Is the anger black, white or green

August 27th, 2009 at 04:36pm Linda Grist Cunningham

We are scared people. We are scared because the world we expected ended the third week of September 2008 and we have no idea what is taking its place.

We are scared people. Asked how we’re doing and we grimace and say “well, as good as can be expected since I lost my job.” Or we shrug and sad-smile “well, I’m employed but who knows what the next e-mail will bring.”

We are scared people. When we are scared we fight. We look for conspiracies. We  point fingers and blame others. We pull back to a corner and pull the corner in with us.

We are in danger of letting our fear turn us into polarized, paralyzed people. If the Rock River Valley is to find its footing in today’s frightening world and position itself to move forward after the Great Recession, we cannot continue the divisive arguing that has marred the past weeks.

We must find another way of talking. We cannot use the traditional, fall-back models. They are not working.

There are five local news stories, unrelated, except for a common undercurrent. Black versus white has become a steady part of the conversation in these five: the closing of the Lewis Lemon branch library; the investigation of a ranking firefighter; the shooting of a black man by two white police officers; the first-time jitters at Legacy charter school; and, the announced shuttering of Rock Valley College’s football program.

Add in divisive health care reform and there are six news stories. We are scared people. We don’t understand. We have no control. We see no resolution, no vision for a better way.

I have wrestled all week with the black-and-white anger spilling into our community. Ensuring accuracy of fact and of context is difficult when there is anger, fear and powerlessness.

To two who shared thoughts with me I am particularly grateful. This is what one asked: Is this really about black-and-white? Or is it about green, as in money and power?

An important question that I had not considered so clearly. Race is our fall-back argument; it’s what we know how to say and use. We don’t know how to argue about money and power — especially when we have none and when we are afraid that what we might have will disappear.

The second message was one of hope. We must craft a new model, he said, for talking. We are in the middle of the final transitions from old to new and we are frightened. Our leaders must show us the wonderful ways we could be, the ways we must become. We must hear from them their daily messages of hope and transformation. We must step up to share them and to shape them.

That will be hard, because we feel the unraveling; we feel the loss of power, control, money. We will be tempted to fight; to flee. Yet, I know it can find these new ways because those were the messages repeated again and again by men and women of all ages and all colors as I listened to them this week.

I can end the week in a very different place than I began. Have faith; do not despair.

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