1. An Upper Middle Class White Kid Comes to Terms With Race
By Tom Harrison
As a child, I became conscious of the world around me fairly early on. A precocious
youngster, I sought to learn as much as I could about the world I was entering, and did both a
lot of reading and asked many questions. There was not a great deal of diversity in the upper
middle class town we lived in (it was predominantly Jewish and Italian/Irish Catholic), so much
of what I learned of the rest of the world came from either my parents, or media such as books,
magazines, television, and movies. As a result, I developed a more detached awareness and
understanding of things that I did not encounter in my daily life, and my later encounters with
people and cultures outside my comfort zone did not go as well as I thought they would.
The first co-culture I came into contact was that of African Americans. Growing up in
the 1980s with liberal parents who had been supporters of the Civil Rights Movement in the
1960s, racial equality and acceptance were ingrained in me from as early as I can remember. I
viewed the efforts and determination of African Americans to emerge from Jim Crow into a
modern world where they could be treated as equals as a noble thing, and it caused me to have
great respect for them as a people.
Unfortunately, because there were so few African Americans in my community, when I
came into contact with them and expressed that respect, I was met with a degree of distrust
and disdain, which I was puzzled by. It almost seemed to me as if these people were angry that
I assumed to know anything about them culturally, and that my gesture of respect was viewed
more as a slap in the face.
As I would later in life discover, the passage of important civil rights legislation in the

2. 1960s as the result of the efforts of African Americans through protests and demonstrations did
not eliminate racism. My young mind believed that somehow it had been magically erased
from society, and that it was a thing of the distant past and no longer a part of the modern age.
I didn’t know that economic opportunities for African Americans hadn’t just opened up over
night in the new “equal” United States, and that poverty and educational disadvantages had
not been eliminated either. These people epitomized the term “minority” in Manalapan, NJ.
What I didn’t know was at the very center of my town existed a small enclave of tiny,
ramshackle homes that housed a very poor group of African Americans. As white wealth
moved in and developed rapidly around them, they continued to struggle to hold onto to their
little piece of home, and became increasingly alienated as their small number was engulfed and
greatly overtaken. Had I known any of this in advance, their reaction to my attempt at
communication may have turned out differently as I might have taken a different approach. As
Lustig and Koester explain, “The importance of maintaining one’s cultural identity – and
therefore the need to preserve, protect, and defend one’s culturally shared values – often
creates a rising tide of dependence. This emotional tide, whose beneficial elements increase
people’s sense of pride and help to anchor a people in time and place, can also be a furious and
unbridled force of destruction.” (21)
As well, my view of African Americans was very generalized. Based on what I had
learned I had created the idea in my mind that all African Americans cared about and were
committed to the pursuit of civil rights and equality. What I didn’t realize was that like myself,
the people I was dealing with were also children who were growing up in the same era, and
didn’t necessarily care about the same things their parents may have. I failed to recognize that

3. “no one is entirely typical of the culture to which he or she belongs; each person differs, in
unique ways, from the general cultural tendency to think and behave in a particular way”
(Lustig and Koester 28). First, I had entered into discourse with them under some false
assumptions about the state of affairs of African Americans in 1980s America, and appeared
ignorant as a result. Second, I presumed that these kids were either knowledgeable of or even
concerned with social issues related to race. To these kids I must have come across as a
pompous ass, and in hindsight I can understand why they responded to me in kind.
As happy as I am that my parents engendered a respect in me for peoples and cultures
dissimilar from my own, I wish they had been less idealistic and more realistic in the way they
imparted their views on race & ethnicity. Although their optimism was well intended, I needed
to know that things were not so (no pun intended) “black and white.” We didn’t just go from
“inequality to equality,” and that legislation alone does not solve or eliminate social ills.
I believe my experience has given me the insight to be able to present issues of race and
ethnicity to young people in a well-rounded manner. I acknowledge and respect the progress
that has been made on issues of social inequality in America, but I do not think for a moment
that all problems have been solved and that true equality has resulted from those efforts. I
would want children to understand that these movements are “works in progress,” and that I
believe that changes in attitude begin with the individual, and diffuse to others whose minds
are open and willing to accept them.
Lustig, Myron. Intercultural Competence : Interpersonal Communication Across Cultures.
Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2010.