Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 18, 1990 TAG: 9005180719
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TONY KORNHEISER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
They approached the ticket counter, where two agents - one white male and one white female - were working.
The white man handed over his ticket. The male agent glanced at it, smiled and asked him where he preferred to sit.
"Aisle, near the middle of the plane," he said.
He got 17C.
He lingered near the counter, waiting for his friend to select the seat on the opposite aisle, so they might chat during the flight.
The black man handed over his ticket. The female agent glanced at it and asked, "Do you have some identification?"
"Yes, I do," the black man said, and he reached for his wallet. "But just out of curiosity, do you mind telling me why you want to see it?"
The agent grinned in embarrassment
She said nothing in response.
"How about a credit card?" the black man said, and he pulled one out of his wallet.
"Do you have a work ID?" she asked, apparently hoping to see something with the black man's photo on it.
"No," he said, and whipped out another credit card.
"A driver's license would be fine," she said, sounding trapped.
"I don't have my driver's license with me," he said. "I'm taking the plane, not the car." Though he maintained an even tone, you could feel the heat smoldering behind his eyes. He continued to flash credit cards.
Throughout the incident the white man had said nothing. He'd felt his body tense when he'd heard the agent ask his friend for ID. They were both flying on the same kind of ticket; he hadn't been asked for ID. He felt there was no good reason for the inquiry - only one bad one - and he'd thought about coming to his friend's aid. But he'd decided it was better to back off. As it continued, he sensed he was watching an accident happen, waiting for the impact.
"That's fine, sir, thank you," the agent finally said, shrinking a bit with each successive credit card. "Enjoy the flight."
The men rode the escalator up to the gate area in silence.
The white man shook his head. "I've probably watched that a hundred times in my life," he said. "But that's the first time I've ever seen it."
The black man nodded. He'd seen it more times than he cared to count. "You don't ever need to remind yourself that you're black," he said, "because every day there's somebody out there who'll remind you."
They walked on for a while, and the black man started to laugh to himself. Pirouetting, he modeled his outfit, an Italian-cut, double-breasted suit with a red rose in his lapel for Mother's Day. "I really can't look any better than this," he said sardonically. Then, he looked into his friend's eyes and said, "I had my driver's license. But if I show it, we may as well be in Soweto."
They were boarding the airplane now. The white man wanted to find something appropriate to say to assuage his friend's discomfort, but kept coming up dry.
He knew if he had asked the ticket agent, she'd claim she didn't have a prejudiced bone in her body, she was just doing her job. She couldn't possibly appreciate what it's like to live in a place where it doesn't matter that you're a college graduate, that you're respected in your field, that you earn a handsome salary, and that you're a responsible adult and parent if you're always one ticket counter away from being a suspect.
We find racism in our daily headlines.
In mob violence: whites killing blacks in Howard Beach and Bensonhurst; blacks in Flatbush attacking Vietnamese men they'd mistaken for their intended targets, Koreans.
In inflammatory rhetoric: whites in Bensonhurst shouting that they don't want blacks in their neighborhood; Al Sharpton threatening New York City will burn if he doesn't approve of the Bensonhurst verdict.
Screeching examples such as these are easily condemned as products of lunatic behavior. We're all shocked and outraged by the mindless fury of such whirlwinds.
This incident at the airport, this is the everyday, insidiously banal face of racism. This is the cancer.
To be inescapably defined by color. When someone is pointing you out in a crowd, never to be referred to as "the thin guy," or "the tall guy," or "the young guy," but invariably as "the black guy."
Everybody keeps track of the big stories with racial overtones: the Central Park jogger, the subway vigilante, whether Louis Farrakhan balances David Duke.
Nobody keeps count of this.
Can you show me some ID?
by CNB