees to protest police injustice. Of course, the overpaid white owners who scorn them are geniuses.

Where’s the outrage when athletes are referred to as “sons of bitches” or told to “Shut Up and Dribble!?!?” Standing by while others deny the intelligence and freedom of expression of black athletes. But it’s okay when Drew Brees or white athletes weigh in. What accounts for the difference, because everyone knows that race/color had nothing to do with it?

But my heart aches today especially for so many white friends and even some mentors—people I looked up to—who have shaped opportunities for me since college, but with whom I now feel I have nothing in common. Many are people I’ve broken bread with, prayed for or even worshiped with at their Evangelical or Catholic churches, believing we shared the same vision of Christianity. But their constant outrage during the Obama administration has turned to silence, if not vocal support for the current administration that has shown only disdain for decency, honor, integrity and compassion for “the least of these.”

Thankfully, when I get too angry about these things, I think of my church family, the Alfred Street Baptist Church, a 216-year-old African American congregation in Alexandria, Virginia, with 8,000 members. On Veterans Day every year I watch church members, enlisted and officers, including Major General Leo Brooks, Sr. (father of two black general officers—one the first black Cadet Brigade Commander, the highest ranking cadet position at West Point), march proudly into our sanctuary in uniform to “Stars and Stripes Forever.” And for Black History Month, we sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” “We Shall Overcome” and “We’ve Come This Far By Faith” as we learn about all the ways their service and sacrifice have been discounted and disrespected over the years.

It is a place where I was honored to serve for five years as church treasurer and a member of the trustee board, supporting the vision of our pastor, Rev. Dr. Howard-John Wesley, to expand the opportunities and financial capacity of our ministries and to enhance security to avoid tragedies like The Tree of Life and Emanuel AME in Charleston.

Or I think of the opportunity ten years ago that Ben Jealous, then president of the national NAACP, gave me and my boutique consulting company, Ten Talents LLC, to lead the searches for several C-suite positions at their Baltimore headquarters. Or years before that, when Eddie Williams hired me to develop a major gifts strategy for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the nation’s first black think tank. These experiences and others have given me a better understanding of the range of challenges confronting African Americans, and black women in particular, and they have motivated me to speak on their behalf from my seat at the table. 

THE INTERSECTION OF RACE AND LEADERSHIP

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”—James Baldwin

One of the reasons it’s so hard for white people to figure out what’s next is that black people have always borne the burden of coming up with the proposed solutions. Real progress will come only when white people have a true change of heart and conversations about race, as awkward as they may be initially, are sustained and folded into the mainstream of their lives. That’s why I’m grateful to my friend, Bill Gruver, a former naval officer and general partner at Goldman Sachs, and a longtime and recently retired Bucknell University management professor, who taught a senior-level course titled Leadership: Theory, History & Practice.

Bill’s class focused on integrating perspectives and theories of leadership from different disciplines and acquainting students with models from different cultures and periods in history, this seminar included students from Bucknell’s three colleges: business, engineering and liberal arts. It provided students with a forum to meet, challenge, and be challenged by leaders from differing walks of life, with the goal of developing their own analytical, organizational, writing and thinking/speaking skills in situations requiring leadership. An important secondary goal, however, was to expose students to the great societal issues they’ll encounter post-graduation.

For the past few years, I served as the guest leader for an intense three-hour dialogue on race. It was designed to complement several weeks of research and reading. Each year, the students ask me intimate questions about the intersection of race and leadership in my life today, but they seemed most interested in experiences they could relate to—ones from my formative years or early career.

We talk openly and honestly about how my need “to be liked” got me elected class and student body president in both high school and college, but how that need also made me feel isolated as I walked a fine line between my two worlds. How wanting consensus vs. confrontation characterized my service on the Bucknell Board of Trustees and the board of directors of its general alumni association and also positioned me to become the founding chairperson of the Bucknell Black Alumni Association. How I was motivated because too many of my black friends and other black alumni didn’t feel the same attachment to Bucknell that I did or that their perspective was valued. We talked about the pushback from white alumni whose only connection to the university as an alum was through their sport or fraternity, but who couldn’t comprehend why race was a point of unity and connection for many black alumni.

