AN EXCERPT FROM THE PLAY “BREAD OF MANY COLORS.”
The scene takes place at an officers’ retreat of a consciously biracial church. The officers have convened to respond to a complaint that they have received that their food pantry has been reflecting a prejudice in the way that they deliver food to the poor.
As we join the discussion, they are trying to understand the dynamics of racism. For purpose of identification, I will place a (B) before the characters of African-American descent and a (W) before those of Caucasian descent. The conversation is already in progress, and one of the Caucasian members has just expressed the hope that we would all learn to live together without always evaluating our relationships in terms of race.
BREAD OF MANY COLORS
(B) Reverend Evan White: “That’s a nice ideal, but the ugly reality of the world keeps imposing itself on us. As Christians we may not be of this world, but we are certainly fully mired in it.”
(W) Reverend Carol Black: “What do you mean, Evan?”
(B) Harry: “What he means is that we live in a world of power.”
(B) Ralph: “You can be as nice as you want to be to me, but you always have the option to withhold that niceness.”
(W) Shirley: “Wait just one blessed minute. Don’t we all have the same choices to be nice or not nice to whomever we want to? That is certainly what I try to tell all my staff at the agency.”
(B) Felicia: “That’s true, Shirley, but the difference is power. When you stop being nice to one of your staff, you still have the power. When they stop being nice to you, they can quickly be left out in the cold.”
(W) Al: “What do you mean, power? I wish I did have some power. I’d like to make a lot of changes. But frankly I don’t control much of anything”
(B) Harry: “In one sense that is true, Al, but in a larger sense it is not.”
(W) Al: “What do you mean?”
(B) Harry: “Well, think about it. If suddenly tomorrow all Blacks decided they didn’t like how Whites were treating them, big whoopee—the world goes on. But if Whites decided they didn’t like how Blacks were treating them, hey, the Congress could pass new laws of segregation tomorrow, the banks could call in loans, the grocers could stop selling food, Black kids could get kicked out of school, and we would have no recourse.”
(W) Al: “Oh, come on, give us some credit for the progress we’ve made. With all our civil rights laws, nothing like that could ever happen today.”
(B) Felicia: “Al, sweetheart, you’ve been teaching those students all those good feeling lessons during Black History Month and you’ve done forgot that most of us have to live in the real world the other eleven months of the year too.”
(W) Jerry: “Heh! Wait a minute. I teach my children about Black history and how to treat each other fairly. What’s wrong with that?”
(B) Harry rises and walks over to a mirror leaning against a wall. “Come over here for a moment, Jerry.” Jerry gets up and walks over towards where Harry is standing. “Look in this mirror and tell me what you see, Jerry.”
(W) Jerry: “I’m not sure what you mean. I just see me.”
(B) Harry: “You’re right, Jerry. Most White people look in a mirror and just see themselves. I’ll bet it never occurs to you to notice what color you are.”
(W) Shirley, joining them at the mirror, “What I notice is some new gray hairs, but I admit I have never been conscious of the color of my skin.”
(B) Reverend Evan White: “That’s because you just assume that being white is normal.”
(W) Shirley: “You mean you don’t assume that you’re normal when you look in the mirror?”
(B) Harry: “Let’s test it out. Ralph, what do you see when you look in the mirror in the morning?”
(B) Ralph: “I see a Black owner of a small marginal business. I know that there are some people out there who have less trust in me because I’m Black. My business with them is going to be done differently just because of the hue of my skin. It impacts me when I go to get a small business loan or try to negotiate a purchase with a wholesaler. Without even intending to, all their images of shifty Negroes, drug dealers, con artists, and perhaps some other prejudices from childhood enter into their interaction with me.”
(W) Jerry: “I can’t believe that. Most people don’t think that way, do they? Do the rest of you feel that way?”
(B) Harry: “I’m a journalist, Jerry. When that Black New York Times reporter was discovered to be a fraud, I knew that it would affect how other reporters looked at me from that day on. Why do you think it’s so important to me to always have my facts right?”
(B) Felicia: “Most of us have those fears, Jerry, but it’s even worse when you have children.”
(W) Shirley: “How is that?”
(B) Felicia: “Any parent worries about their children getting into trouble, especially when they become teenagers.”
(W) Al: “Boy, that’s the truth. My son just got his driver’s license, and I am not sure I have gotten a good night’s sleep since then.”
(B) Felicia: “I understand, Al. But the truth is that my children have a far greater chance than yours do of being stopped as a robbery suspect, and, just because they act like normal, smart-mouthed teenagers, they could be beat up or even killed by well-meaning but scared officers.”
(B) Harry: “She’s right, Al. We have to live with that fear and a sense of powerlessness to protect our children against it everyday.”
(W) Jerry: “But that’s not us. I don’t have the power to either do that or not do that.”
(B) Reverend Evan White: “Of course not, Jerry, but you benefit just because you are white. You don’t have to be mean-spirited to benefit from the power of the system.”[i]
[i] Excerpted from The Color of Bread, written by Dr. Samuel Stevenson and Stephen P. McCutchan
