Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 26, 1993 TAG: 9309260099
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: D-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But when Reed considers the impact of racism on his life, his mind moves north from Montgomery, Ala., to the corridors of power of Congress, where he began working as a legislative aide this year.
Reed repeatedly was stopped by lobbyists sponsoring receptions and asked to produce identification, while white aides walked in without question. Sometimes, he was turned away, told the gatherings were restricted to members of Congress, then learned later that was a lie.
"It makes you angry," says Reed, who is 23. "It makes you feel second class. No matter how far you go, no matter how well-dressed you are, you're still black. You are still a nigger before you're anything else."
For many black Americans, these kinds of snubs and slights are common experiences in restaurants, stores and social settings.
Usually subtle and almost never involving slurs, the incidents are far less obvious than Jim Crow laws that prevailed in the South three decades ago.
But still, many blacks say, such behavior is jarring, leads to simmering anger and widens the racial divide in America. They say they rarely share the slights with white friends and co-workers, fearing they'll be considered overly sensitive.
In one of the most notable examples, some blacks contend they were given poor or no service at restaurants run by the Denny's chain and asked to pre-pay for their meals.
Six black Secret Service agents filed suit against the chain in May, alleging that they were waited on, then ignored and not served, while white agents sitting nearby in the Annapolis, Md., outlet received prompt service.
The agents' lawsuit came on the heels of a similar suit filed by 32 blacks in California against Denny's, which has signed a non-discrimination settlement in which it admitted no wrongdoing. The chain did, however, say it would stop certain practices, such as asking customers in some restaurants to pre-pay.
Dr. Carl Bell, a Chicago psychiatrist known for his work on racism, says such behavior is called "micro-insults" or "micro-aggressions." The experiences can be particularly frustrating for blacks, he says, because they are so personal and subjective.
"How do you prove that someone jumped in line in front of you?" Bell said. "You go into a store and look at a suit, the guy takes you to the cheapest suits in the store. How can you prove racial bias in that? It's not hard evidence . . . White people can blow you off and say, `No, you're just touchy.' And you walk away feeling, maybe I was."
But in Reed's case, one of his white colleagues, Ken Mullinax, also noticed the difference in treatment on Capitol Hill. Both men worked for U.S. Rep. Earl Hilliard, an Alabama Democrat, before Reed left to start law school at the University of Pittsburgh.
"It's weird," said Mullinax, who often was the lone white among Hilliard aides attending the receptions. "We all go together, and every time, they let me walk right in."
But black aides "are always stopped and questioned," he said. "It has happened so many times now, I can't think it's anything else but a black-white issue."
Many blacks - especially those who grew up under segregation - say such modern-day insults, even subtle ones, are jolting because they occur at moments when they feel they have escaped the burden of race.
"As bad as segregation is, the rules are clear," said Melvin Sikes, a retired black psychologist in Austin, Texas, who still is angry over an experience three years ago with a cab driver. "If you are prepared to be hit - even if you are hit - you know how to absorb it. This, you don't know how to deal with."
Sikes and his wife, Zeta, say their 1990 anniversary weekend was ruined when a cab driver bypassed them and picked up a white couple.
After returning from a wonderful celebration aboard a dinner train in nearby San Antonio, the couple had walked to the street to hail a cab. A white couple came up behind them, Sikes said, and agreed to wait for a second cab.
But when the first cab arrived and Sikes reached to open the door for his wife, the cab rolled past, he said, pulling up to the white couple, who, after a short exchange with the driver, climbed inside.
"Had it been 20 years ago, it wouldn't have bothered me, because that was the story of my life," said Zeta Sikes, 75, who grew up at a time when blacks couldn't vote in Texas. "But in 1990, I certainly didn't expect that. It was like a hit in your belly."
Unable to forget the experience, the couple cut short a planned stay out of town and returned home.
Michael Thurmond, a lawyer and former chairman of the Black Caucus in the Georgia Legislature, remembers the sting of leaving an elegant reception for lawmakers at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Atlanta last year and being asked by an elderly white woman, and then her husband, to retrieve their car.
Thurmond, dressed in a $250 tailor-made blazer, white shirt and silk tie, was standing by the hotel door waiting for his car when the wife approached him. Thurmond says he politely told her he was not an employee.
But when her husband asked moments later, Thurmond angrily snapped at the man, who stammered an apology and nervously walked away.
But as painful as the experiences are, Thurmond and others say they serve as useful reminders of the lingering presence of racism.
by CNB