“Well, it doesn’t make the train move any faster or at all, does it? Do you think that telling the driver might help?”
Laughter from him. Pleasant, relaxed. Around us the heavy quiet of impatient waiting. No rustle of newspapers. No conversation. An occasional pointedly noisy sigh accompanying a change of position but lost on those already far retracted within themselves and their private concerns. A bald man passed our seat in slow progress along the aisle to the door but made no attempt to look outside. Retracing his steps he seemed to be examining each face, his own fixed in a hopeful smile, the mouth half-opened, ready for the conversational exchange. Nothing. Perhaps no face offered the slightest encouragement to the first overture. His eyes held mine briefly as he approached. He passed us, his footsteps soon as indistinct as the sounds of traffic outside, far away.
“How long do you think we’re likely to be stuck here?” I asked my neighbor.
“God only knows. Depends on what’s the trouble up ahead. I was once caught like this for nearly two hours. Lucky we’re not in the tunnel. I’ve had these trains up to here.” He made a quick flat-handed gesture towards his throat. “But what can you do? Drive into the city? Then what? Where do you park? Anyway, after eight hours of the rat race, who wants to drive sixty miles?”
A sharp, prolonged whistle sounded somewhere outside. I braced myself for the pull of the train. Gradually my muscles relaxed themselves as nothing happened, even though the whistle echoed and re-echoed distantly in my mind.
I thought of us, my neighbor and me, trapped in this interlude. How would it have been if he’d been black? Easier? Friendlier? At any rate we’d have had a common point of departure. But then what? Moving inward to compare our common hostility to our common enemy? Maybe there’s some satisfaction in the fellowship of experiences shared and understood. But is such satisfaction conducive to strength? Or growth? Or development?
During the bitter years in England there’d been many occasions for “hate sessions.” Meeting another black encouraged the ready recital of woes. After all, the common enemy was insistently vocal in his demands for our rejection. “Keep Britain White. Ban the Blacks.” And yet, what did any “hate session” do for me or for any of us? Okay, so momentarily the internal pressure was eased. Or was it? Didn’t the psychologists say that the occasional moan was a necessary safety valve? Did I ever feel relieved? Did I ever emerge from a “hate session” enthusiastic enough to occupy myself in activities conducive to improvement? Never. Now, just supposing this neighbor was black, what would we be talking about?
Here this one was doing the questioning and I was supplying the answers. Why not the other way around? Hell, there was nothing I really wanted to know about him. He was just another person, another human being. That was enough for me. I accepted the fact of his humanity, so nothing about him was likely to amaze or shock me. At least I didn’t think it would. On the other hand I was sure he found me somewhat, well, amazing. He said so. Was it merely because I’d done some things immediately outside the familiar ambit of his experiences? Or was it that my being black provided a special glaze to the things I did, rendering them larger in consequence? Would a black brother have questioned me this way, and, if he did would I have been willing to answer? Would I have questioned his motives or his sincerity, or would his blackness have been enough … ?
“Where did you live?”
“I beg your pardon.” Thinking I’d missed some of it.
“When you became ambassador to the UN did you live in New York? I know of several diplomats who live in the suburbs and commute to the city.”
“I lived in New York, a few blocks from the UN.”
“Were you comfortable in New York?”
Suddenly the feeling of irritation with him, just when I was flattering us on our easy association. Christ, this one here beside me was not seeing me as a man, like himself. To him I was not a sensitive, intelligent human being into whose company accidental circumstance had led him. To this bastard I was a phenomenon, a freak, possessed of the power of speech like some bloody myna bird. The nature of his questions betrayed him, in spite of the friendly pose and the ready smile. Thinking this I turned myself around to watch him. To really watch in case it might be possible to discover him behind his questions. His bloody stupid questions.
“I’m thinking of the comparisons someone like you inevitably would make between the conditions you experienced in Europe and those you’ve met here in the U.S.” He went on. “From time to time I’ve read and heard complaints by black diplomats about one thing or another.”
“I suppose I was as comfortable as it is possible for a black person to be in the United States,” I replied. I had no intention of parading any complaints for his inspection. Without warning, the easy camaraderie had evaporated. He rearranged himself to face me, a little grimly I thought, as if readying himself for a special effort. I wondered what was coming.
“On a personal level, considering the privileges an ambassador enjoys, were you in any way inhibited by your blackness?”
Asking it then seeming to retreat from the words like someone who throws a stone, then scoots into hiding. The irritation grew, ballooned into anger. I fought it, keeping my mouth firmly shut until I could control it. Behind the display of flattery and friendliness, this son-of-a-bitch had neither seen nor heard me. All this time, after all the talk, all the shitty questions, he’d not got one inch beyond my blackness. Christ! After all these long years, nothing had changed. Nothing. Didn’t the stupid bastard understand that I and my skin are one? Or did he suppose that my skin is stretched tight but wide around me like the skin of a dry gourd around the dislocated seeds rattling within? Maybe he thought that because of my education I’d somehow become pinky white inside my black skin, uncomfortable in it, inhibited by it and anxious to break out of it. Good God! The arrogance of the man! Should I bother to answer him? Hell, why not? Why let his stupidity force me to retreat into silence?
