Why Can't We Be Friends?

Can I Befriend White People?

This op-ed written by Ekow Yankah, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University appeared in the New York Times on Sunday.

It is so wrong on so many levels. 

First, it is reprehensible that the NYT found this poisonous article worthy of publication.   At a time of increased racial tension, what is to be gained by a printing a blatantly racist piece that stokes divisiveness? No publication of any stature would even consider publishing an article by a white person who, for instance, said that they would teach their children not to trust blacks because they might get mugged.   The publication of this piece fuels the tribalism in America that Victor Davis Hanson is warning about and that is corroding our national cohesion.

Second, does something almost all Americans gave up decades ago- he makes blanket judgments about people by skin pigmentation.  Yankah states bluntly, “I will teach them [my children] to be cautious.  I will teach them suspicion.  I will teach them distrust.  Much sooner than I thought I would, I have to discuss with my boys whether they can truly be friends with white people.”  It is bad enough that Yankah is teaching his OWN children the sick credo that skin color is a determining factor of relationship formation, but that as an educator at a law school he is presumably is infecting other people’s children with this contagion. 

 Most of us born after, say, 1955 have been educated with the words of Dr. Martin Luther King—that we should judge people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.  We have correctly decided that It is morally wrong to make such judgements.   And to a large extent, our society has been very successful at promulgating this notion.   To take one measure, there has been a 28% increase in interracial marriages just since 2000.  We have a whole body of law around eliminating racial discrimination.   Most public companies work hard to hire, train, retain and promote minorities and have established programs for doing so.  Are we perfect in all respects?  No.  Roland Fryer at Harvard showed that while the claim that deadly force against blacks is unwarranted, they are more likely to be subject to nondeadly force.   Marianne Bertrand at The University of Chicago did work that showed that job applicants with “black” names are more likely to be rejected than others.   And it is true that a black teen with a hoodie walking through a white neighborhood will likely be subject to a greater level of scrutiny than a white kid.   These are things that still need fixing. 

Yahkah cites calling out of issues of the perceived pathology in the black community (never talked about by Trump), immigrant crime and Islamic terror as evidence that Trump and anyone who voted for him is a bigot.  Yet, he overlooks the hard fact that the South Side of Chicago is a killing zone, MS-13 has infected our country through lax immigration policies and we (and Europe) have suffered numerous deadly terrorist attacks in the name of Islam.  These problems are real and need to be talked and argued about.  And they need to be discussed in blunt and realistic terms.   They are difficult and knotty problems, but isolating yourself (and your children) from whites will not make them magically disappear.

Mr. Yankah blithely overlooks the fact that we have a system of laws that protects African Americans in the workplace, at school, in housing, and many other areas of our society.  Worse, he fails to note that many whites go above and beyond to help African Americans in education and employment.  In my own world, for instance, many whites contribute to Boys Hope Girls Hope, a residential community that helps at-risk kids and many have paid the tuition of African American kids at our local private school--- with wonderful results.   Does Mr. Yankah not want his children to be friends with these wonderful people or his children to be friends with theirs?   One of the business organizations to which I belong has a program that assists and supports minority entrepreneurship, providing assistance with financing, management, contacts, and such.   Does Mr. Yankah not wish to associate with the people who have devoted time to these ventures?   Yet, despite that the vast majority of whites that not only accept blacks as equals, they help the underprivileged in the black community in different ways and ---gasp--- even marry African Americans (forming lifelong intimate bonds), Mr. Yankah states, “My heart is unbearably heavy when I assure you we cannot be friends.”

Many of life’s best lessons on human relationships are learned in the local gymnasium.  The picture above is of my local gym, where on each Sunday morning, men (and sometimes women) of all ages, races and backgrounds play a couple of hours of pickup basketball.  A few weeks ago, as they all came off the floor and into the locker room, they were chatting together, teasing each other, high-fiving each other, and complaining about their wives and their girlfriends.  There is nothing more unifying across racial lines like pickup basketball and complaining about girlfriends and spouses (who are undoubtedly complaining about us).  

And I finish with this anecdote.  My own son works out with and befriended with a young African American that is about his age and who is afflicted with autism.  While he is a big friendly guy, this young man sometimes struggles with appropriate social cues and, as a result, annoyed some of the gym patrons and the gym revoked his membership.  My son, along with some others, lobbied the gym’s management and argued that this young man should be treated like any other person with a disability and should be reinstated.  The gym reconsidered and found ways to accommodate him and happily the young man is now back in his regular routine, working out with his buddies.   These friends of an African American man stepped up immediately to right a wrong and helped their challenged friend (without court intervention, I might add) return to doing one of the things he loves most—working out with his buddies.

If you do not wish to be my friend, that is your loss.  If you do not wish your children to be friends with mine, that is their deep loss.  My children have been taught something very different.  They have been taught compassion, empathy, and acceptance, and they have been taught to ignore skin color.

We can have stark political differences and still be friends.  I am outnumbered by friends that have vastly different political views than I do, and some are of a different race, religion and ethnic background.  We argue, sometimes quite ferociously, for our respective points of view.   Still, I count them among my most trusted and loyal friends.

Whether Trump is a bigot and racist as Yankah claims is a different set of arguments.  But wherever you settle on that, Trump will depart the scene in three or at most seven years.   Our children will have to live together in this great nation long after.  It will be much better if they can be friends.