I also talked about my time as a full-time major gifts officer at Harvard Law School during the early 1990s, when student Barack Obama was ending his term as the first black president of the HLS Law Review, and intense battles were being waged over a lack of diversity among faculty and principles of affirmative action for student admission. (By the way, Neil Gorsuch, Mike Pompeo and Rafael “Ted” Cruz were students during my time there as well.) I shared stories of raising money from white alumni who voiced “concerns” about the diversity goals destroying academic integrity and the high standards that made the school great, while in the same breath wanting to know what I could do to ensure that a “good kid” they knew, a white applicant from a “good family,” wasn’t being “overlooked” despite low LSATs or grades.

Students also ask how my leadership style developed and how I would best characterize it today. Each year I would cite servant leadership and point to my role as the principal graduate leader or Purple Legionnaire within my fraternity’s chapter at Bucknell. A fraternity where I would not have been welcome fifty years ago, but today I run and enjoy the fruits of my work in a host of deep personal and business relationships. I have worked with the undergraduates in my chapter to host panel discussions on white privilege and MLK Day and to conduct service events during Random Acts of Kindness week.

As a servant leader for my fraternity, I have been inspired by the example of a white graduate brother, James McCloskey, the founder of Centurion Ministries, the precursor to the Innocence Project and the first organization in the world devoted exclusively to freeing the innocent or wrongly convicted. Jim has been featured on 60 Minutes and modeled in a recent book by John Grisham titled The Guardians.

THE PATH FORWARD

“Don’t sit down and wait for opportunities to come. Get up and make them.” —Madam C.J. Walker

Today, there are no half-choices. People must know what they stand for. Protests centered around racial justice are going to continue, and thankfully, morph into new forms of social activism. For too long, we’ve seen how black needs remain unresolved when leaders in government and business are unchallenged and permitted to call plays from the same worn out playbooks. We must vote in November! But it can’t stop there.

We need a change of heart and a new esprit de corps among more than just our political leaders. It begins with you and your sphere of influence. A fundamental shift must occur where it’s no longer acceptable for anyone to be deemed qualified to lead in any position of significance (private industry or public service) without a personal grasp of the perspectives, experiences and histories of people of color in America, the ability to engage thoughtfully and honestly on the topic of race, and meaningful personal relationships with people of color.

So many times in our country—beginning with Reconstruction—one more train has journeyed up the mountain of change, toward the summit and beyond, to a land where, as Amos prophesied, “justice will flow like water and righteousness as a mighty stream.” But each time its engine has run out of steam, finding the climb too steep and the resistance too strong. History’s travel manifest shows the engine will always leave the station for another try to break through the repeated cycle of unrest, half-hearted reforms, neglect and more unrest. If it is to have any chance of success, it must have a new source of energy—one that has never been harnessed to its full potential. The energy to put it over the top can only come from white people who believe that this country can do better and must be better to embrace and sustain the cause of racial equity and justice.

I am committed to working with you to make this happen, to see that train finally crest the mountain. Will you take the first step by sharing aspects of my experiences or by initiating conversations about the role of race in America with your family and friends? Explore with your family and friends the topics or themes from this letter (or another source) you find compelling? In addition, stay tuned because over the coming weeks I am committed to addressing race in America on social media and other digital formats. I will post options and perspectives for your consideration. As a part of this pledge, I will be creating a blog and using LinkedIn more actively. 

Stay safe and God’s Peace!

Ed Robinson 

https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/ed-robinson-5ba589a/

“…Here I raise my Ebenezer; Hither by Thy great help I’ve come; And I hope, by Thy good pleasure; Safely to arrive at home…”

“Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” —Robert Robinson