Last week, President Clinton held his first “national conversation on race” at a college in Akron. The same day, the Golden State Warriors basketball team fired player Latrell Sprewell for choking and threatening to kill the team’s coach during practice. The next day, the NBA suspended Sprewell for one year. The events took place almost a continent apart and seem to have nothing in common. What connects them? Loose talk on racism.
Clinton seems to believe we don’t talk enough about race. So, he played presidential facilitator, attempting to draw out his audience’s true feelings on the subject. In Oprahlike fashion, he tried to get blacks and Latinos to talk about their hurts and grievances and whites to admit their prejudices. Thus, one young man, who identified himself as biracial, talked about what it was like to try to cash a check at the bank, only to have tellers treat him with suspicion and put a hold on his money. Another young man, who was white, talked about being frightened when he encountered young black men on the street at night. Both these stories were calculated to illustrate the lingering effects of racism in our society.
It reminded me of a similar “conversation” in which I participated two years ago on ABC’s “Nightline.” On that occasion, the program’s producers decided the talk would be more honest if the races were separated, so blacks sat in one studio and whites in another, able to listen but not talk to each other. “Nightline” host Ted Koppel opened the discussion with his black audience with an invitation to “tell me your lynching story.” Of course, he didn’t mean a real lynching story–the last of these most vile public acts took place some 40 years ago. He was speaking metaphorically. Tell me the most horrible thing whites have done to you because you are black.
Which brings us to Latrell Sprewell. What started out as a case of professional sports finally drawing the line when it comes to outrageous behavior by a star athlete has turned into the latest charge of white racism.
Sprewell’s actions are indefensible. He choked coach P.J. Carlesimo in full view of the team, leaving a large welt on Carlesimo’s neck, then came back 20 minutes later and took several swings at the coach, threatening to kill him because the coach had gotten in his face and ejected him from practice.
In any similar situation, any employee would be summarily fired. But because Sprewell is black and Carlesimo is white, some irresponsible racial agitators are trying to turn this incident into a lynching story. Jesse Jackson has already made noises about an NBA boycott. San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown first responded to the incident by saying, “Sprewell’s boss may have needed choking.” Brown later modified his remarks to say “it may have been justified,” then called for an investigation by the NAACP. Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris said the sanctions against Sprewell “obviously involve race.” Sprewell’s agent has already sought help from Johnnie Cochran, a man expert at playing the race card to defend criminal behavior by sports superstars.
If we are ever to get to a point of true racial harmony in this society, we must stop turning every dispute or unpleasant encounter between whites and blacks into a racial incident.
I suppose I could blame prejudice for every time a bank teller put a hold on one of my checks, or a sales person chose to ignore me, or a taxi passed me by, or I didn’t get a job or promotion I applied for, or I don’t make as much money as I think I deserve. And I might even be right once in awhile since there are racist and sexist jerks still out there. But my suspicions would probably be wrong most of the time.
The only purpose served by dwelling upon such real and imagined grievances is to inflame animosities. For all his talk of racial healing, President Clinton’s conversation on race may simply be like picking at a wound that ought to be left to heal. Whether it’s wild accusations by Latrell Sprewell’s defenders or the more benign effort of the president and Ted Koppel to get blacks to relive their racial injuries and whites to take collective responsibility, this talk does more harm than good.
