Greg Krehbiel
A lesson on judging people from afar based on newspaper accounts
by Greg Krehbiel on 20 November 2009
I’m reading an interesting biography of Booker T. Washington by Raymond Smock.
As you probably know, Washington was born a slave, worked hard to get an education after the end of slavery, and became the most influential black person in the world in the late 19th century.
His message was basically that given the state of things at that time in history, the black man doesn’t need opera tickets or the right to date white women. He needs access to an education, jobs and a free market. Black men need to focus on clean living, frugality, education and hard work. Once black men are able to get jobs, own land and be successful, other things will follow.
He publicly accepted the idea of social segregation, which made him less threatening to whites, but put him at odds with other black leaders who wanted more reform sooner.
It’s hard to know who had the better strategy, and it really doesn’t matter for the purpose of my story.
One day a black man named Harris who had been at Washington’s school years before got in trouble with the town because his daughters were seen walking with a white pastor. The pastor was run out of town and Harris was informed by letter to get out of town as well. He didn’t get the warning until too late, so a rowdy mob of whites came to force him out, or kill him, or something.
In the scuffle that evening, Harris got shot in the leg, but escaped from the crowd and ran to Washington’s school for help.
When the mob got to the school, Washington told them he had sent Harris along — in keeping with his public stance in favor of no social mixing between the races. IOW, he seemed to approve the racist southern view that whites and blacks should not mix socially, even at the expense of helping a man in need. And he seemed to approve of the idea of violently confonting people who break that rule.
Other blacks around the nation were incensed. How could Washington turn away a man who was unjustly persecuted and in dire need of help?
But if you think about it for a minute, Washington was in a very tricky situation. If he had openly protected and helped Harris, not only would he have put himself, his family and the students in his school at immediate risk from the crazy mob, he would have destroyed all he had done to gain the trust of white southerners.
What actually happened was that Washington secreted Harris to a neutral location and paid for his care. He told the truth to the mob (but not the “whole truth”), and was willing to have his actions misconstrued by his fellow blacks.
It takes a lot of character to be willing to be wrongfully accused, and it’s all too easy to judge someone falsely based on limited information.
2009-11-20 » Greg Krehbiel
20 November 2009 @ 11:11 am
That’s an interesting illustration. A lot better than mine – Octomom. For about 24 hours the doctors were heroes and the mom a suffering saint with a difficult road ahead. Then in one news cycle everyone involved was either selfish, irresponsible or negligent.
When is one “jumping to conclusions” or drawing a conclusion based on available information? No one wants to be the last guy with an opinion even if you’re right. People only say, “don’t jump to conclusions” when they don’t like the conclusion (like Col. Allah Akbar).
20 November 2009 @ 11:19 am
Yeah, that’s the problem.
“Look before you leap,” but “he who hesitates is lost.”
One distinction between B.T. Washington and our Moslem friend with the gun is that Washington had established himself as a man of character and good judgment. It seems we’re more justified in taking a “wait and see” attitude with someone of well-established character.
20 November 2009 @ 12:24 pm
Did Washington “fully accept” social segregation in the sense of believing it a proper way to organize society, or in the sense that it was better to accept it the way it was and teach his fellow blacks effective workarounds than to try to fight such a huge and entrenched institution? I’ve never been clear on that.
20 November 2009 @ 12:29 pm
The book I’m reading makes it sound like he wanted a phased, gradual approach to solving racial problems. Start with jobs and education. Then as people get used to the idea of blacks being productive members of society, it will be easier to move on to other things.
However, at the same time he was paying lip service to segregation, he was supposedly doing things behind the scenes to change that.
Du Bois and others thought he was compromising too much. It’s hard to know who was right since nobody’s strategy worked. Things only got worse.
21 November 2009 @ 1:51 pm
I’m really not so sure Washington’s strategy was fully tried.
Things have gotten better in some ways, and worse in others. It is heartbreaking to see the kids of well-educated, prosperous African America adults– couples who got married and have stayed together, couples who really want their kids to achieve by an objective standard as opposed to some sort of tokenism. Those kids have few of the disadvantages of the urban poor, but they throw away their potential because they think violence and self-abuse is the pattern they are supposed to follow.
I understand the impatience of a disadvantaged minority to achieve equality, but how much of the anti-gay feeling, for instance, comes from the in-your-face attitude of some of the activists?