*

“I can’t help but wonder how things might have turned out had you not been white. I wish kindness were colorblind.”

This quote was from a reader responding to a story I wrote a week ago titled “A Breakdown on Highway 63 and the Kindness of Strangers.” You can find the story here.

I’m a 73-year old white male.

This is my response to the reader’s comment.

*

A new condominium complex squats two blocks from our Decorah, Iowa home. On a warm winter weekend in 2020, Rebecca and I wandered down and slow-walked through one partially finished unit. The wood framing was in place, and the house wrap had been put over the external walls. We walked through the doorless entrance to see the floor plan.

We liked the little porch on the west side, chatted about what the kitchen would look like when finished, and were astonished at the asking price for such a small place. Once or twice one of us said we shouldn’t be trespassing.

But we never worried that what happened to Ahmaud Arbery, a young black man, who was simultaneously walking through a construction site in Brunswick, Georgia, might happen to us. That three white men would catch a call to the police dispatcher and come looking for us with a loaded shotgun.

The three men who killed Ahmaud Arbery were convicted of a hate crime, with evidence including the use of racist language in text and social media communications. The jury agreed these men went after Arbery “because of his race and color.”

We had other concerns, but not that one.

*

A few days ago, on Decorah’s Trout Run Bike Trail, I was almost run over on a switchback by a rider on a bright red E-bike. E-bikers go faster, so they have to pay close attention to trail etiquette. When Rebecca and I stopped to rest at the top of the hill, we talked about flagging this guy down if we saw him again and asking him to follow the rules stated on the signs.

We never worried that what happened, also in 2020, to Christian Cooper in New York’s Central Park might happen to us. The Decorah e-biker might respond to our request as Amy Cooper (no relation) responded to Mr. Cooper’s request to follow park rules by calling 911, saying, “An African-American man is threatening my life.”

We had other concerns, but not that one.

*

Late one Saturday night in the fall of 1969, a group of college friends loaded a couple of six-packs of Grain Belt in a car, drove to an isolated county road, and parked. We were 20, and Iowa’s drinking age was 21. Barrie, Denny, Mike, Ed, Jerry, and I were tucked in my big-finned 1960 Chevrolet Impala.

On Friday night, the five of us had seen the film Night of the Living Dead at the Drive-in, so we were on edge about Zombies. A thick car mat covered a rusted-out hole on the passenger side floor to keep the exhaust from seeping in. We cracked the windows.

We’d done this before, and someone always joked about the police to relieve the tension. Our luck, however, ran out as a flashing red light brought my eyes to the rearview mirror. Mike yelled that he’d heard the police couldn’t charge us with possession if we threw the beer out of the car. So that’s what we did.

With that foolishness out of the way, the two officers, one on each side of the car, politely asked us to stand outside, where they patiently wrote down our names and addresses. And then asked us to pick up the scattered cans and put them in a sack that they placed in the patrol car trunk.

Death by zombies, asphyxiation, or our parents were all on our minds.

But not by the police.

Who killed George Floyd the same day Christian Cooper met Amy Cooper two months after Ahmaud Arbery was murdered walking around a construction site while Black.

*

I worried about many things when my car broke down. Why did the car overheat? Was the engine permanently damaged? Could I get a tow truck to take my car and me forty miles to my hometown? How long would I have to wait?

If this had happened to you, you might have had other worries. If you were black or brown or a woman, that might add another layer of anxiety. Or layers.

In the summer of 1972, five years after that Grain Belt fiasco, I drove my first new car, a yellow Toyota Corolla, to Washington, D.C. I was feeling my oats, by myself, on vacation. Early in the morning, I had left my parent’s house in Davenport, Iowa, not knowing whether I would take Interstate 80 west to the Rockies or east to the Lincoln Memorial.

I got to D.C. late the second night. I had the address and phone number for Motel 6 but no Navigator or city map. I drove around for about an hour, just gawking at the sites, with the Capital Dome as my loadstar. I started worrying when the Dome moved from being on my right to my left.

I needed to stop and ask for directions.

But I saw only black people.

I had other concerns. Now, I had this one.

Of course, my worry did not bear fruit.

I stopped at a gas station and, 15 minutes later, pulled into my motel.

I had the same experience in the same area thrice during my stay.

*

Two weeks ago, I was treated kindly on an Iowa highway.

How would I have been treated if I was black or brown or a woman?

Or younger?

A reader wishes for kindness to be colorblind.

Often it is given freely as it was to me by three whites in Northeast Iowa and three blacks in Washington, D.C.

Most Iowans would respond to a human in need on an Iowa highway with kindness in 2023, regardless of race.

BUT

In America, my race has shielded me from what James Baldwin called “the millions of details 24 hours of every day which spell out that some lives matter more than others.”*

That’s a burden I have not had to carry — a worry I did not take into my daily life.

It’s a kind of innocence.

That can be another form of blindness.

_____________________________________________________________________________

*From Nicholas Buccola’s The Fire is Upon Us: James Baldwin, William Buckly Jr., and the Debate over Race in America.