Although many of us in Duluth, Minnesota claim to be colorblind, I posit that race awareness operates in most social situations where different colors meet, unless those involved already know each other. As a city bus driver, I regularly witness race loaded situations, some of them blatant. These are uncomfortable but not difficult to deal with. It is the subtle, but more common race-based interactions that can teach me something meaningful or torment me for days. Three kinds of interactions, in particular, highlight our continued racial separation. I’ll call them: the Lack of Common Recognition Barrier; the Historical Assumption Barrier; and the Fear to Be One’s Self Barrier.

The Lack of Common Recognition Barrier is, by far, the most prevalent race-conscious situation that I witness. This is where a white person looks right past a person of color without recognition of his or her humanity (and vice versa, I might add but it seems more understandable the other way around). Rarely do I see a black man noticed for reasons other than his color. One small accidental incident revealed this point to me. I was dropping off a blind person on the West End of Duluth. This woman was obviously either new to the area, new to using a cane, or disoriented for another reason. Two white men and a black man were standing near the corner.  I recognized the black man from the bus. I beckoned to him and asked if he could help this woman cross the street.  He graciously hooked one arm in hers and dramatically stopped traffic with the other as he held his head high and proudly escorted her to the other side. Since then, he always sits up front and chats with me whenever he catches my bus on his way to work.

Even when a situation is not about race, because of a history of being singled out by race, a person of color may assume that this too is about race, and be hurt by it. An example of the Historical Assumption Barrier occurred last week. I picked up several passengers at UMD on my Route 13 up Woodland Avenue. The Woodland bus coming down, number 9, passes through UMD one minute later, on the other side of Kirby Drive. People unfamiliar with the Woodland routes will often get on a bus that takes them in the wrong direction.  As folks boarded, I noticed a figure in the corner of my eye, running towards my bus from across the street. When that person in line came into view, I asked him if he knew that this bus went up Woodland Avenue, not down, to Fourth Street. “Yes, I do,” he said emphatically and hurried to sit down.  Coincidentally, he was the only person of color in the group of boarders and the only one I had asked.  I wanted to explain why I’d asked the question, and that I didn’t notice race, or even gender, before I asked, but he was gone. The bus was full. I needed to move on. I thought I might catch him on the way out but he exited the back door shortly thereafter and I had to accept that this is what he deals with every day.   

The third barrier, the Fear to be One’s Self, is one in which a person in the minority will hold themselves back and remain quiet until they know enough about the other people or the environment to act spontaneously without fear of being rebuffed, insulted, or otherwise restrained. This can often be a sad waste of personhood in a race-mixed situation. One night I was headed to New Duluth when a male passenger in a wheelchair, whom I’ll call John, rang the bell to get off at the Riverside stop. This is a fairly unlit, uninhabited, piece of road after dark. John had successfully disembarked and I was winding in the ramp when his wheelchair slipped on gravel and he kept sliding until his chair fell back completely. I made some frightened comment as I jumped out of my seat. Instantly, although there were at least a dozen others on the bus, a young black man, with friend in tow, raced from the far back of the bus to help me lift John up. Later, this young man introduced himself as the son of a woman I had known some years before. Now, it’s possible that this young man would have stepped up in any crisis, on any bus, but I believe he acted because he knew it was safe to be himself.  Because I’d known his mother, he knew something about me. I wondered how often, in Duluth, this might not be the case, for a young black man.

While many of us like to think we greet and treat people the same, regardless of race, I don’t believe our behavior matches that assumption. Unfortunately, we hold too many fears and false generalizations about race to be unaware of skin color. Even when we are acting in a colorblind way, for people of color, race is always present.

Traveling alone or with companions — persuasive

Traveling to and from work (and other places) with or without a car — cause and effect

Reasons to travel to other countries — classification

What impressed me most about Barbara Lazear Ascher’s essay, “On Compassion” was it’s texture: descriptive words that made use of all my senses.  The sight of a man on a busy Manhattan street with his buttonless shirt hanging loose, “carefully plaited dreadlocks bespeaking a better time”, and his shuffled gait “held in place by gravity” contrasts sharply with the blonde baby in the expensive stroller with whom he meets. The man with the briefcase lifting and lowering his shiny-toed shoe, “watching the light reflect, trying to catch and balance it” continues the heartfelt but visual feast before us.

The “buttery, overpriced croissant washed down with rich cappuccino” offers as much taste satisfaction as the real deal does, and when “the scent of stale cigarettes and urine fill the small, overheated room,” we are sitting at that same table with the narrator.

Ascher’s thesis in the essay is a question: How are the more affluent affected by the homeless among us? Sentances that compelled me to think more closely on the issue, included: 1) “We want to protect ourselves from an awareness of rags with voices.. ”

2) “I don’t believe that one is born compassionate.” and,

3) “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”