A Way To Heal America’s Racial Scars

On the day after the first episode of “Roots” had aired, Joe Hudson was met at the water cooler by a white colleague named Norman. Norman said, “If any of my ancestors inflicted harm on any of yours, I apologize.”

Twenty years later, Hudson, who is host of a radio talk show in Detroit, is telling me this to explain his support for what I consider the most incendiary idea in race relations - about which, more in a moment.

“The only verdict that counts is when you look in the mirror,” Hudson says. “That mirror reflects who you are and what you are. If my white friend Norman needs a lung, I’m going to give Norman a lung because I love Norman and because he said he was sorry.”

The most incendiary idea in American race relations is this: that whites can apologize and that blacks can forgive.

It also is the most electric.

There is, let me concede at the outset, no groundswell behind this idea. No sense of inevitability pushes it forward like the wind does the wave.

But it’s out there nonetheless. I hear it from time to time, rising like steam from hearts sick of acrimony.

I saw it once in a letter from a white person who asked with urgency, “Why can’t you just forgive us?” I read it in “My First White Friend” by black author Patricia Raybon, who wrote of the heaviness her soul set free when she chose to forgive. Most recently, I heard it in Hudson’s voice when he contacted me after reading a column I had written on “Roots” and black anger.

Hudson’s dream is that President Clinton, on behalf of the nation, will do for black America what Norman did for him.

Apologize.

I was intrigued, so I pushed him about the idea. An apology, Joe? Against the weight of that awful history? Against whip scars and rope burns? Against torchlight justice and “Whites Only” signs? Against racial epithets?

“We have to start somewhere,” replied Joe.

I pushed him some more. Could he take an apology in exchange for a father’s tears and a mother’s fears? For the tamping down of children’s dreams and the emasculation of black men?

Joe sighed. “I’m tired of being angry,” he said. “I’m tired of my eyes throwing flames at white folks every time I look at them.”

Joe has no illusions that the promised land is upon us. He understands too well that racism still infects the body politic like a virus. And yet …

“… Saying I’m sorry is certainly the first step in the healing process.”

So simplistic. So naive. So …

Electric.

Can whites apologize? Can blacks forgive?

I find myself wary of asking too loudly - this is dynamite with question marks for fuses. Indeed, the same day Joe called, I heard from a white bigot who called me a “nigger” and from a black one who railed against “honkies.”

Who would dare speak apology and forgiveness to people like them? Who would say it to those pitiful whites who hate because they feel impotent, who hate because they fear, who hate because they are ignorant, who hate because …?

Who would offer it to those miserable blacks who cling to rage because losing it would be like losing their bones?

Can whites apologize? Can blacks forgive?

Bigots black and white make me shudder and doubt. But, ultimately, both are beside the point.

We ought to apologize, even to those who scorn the act. We ought to forgive, even when brethren find it a cowardly response to horrific crimes.

We ought to do these things not as a kindness to others but as an act of mercy to ourselves.

Otherwise, these things hold us, and we, in turn, grip one another - unwilling to draw close, unable to let go - fastened together by the deeds of our fathers and the words left unsaid.

The deeds are immutable, but the words await only courage.

xxxx