“My skin in no way inhibits me. I’ve had half a century of living in it. I’m accustomed to it. I’m happy in it. I am it. It is me. I know who I am and how I look, so I am free to concentrate on what I can achieve. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Keeping my eyes fixed on him, but somewhat disconcerted by the glasses which shielded his eyes behind indistinct reflections of the dirty window and the flitting scene beyond. He shifted his face away from my gaze. The anger was large in me but I felt strong controlling it. Why should I let this person have the satisfaction of knowing he could goad me to anger. So easily.
“Thank you,” he said, adding, “you know, it’s difficult for someone like me to ask questions of a black person without somehow sounding rude or feeling that I’m invading areas of privacy. Frankly, I’ve never before had an opportunity for this kind of, well, frank conversation.”
I laughed without meaning to, without feeling the pleasure of laughter, taking a perverse delight in the sudden surprise on his face.
“You call this a frank conversation?” I asked, the anger threatening to overspill. “You’ve not been talking to me. You’ve been talking to my blackness. A little while ago you mentioned your black friends. If they are really your friends you should have had plenty of opportunity for talking to them, for frank conversations with them. But I suspect you were so hung up on their blackness you had no time to see the men, let alone talk to them. Your confusion arises from your inability to see us. Them and me. And even that bothers you, so you try to approach it through a web of piddling excuses and apologies. Well, let me tell you a little about me, the real me, even though I doubt it will make any significant dent in your attitude. My blackness is only part of me. A small part. Perhaps the least important part. There’s all the rest. My spirit, my intellect, my imagination, my strength, my nobility, my humanity. All neatly and beautifully packaged in this skin. All you see, all you dare see is the blackness and you’re contemptuous of it. I see the contempt in yo
ur eyes. I hear it in your voice. Perhaps you dare not look beyond my blackness lest you see the rest of me, size, shape, weight and spirit occupying as much as or more space than you do. That would force you to acknowledge my humanity, wouldn’t it? So you concentrate on what is least about me, my blackness. Okay, be my guest.”
Hell, I’d not intended to blow off like that, but it came out. Cool and quiet it came out, and I didn’t care one tiny damn how it sounded to him. While I spoke he’d made no movement, no sound. The only indication that he’d heard me was the irregular pattern of red spreading up from his collar.
“What about you? Do you look at us, at me?” His voice was tight.
I liked that. Yes, that was so much better than the aloof, patrician pose.
“You bet I do. Happily, more of us are looking at you. At long last we are seeing you as merely human, and not the devils we had imagined you to be. The more we appreciate your ordinary humanity, the more we’ll realize that we can be as evil as you are, as ambitious as you are, as creative as you are or as dumb as you are. We can be all the things you boast of being. When we look at you and can see you as ordinary human, we’ll see you as a man, not THE MAN. I look at you now and see your eyes avoiding me. Do you know, I look at you, speculating about what I see, but neither hating nor despising nor contemptuous of what I see, and therefore I am not troubled by looking. I feel free to look, even as I remember that you are not accustomed to my looking at you, and that might be the reason why you look away. I remember that only yesterday in your history and mine, the black man would be basely brutalized for looking the white man in the eye and castrated or lynched if caught looking at the white woman.”
He raised a hand as if to silence me, but hesitantly, saying, “Why do you insist on making this a personal thing? Can’t we have a quiet, friendly discussion without attacking each other?” tincturing it with his boyish smile.
“That’s exactly what we’re having, isn’t it? A quiet, friendly discussion. But it is also very personal. How can I talk with you about me, and the others who are an extension of me, without being personal? You ask me personal questions, so you should be willing to have personal answers.”
“Okay. Okay. But we needn’t be offensive to each other, need we?”
I looked at him, amused at his irritation.
“That’s one tough lesson you’ll need to learn, my friend,” I replied. “When you finally get around to respecting me you’ll not be offended by my frank responses. Perhaps your black associates have always been concerned to avoid offending you. My only concern is to avoid discourtesy, to you or to anyone else. But I’m not worried if my honest, courteous responses offend you.”
“Okay. I take your point. But isn’t this very discussion we’re having valid proof that a white person can see beyond the black skin and recognize the man?”
“All that this discussion demonstrates is that we are talking. You and I. That’s all. It proves nothing. Here we are, thrown together by one of those accidents of fortune, and we talk. That is all it is.”
“I’m sorry you take so negative a view.”
“Not negative. Realistic.”
After all, he and his predecessors had had at least a couple of centuries of exposure to me. Plenty of time in which to recognize and acknowledge me, if they’d so wished. Yes. There was a time when I really believed that I was shrouded in an invisibility which permitted them to live and move, unconscious of my presence. I have now completely abandoned that belief. They have always seen me. More than that, they have always been acutely aware of me, but have not dared look closely at me lest they discover my humanity, lest they discover my nobility, or perhaps for fear that they might discover my pride and the warnings implicit in the acknowledgement of my pride. It was comfortable for them to stop at my blackness.
