{20 SECONDS OF CLIPS FROM CNN'S "BLACK IN AMERICA:}
CNN's "Black in America", hosted by Soledad Obrien, is a lengthy account of the black experience, called comprehensive by the network, but not necessarily as deep as those gathered at Cleveland's Urban League offices for the screening had hoped it would be.
But the conversation did spur examination of how race is interjected into the daily makeup of the region, leading to candid comments from people such as lifelong Clevelander Barbara Collins, whose experience parallels what many in the film expressed.
COLLINS:
"SOME CAUCASIANS COULD SWEAR UP AND DOWN THAT THEY'RE NOT RACIST - BUT JUST ONE LITTLE KEY WORD MIGHT GIVE YOU AN INSIGHT INTO SOMETHING… HOW THEY'RE THINKING."
Pressed for an example, Collins offered a story of recently taking her 2 and 3 year old grandkids to a new playground in Beachwood, near the children's home.
COLLINS:
"SOON AS WE WALKED IN - YOU CAN TELL BY THE PEOPLE, AS SOON AS WE COME UP TO SOMEWHERE… THEY WOULD MOVE OFF. IT REALLY WAS UNCOMFORTABLE. THEY JUST SEE THE COLOR - "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, WHO TOLD YOU YOU COULD COME…?"
RICK:
"DO YOU THINK WHITE PEOPLE IN CLEVELAND DON'T KNOW THE WAY IT IS TO LIVE AS A BLACK PERSON IN CLEVELAND… THEY WOULDN'T BELIEVE THAT SOMETHING LIKE THAT HAPPENS?"
COLLINS:
"OH. THEY'RE COMPLETELY OBLIVIOUS AS TO OUR EXPERIENCES IN THAT TYPE OF THING. THEY WOULD BE THE FIRST TO SAY - OH THERE'S NO RACISM HERE IN CLEVELAND!"
Collins worked for the Cleveland Heights board of education most of her career. But even there - in a suburb generally regarded as being one of the Greater Cleveland's best examples of racial tolerance, she described how she saw color… change perceptions.
COLLINS:
"THERE WAS RACISM AT THE WORKPLACE. ESPECIALLY TOWARD BLACK MEN. THEY DIDN'T REALLY WANT TO GIVE THEM THE CHANCE."
Emmet Jordan is a successful Black entrepreneur, and former City of Cleveland Fire Medic. He agrees that Black men here start business relationships at a disadvantage.
JORDAN:
"BEING AFRICAN AMERICAN, THE DOORS AREN'T OPENED THAT ARE OPEN TO OTHER INDIVIDUALS, ESPECIALLY TO THOSE WHO HAVE PROVEN THEMSELVES ALREADY."
Jordan runs a real estate title company among other ventures, and says he has many White friends. But in-between social connections and financial connections are where he says; those 'friends' seem to draw an invisible line.
JORDAN:
"THEY CAN FIND YOU VERY LIKEABLE, INTRODUCE YOU, HEY, GREAT GUY, WE GO TO DIFFERENT NETWORKING EVENTS, TALK, HAVE A GREAT TIME; THAT STILL DOESN'T MEAN IT'S GOING TO RESONATE INTO BUSINESS FOR YOU."
While Jordan feels race does not impact his `social' standing - Marketing executive Johnda Singleton Johnson says - she's found otherwise.
JOHNSON:
"I HAVE EXPERIENCED IT, HOWEVER I FEEL BLACK MALES EXPERIENCE IT A LITTLE MORE. IT DOESN'T MATTER IF HE'S IN A TIE, IF HE'S IN A SUIT, IF YOU'RE OUT WITH A BLACK MALE (AND I'M MARRIED) WE SORTA GET THE LOOKS. WE DON'T SEEM TO GET THE SERVICE IN A RESTAURANT THAT 'THEY' GET.
Retired Municipal Court Clerk Margarite Strickland saw discrimination in school, where teachers and administrators in a mostly White Cleveland suburb essentially abandoned a child who didn't show strong reading ability, then labeled him as unable to succeed - only she felt, because he was Black.
STRICKLAND:
"THIS LITTLE BOY WAS MARKED 'DOOMED', AND AS I GOT TO WORK WITH HIM - THE CHILD `COULD' READ… BUT HIS MIND WAS ELSEWHERE… AND THAT BOTHERED ME. HE JUST NEEDED SOMEBODY TO CARE."
90.3 opened the internet to listeners to add their thoughts through our "Help Us Tell The Story" portal - and heard from writers such as "Mark" - a Black man who told us "As far back as I can remember I've always known I was black, and that - that meant I was not like MOST of the larger society. I've never lamented that. In my family, the accompanying complications of that fact were discussed many times."
Given that CNN has started a conversation, is there any apparent change that would influence our perceptions about race?
Only time - says 19 year old college student Whitney Murphy - who grew up in a predominately Black middle class section of Bedford Heights. Now, she is now enrolled at a college that is just three per cent African American.
She says she sees racism - yet she refuses to blame Caucasians for the problems that being a minority race inherently create.
MURPHY:
"RACE IS SOMETHING THAT I WILL NOT USE AS A CRUTCH. I REFUSE TO USE IT AS A CRUTCH. YES, THERE HAVE BEEN TIMES WHEN I FEEL LIKE I'VE BEEN CHOSEN - I KNOW THAT I'VE BEEN CHOSEN, BECAUSE I AM AFRICAN AMERICAN. BUT I FEEL LIKE I MAKE UP FOR MYSELF - I'VE GOT THE GOODS, I GOT THE OOMPH THAT SAYS, OH; EVEN IF SHE WASN'T BLACK, WE'RE CHOOSING HER!"
She hopes that her generation, nurtured in a different setting than all generations previous, will take that attitude forward …when it assumes leadership, not in Black America, or White America, but in a better, more tolerant America.
Rick Jackson, 90.3
