[su_label type=”info”]The Devil’s Advocate[/su_label]

Columnist Carlos Barón poses for a family portrait with his grandchildren in 2016. Courtesy: Carlos Baron
Carlos Barón

I remember lying in bed as a nine-year-old child, wide-awake and thinking: “Where will I live when I grow up? Who is going to be my partner?”

Since I was five years of age, I have been an avid reader and the world of my imagination had broadened enough to transport me beyond the limited realities of those years, when Black people were not seen in any significant numbers in Chile, my country of birth.

Nowadays (finally!) more Afro descendants are arriving in Chile, due to a healthy number of people who migrate from Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Haiti and other countries.

That night, as a little boy, I could not answer my own question. Because of my readings, I knew that the world was populated by many races, who spoke many languages and were many colors besides the mostly White and Brown people who lived in Chile.

When I finally fell asleep, I was excited for my colorful future encounters!

At 20, I left Chile and landed right in the middle of the ‘60s in Berkeley. There, I began to meet and interact with people of many cultural and racial backgrounds.

It was exciting. I had grown with the idea that the United States was the enemy of the rest of the American continent and that “gringos” were White people with crew-cuts who carried briefcases. In fact, those were most of the people I had seen around Santiago at the time.

Inside those briefcases they carried evil plots. Those “gringos” were up to no good!

I will clarify that my own mother called me “gringuito.” I learned that the term can also be used with love.

It was exciting to discover the wide variety of people who lived in the United States. There were different types of “gringos,” Black and White and every other color.

I soon discovered that I felt a strong connection with the Black athletes on the U.C. Berkeley track team, where I was a sprinter. I loved the way they talked, their loudness, their singing on the buses that took us to track meets.

Since I was a Chilean “FOB” (fresh off the boat), my English was a work in progress.

Nevertheless, I felt that I could speak like those Black athletes did and I imitated them… that is until I was told otherwise. Lou, a Black high hurdler, approached me and said: “Carlos: you can’t speak like that!”  “What do you mean?” I replied. “I sure can. Listen!” Then I proceeded to imitate the way he spoke.

[su_pullquote align=”right”]“There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.” —James Baldwin, “My Dungeon Shook: A Letter to My Nephew”[/su_pullquote]

I was unaware that I was stepping into a forbidden territory. He responded: “Ok, Ok! Yes, you do a pretty good job! But you can’t do it!” and he placed his arm next to mine. “See? You are not Black!”

The intricate rules of race in the United States were new to me, but I learned fast. I decided to stay quiet, to observe, to listen, to respect.

Years later, as a father of four grown up kids and four grandchildren, (three of them, for all intents and purposes, who are Black) my experiences in this country have become important and significant.

For more than 30 years I taught a class in multicultural theater and I enjoyed, enormously, trying to discover new ways of connecting creatively across cultural and racial barriers, creating scripts where we could all belong, with mutual love and respect.

That is clearly not happening in the society at large right now. Mutual love and respect are not the rules today.

Nowadays, living in the contentious atmosphere made acceptable by the current administration, from #45 on down, the veneer of official history in this country has been stripped away, and open racism allowed to raise its ugly head with total impunity.

As my grandkids get older (the oldest is 11 and there is an 8 year old as well) I worry about that toxic cloud of racism of which, until now, they have been largely unaware.

But the “N word” and all that is associated with it awaits them, right around the corner.

How do we deal with the mental sickness of racism?

Indigenous people in South America say that “You don’t love that which you don’t know.” I truly believe that.

We need to learn to empathize with “the other.” We need to look at the history of this country and accept that it was built (and continuous to be run) as if the people who took control here are superior to all others.

That needs to change, because it is not true and it keeps the country divided. It allows for the few to control the rest—politically, culturally and economically.

For this country to change, the people living here need to come to terms with their own shortcomings, with their own racism, with the lies of the official history.

Education is the key. Our main weapon is the development of consciousness.

Until a healing process begins, all parents (and grandparents), but especially those with children and grandchildren “of color” will worry about the toxic cloud of racism.

Until lies and hypocrisies stop, we will have to keep on saying: Dear children, beware! Racism ahead!