“Don’t you think you could be wrong in assuming that your blackness is all that’s seen and recognized by us? Why should you be the only ones capable of insights beyond the superficial skin fabric. Much of what you say suggests the same double standard attitude of which you accuse us.”
“Is that what you’d like to believe?” I asked.
“It’s what seems to be the case. Anyway, what I’d begun to ask is how you, a black ambassador, relate to the American community. Among the people. After all, ambassadors can’t confine all their time and interests to the United Nations.”
Again he was doing his trick of combining questions and statement while sneakily slipping away from the discussion which obviously disturbed him. So why the hell should I follow his leapfrogging from idea to idea? How I spent my time privately was my own business. Perhaps he entertained the familiar view of ambassadors, dinner-jacketed at operas, theatres and parties, kissing the perfumed fingers of elegant women, hobnobbing with the wealthy and titled. Champagne and caviar. Okay, he was welcome to his imaginings. But why did he assume that black ambassadors would be different, lead different lives?
“Have you ever met an ambassador? Besides me?”
“Well, not socially. My organization once did some promotional work for one of the Trade Missions. From Spain. The ambassador gave a cocktail party … ”
“Then, if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all,” I interrupted him. I knew that nothing I could say would change his view that blacks would naturally behave differently from whites, at any social or economic level. Blacks were not people. They were a disturbing phenomenon within the social scene, forcing attention on themselves. First black is named to City’s Board. Mayor appoints first black to … President names first black … First black is appointed to run city’s prisons. Always attention is focused on the blackness. Not on ability or qualification. Blackness. What did this one here suppose a black ambassador did? Publicly they easily proved themselves capable at the highest levels of office. United Nations Under-Secretary-General. President of the General Assembly. President of the Security Council. Maybe he discounted all that. So why should their private lives suggest any peculiar patterns or dimensions?
I, personally, had had perhaps more opportunities than most for public contact. Many Americans had read my books. Particularly the first one. When my appointment to the United Nations was announced I received hundreds of congratulatory messages, especially from the teaching fraternity and students of colleges and high schools. I was invited to visit and address colleges and schools in many states and in turn invited them to visit the Guyanan Mission in New York to observe at firsthand something of its functioning.
They came. Groups of them. Black and white. Separately and together. The white ones took the visit easily in stride, expecting and accepting that a “black” country would have a black ambassador, black diplomatic staff, black consular and clerical staff. Even the presence of an occasional white face did not disturb them. They knew that opportunities for similar positions could be available to them in their own diplomatic service, provided they chose diplomacy as a career and were willing to live through the long processes of progressive promotion. They questioned me about my country, its peoples, its political philosophies, its resources and products, its historical and contemporary directions. Probing questions, indicative of careful rehearsal and research.
The black ones were more deeply affected and impressed by the fact of a black ambassador and staff, so like themselves but different. Alien. They could accept the idea of a black foreign diplomat. The rare instances of a black American diplomat were unknown to them and their questions reflected their disbelief that any of them could ever hope to achieve such high office. My attempts at assurance to the contrary were quickly brushed aside. “They’d never let us be ambassadors,” one of them told me. I understood that by “they” he meant “whites.”
Those black students were from so-called integrated schools, in the same classrooms with their white peers, sharing the same teachers and facilities, but not the same hopes and aspirations. The barrier against entry into cert
ain pursuits was too real. They were not devoid of ambition or its aggressive drives, but had no wish to waste those drives futilely battering at doors they believed would remain closed. From their questions and comments I learned that they were bursting with ambition and energy. They were unafraid of hurdles in the path of an attainable goal. The studious grind. The hard work. Continuous practice. All that was partial to the goal itself. Yes, hurdles were familiar. They could be dealt with. Barriers were different. They were deliberately and intentionally designed to render the goal unattainable. Or nearly so.
“Did you get around in the community?” this neighbor was asking. “Among the people? The ordinary people?”
“All people are ordinary,” I answered.
“Did you have any contact with them in their everyday surrounding?” he persisted, ignoring my barbed reply.
“Certainly. Particularly young people. Students.”
“In their schools?”
“Sometimes. At other times in my office.”
“I’m sure they must have been excited to meet the author of To Sir, With Love. Especially those who saw the movie.”
“They were. But we talked about other things.”
“I hope you didn’t tell the black ones that their blackness forever doomed them to nothingness in the American society.” Saying it with that now familiar smile, but really not meaning the smile. Something in his voice gave him away. I felt relaxed and controlled.
“No, I told them of the times and experiences which together prepared me for the post. They were particularly interested in my early years in Guyana, the schooldays of my childhood. Blacks and whites in the same elementary school, competing in the same examinations at eight years of age for entry to the secondary schools. And the other examinations. Always the examinations.”