My ro Problem--And Ours PODHORETZ, NORMAN, Commentary (pre-1986); Feb 196; 35, 000002; ProQuest Direct Complete Pe. MY NEGRO PROBLEM-AND OURS NORMAN PODHORETZ Iwe—and ...1 mean the relatively cone ‘cious whites end the relatively conscious Blacks, who mus, like lovers, insist on, or aqeae, the cansioupes of the others o-net falter in our duty now, we may be ‘able, handful that we are,to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world. ‘—James Baldwin 1wO EAs puzzled me deeply a child growing up. in Brooklyn during the 1990's in what today would be called an integrated neighbor- hhood. One of them was that all Jews were rich; the other was that all Negroes were persecuted. These ideas had appeared in print; therefore they mustbe true. My own experience and the evidence of my senses told me they were not true, but that only confirmed what a day-dreaming boy in the provinces—for the lower-class neighbor- hoods of New York belong as surely to the provinces as any rural town in North Da- kota—aiscovers very early: Ais experience is unreal and the evidence of his senses is not to be trusted. Yet even a boy with a hhead full of fantasies incongruously syn- thesized out of Hollywood movies and English novels cannot altogether deny the reality of his own experience—especially ‘when there isso much deprivation in that experience. Nor can he altogether gainsay the evidence of his own senses—especally Noman Poouonare bs Editor of Counenrany. ‘The sfews he expreses in this article ae sscuy tis owm and are got to be ideatifed ether wilt ‘the magerine oF the #posioring 0 " such evidence of the senses as comes from ‘being repeatedly beaten up, robbed, and in ‘general hated, terrorized, and humiliated. ‘And so for a long time I was puzzled to think that Jews were supposed to be rich when the only Jews I knew were poor, and that Negroes were supposed to be perse- ceuted when it was the Negroes who were doing the only persecuting I knew about —and doing it, moreover, to. me. During the early years of the war, wiien my older sister joined a leftoving youth organiza tion, I remember my astonishment at hear- ing her passionately denounce my father {for thinking that Jews were worse off than Negroes. To me, at the age of twelve, it seemed very clea that Negroes were better off than Jews—indeed, than all whites. A city boy’s world is contained within three or four square blocks, and in my world it was the whites, the Italians and Jews, who feared the Negroes, not the other way around. The Negroes were tougher than wwe were, more ruthless, and on the whole they were better athletes, What could it mean, then, to say that they were badly off and that we were more fortunate? Yet sy sisters opinions, like print, were sacred, ‘and when she told me about exploitation and economic forces I believed her. I be- lieved her, but I was still afraid of Negroes. ‘And I still hated them with all my heart. Tt had not always been so—that much 1 can recall from early childhood. When did it start, this fear and this hatred? ‘There was a kindergarten in the local pub- lic school, and given the character of the > of the copyright owner, Further reproduction prohibited without permission.9 COMMENTARY/FES. 63 neighborhood, at least half of the children in my class must have been Negroes. Yet have no memory of being aware of color differences at that age, and I know from ‘observing my own children that they at- tribute no significance to such differences even when they begin noticing them. I think there was a day—fist grade? second grade?—when my bestfriend Carl hit me fn the way home from school and an- nounced that he wouldn't play with me any more because I had killed Jesus. When Tian home to my mother crying for an explanation, she told me not to pay any attention to such foolishness, and then in ‘Yiddish she cursed the goyim and the schwartzes, the schwartzes and the goyim. Carl, it tamed out, was a schwartze, and s0 was added a third to the categories into which people were mysteriously divided. omemmtes I wonder whether this is a true memory at all. It is blazingly ‘Vivid, but perhaps it never happened: can anyone really remember back to the age of six? There isno uncertainty in my mind, however, about the years that followed. Carl and I hardly ever spoke, though we met in school every day up through the cighth or ninth grade. There would be ‘embarrassed moments of catching his eye or of his catching mine—for whatever it ‘was that had attracted us to one another as very small children remained alive in spite of the fantastic barrier of hostility that had grown up between us, suddenly and out of nowhere, Nevertheless, friend- ship would have been impossible, and even. if it had been possible, it would have been ‘unthinkable, About that, there was noth= ing anyone could do by the time we were cight years old. Tem: The orphanage across the street is tom down, a city housing project begins to rise in its place, and on the marvelous ‘vacant lot next to the old orphanage they are building a playground. Much exci ment and anticipation as Opening Day draws near, Mayor LaGuardia himself comes to dedicate this great gesture of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohit public benevolence. He speaks of neigh= borliness and borrowing cups of sugar, and’ of the playground he says that children of, all races, colors, and creeds will learn to live together in harmony. A week later, some of us are swatting flies on the play sground’sinadequate litle ball feld. A gang cof Negro kids, pretty much our own age, enter from the other side and order us out of the park. We refuse, proudly and in- ignantly, with superb ‘masculine fervor. ‘There isa fight, they win, and we retreat, half whimpering, half with bravado. My first nauseating experience of cowardice. ‘And my first appalled realization that there are people in the world who do not seem to be afraid of anything, who act as though they have nothing to lose. There- after the playground becomes a battle- ‘ground, sometimes quiet, sometimes the scene of athletic competition between ‘Them and Us. But rocks are thrown as often as baseballs. Gradually we abandon the place and use the streets instead, The sireeis are safer, though we do not admit, this to ourselves, We are not, after all, slsies—that most dreaded epithet of an ‘American boyhood. Hem: 1 am standing alone in front of the building in whieh Ilive Ie is late after- noon and getting dark. That day in school the teacher had asked a surly Negro boy znamed Quentin a question he was unable to answer. As usual I had waved my arm eagerly ("Be a good boy, get good marks, be smart, goto college, become a doctor”) and, the right answer bursting from my lips, I was held up lovingly by the teacher as an example to the class. I had seen Quentin's face—a very dark, very crue, very Oriental-looking face—harden, and there had been enough threat in his eyes ‘to make me run all the way home for fear ‘that he might catch me outside. ‘Now, standing idly in front of my own house, T see him approaching from the project accompanied by his litle brother ‘who is carrying a baseball bat and wearing 1 grin of malicious anticipation. As in a nightmare, T am trapped. The surround- ted without permission.ings are secure and familiar, but terror is suddenly present and there is no one around to help. I am locked to the spot. will not ery out or run away like a sissy, and I stand there, my heart wild, my throat clogged. He walks up, hurls the familiar epithet (‘“Hey, mo'/——r"), and to my surprise only pushes me. It is 3 vio- lent push, but not a punch, A push is not 15 serious as a punch, Maybe I can still back out without entirely losing my dig- nity. Maybe I