University of Georgia

Terry College of Business
 

Thaddeus Garret Jr. was walking to a corner store in 1982 when he was stopped by Washington, D.C., police, who said he fit the description of a black man who had just mugged an elderly white woman. They demanded he come to the station for a lineup. He refused. He was angry and upset, but didn't mention the incident to his boss: then Vice President George Bush.

"To share it would not have made the situation any better,": says Mr. Garrett, then Mr. Bush's domestic policy adviser. "There's a tendency to want to put it behind you."

Mr. Garrett's decision to remain silent reflects a chasm that continues to separate whites and blacks even as they work, play and live more closely together than ever. Although blacks have made big inroads over the past 20 years, particularly in the workplace, a wall of silence still separates the races. That helps perpetuate distrust, misunderstanding and hurt.

'Microinsults'

For a variety of reasons, blacks often don't share their experiences and feelings with whites. In someways, the difficulty they face in talking is like that of war veterans who find it hard to share their combat experience with civilians.

Black attorney Dwayne Morris, who works at a Fortune 500 company, calls it "a code of silence" among blacks, in unspoken understanding that there are certain experiences you do not relate to whites. For instance: While at a large Chicago law firm, Mr. Morris spent two months putting together an acquisition only to be mistaken for a messenger when he finally met his client. The humiliation of the incident was all the more painful, he says, because he felt he couldn't share it with any of his white co-workers, many of whom he considered friends.

"Frankly, I just don't expect a white person who has not had my experiences to quite understand what goes on in terms of my emotions," Mr. Morris says. He did share the incident with black attorneys at the firm.

Indeed, many African-Americans in this country live with a surging river of indignities dammed in inside, a deep reservoir of what one psychologist calls "microinsults."

'Grin and Bear'

But many blacks suffer these everyday sights privately. They offer many reasons for their silence. Some simply assume that whites will be insensitive to their stories. In other cases, blacks feel that whites won't believe them or that simply bringing up issues of race is too explosive. And some are concerned about whites considering blacks hyersentitive. "You want to be open, but you don't want to present yourself as the victim," says Charles Branham, an assistant professor of African-American studies at Northwestern University. "It can sound like you're making excuses.

"A lot of things we experience as people of color we grin and bear, when we explode and white ethics ask, "Why are you so angry?" says Kesho Scott, who teaches sociology at Grinnell College and conducts workshops on race for corporations.

For their part, whites concede that such issues are often difficult to discuss. "Part of what we do as whites, particularly as professionals and liberals, is we want to say, 'Oh, but it's not race, it could happen to anyone,'" says John a. Capitman, a professor at Brandeis University. "I don't think we listen because I think we feel helpless."

Some whites hesitate to talk about race for fear of being taken the wrong way. "I'm always afraid that some things I say may be taken out of context and called racist," says Greg Fobare, a materials analyst for a Detroit-area company. He sometimes discusses racial affairs with one black colleague, but "I'm careful to keep my voice down so I won't be taken out of context" by others listening, he says.

Followed by a Guard

Of course, many people are reluctant to share their personal or work-related experiences in the office whether it's with someone of another race or not. But it becomes a problem between the races because there is less understanding and less natural empathy to begin with. While there are authentic bonds between blacks and whites, blacks interviewed for this story suggested that there was much they didn't share with their white friends.

Timothy Alston, formerly a commercial lender at a Boston bank, felt good about the response of one white co-worker. He spent a lunch hour with the friend shopping at a department store. The two split up for a while and Mr. Alston says he was then followed by a security guard. He became so enraged that he found his friend and suggested the two should leave. His friend's initial reaction, Mr. Alston says, was to suggest that maybe it was an