Ethnic change shows racism still exists

Since my sophomore year in high school, I have been a black man
in the making. Ray Charles has been my favorite singer, Thomas
Sowell my favorite economist and Morgan Freeman my favorite actor.
In both recreational and intellectual pursuits, I have been most
affected by black Americans.

So you will understand why last Thursday, I walked into the
registrar’s office in Murphy Hall and asked to change my
race.

The window clerk, who was black, made no eye contact. “So,
what’ll it be, boss?” he asked nervously.

I needed more information: “Well, what are the rules to
change your race? What percentage do I have to be?”

“We’re not that sophisticated,” he replied.
“It’s your choice. No judgments attached.”

“OK,” I said. “I want to be black.”

And with the stroke of a button, I was.

As I left the building, I was filled with a peculiar sense of
accomplishment. But this quickly disappeared because I was knocked
by a sudden pang of fear and frenzy.

At that very moment, I brought to my mind (and stood in
disbelief that I had not considered) the awful fate that every
American black person needs to confront. I refer, of course, to
racism.

In a panic, I drafted a letter with several questions to Bret
Polish, the founder of the campus group called White Anti-Racism.
He confirmed all my worst fears.

He wrote, “Whenever I pass a black man while walking down
the street, I find that, no matter how that person is dressed, I
put all sorts of racist assumptions on him … I find my heartbeat
get a little faster, and sometimes I even walk deliberately out of
this person’s way. … I know that, for instance, when I see
a black person at a party, I am often surprised to see them there
as an equal and not as the hired help or somebody who broke
in.”

And then came the final blow: “Given the tremendous racism
people of color deal with, I never cease to be amazed at how people
of color continue to survive and struggle in spite of it
all.”

Everywhere I looked, from the national media to my closest
friends, the answer was the same. As a black man, I would have to
deal with racism ““ in the classroom, workplace and every
sphere of human interaction.

I confess that I didn’t buy the propaganda immediately.
For in my own experience and knowledge, I had long ago concluded
that racism is dead in the United States.

I had, for instance, heard of a TIME/CNN poll that found that 89
percent of black teenagers found racism to be “a small
problem” or “not a problem at all” in their
lives. But more than mere perceptions, real statistics seemed to
agree that racism was pretty much an institution of the past.

Black talk radio host Larry Elder writes, “Black America,
if divided into a separate country, ranks No. 16 in Gross Domestic
Product, ahead of Australia, Turkey, Thailand, Argentina, the
Netherlands, Taiwan and South Africa.” And even though White
Anti-Racism’s Polish said that “white folks have held
all positions of power in the U.S. for the last 350 years,”
we have all heard of Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice and Colin
Powell.

Nonetheless, I would not let my assumptions render me ignorant
““ and so, with newfound courage, I set out to discover if
racism actually does exist.

It is with great sadness I report that it does.

The first confirmation came during my Roman history class. The
professor, though he did not seem racist, clearly was. He made not
a single mention of the importance of blacks in Roman history
““ not one mention! And in my Russian history course, I faced
the same neglect.

And so, with all my classes, the pattern was established: There
is no place for blacks in the history books of a supposedly
“liberal” institution of higher learning.

I experienced even more direct and agonizing racial
discrimination when I called a local bank to inquire about personal
loans, and I was immediately bombarded with asinine questions. I
revealed that I had never held, nor do I currently hold. a
full-time job, that I am a student with no credit history, but that
I would be most appreciative (and, believe me, I said this with
special kindness) if the $50,000 could be wired to my account by
end of day.

Not only was my application denied, but it was met with a truly
cynical laugh at the other end of the phone.

That night, in all my dejection, I put on a hooded sweatshirt,
and at 1 a.m., walked the UCLA campus. But even my melancholy was
victimized. Every time I saw a passer-by, he would consciously try
to avoid my glance and my path. One couple even paused their
conversation and briskly walked by me.

All of this instilled in me a profound and irrevocable pain
““ that even today, in the age of Oprah, racism prevails.

I now think long and hard about racism, and I think seriously
about switching my race back to white. I don’t know if I
will, but being black has taught me a lot.

For starters, I have finally come to appreciate in full the
poetry of Langston Hughes and the slightly less sophisticated
rhymes of Jesse Jackson. But more than this, I have learned to seek
the answers to life’s crucial questions.

What will happen to King’s eminent dream? Will we continue
our wars of racism and hate, or will we unite under one name and
put an end to the color code? Perhaps we should just explode.

Hovannisian is a second-year history and philosophy student.
E-mail him at [email protected]. Send general comments to
[email protected].