Everybody's Got a Story

A friend asked me a few weeks ago if I would like to go to a discussion on race relations in Jacksonville, held tonight at the local PBS station. I thought it sounded interesting, so I told her I would go. My stomach has still been bothering me, but I was feeling a bit better this afternoon, so we headed downtown. While I'm sure the host had the best intentions, I don't think anything was especially illuminated. Everyone wanted to tell a story about something that had happened to them related to race. That might have been okay if we had had unlimited time, but the show (it was taped for broadcast on February 12) was an hour long. I tried to think of how the time could have been more productive. Here's what I came up with, although it wouldn't be a single session.

If small groups of people met in various locations around the city and then representatives from those groups formed larger groups, maybe it would be easier to keep the comments on point. As it was tonight, even though the idea was to bring people together and have them listen to each other, it turned into kind of an us-and-them thing. I happen to believe that there is no single black experience, just as there is no single white experience. People are different in a variety of ways; I may have more in common with a particular person of another color; color isn't the only definer.

These larger groups could continue the discussion and maybe even make plans to facilitate better understanding between communities that see themselves as different from each other. One qualifier I would put in place before starting any meeting or forum would be "no personal stories". Once you let them start, it's hard to stop them. Maybe there could be another venue for those. I will say one thing about tonight's event: My friend and I discussed points raised in the session throughout our ride home, so if it was meant to get us (and all other attendees) thinking, it succeeded.