The necessary hidden lessons

Over the summer I had a conversation with one of my closest friends over ice cream in a parking lot when he asked me if my parent’s had ever had the talk with me. Originally I assumed he meant the birds and the bees talk, but he was quick to correct me on that. He asked if my parents had ever talked to me about what to do if I was pulled over by a cop, or how to act in certain situations. I had told him no and he thought before responding to me that that was the same answer as all of his white friends. He continued on to tell me that every white friend he had asked had never had the ‘talk’, while every kid of color he had asked knew exactly what he was talking about. He explained to me that at a young age his father had taught him that if he was pulled over, he must keep his hands on the steering wheel and to avoid making any sudden movement. If he intended to make a move, he should state exactly what he was going to do to the officer before he did it. This conversation occurred over three months ago, but it still does not settle right with me.

 This unsettling feeling continued to grow as I read Invisible Man and The Power of One, where the brutal reality of racism can be blatantly seen by the reader. In Invisible Man I could see the application behind my friend’s words. The narrator is taught to please the white people from a young age in order to get through life, because that’s the only way to get by in the society without being seen as suspicious or questionable, and even that that does not always help. In The Power of One, Peekay come into contact with this problem when he starts the school for the blacks of the area and is forced to shut down due to the police. They cannot teach the people because for them to have knowledge is too much of a risk or an increase of threat in society’s mind, although they would never admit that that is the reason behind it. Peekay is one of the few characters to notice a problem with this, and continues to find ways to teach them regardless. 

 I think what unsettled me the most was the fact that I would have never thought about racism and what lengths people have to go in order to survive in a racist society if I had not sat in the parking lot, eating ice cream that night. That fact scares me, because many people probably do not think about it either, whether by choice or lack of knowledge, and remain blind to the necessary hidden lessons of the black community.