"I don't get it. I never will."
It was the summer of 2017, a sweltering day at Saint Vincent College. The Steelers were out on the field, sweating up a storm in full pads, and Chris Carter and I had escaped the sun on a slice of grass under one of the campus' countless big oaks. And we were discussing, as a lot of folks were at the time, race relations in America.
The anthem protests and all that would soon follow, you'll recall.
Anyway, the line atop this column was what I told Carter at one point. And as best I can recall, it was spoken more in a clueless tone than anything humble or high-minded.
It wasn't like, 'Oh, Carter, I can't possibly relate as a white person to what you as an African-American must feel or experience when it comes to racism.'
That'd be humble or high-minded.
No, it honestly was like, 'Carter, I can't understand how this is still a thing in this day and age.'
He was seated to my right, and I looked over at this man, my friend, my trusted co-worker, and asked him how and why, after all these decades -- and in particular after it felt like in my childhood that we'd all cleared so much air in this regard -- people could even look at each other as being different because of the color of their skin. Or, for that matter, their gender or ethnicity or religion or sexual preference or anything at all that would generalize them.
And this is where the story gets stupid. Because after a little more of this monologue, I begin getting really wound up, as I'm wont to do all too often, and it's at this point that Carter senses that I'm about to get all unplugged, and he's the one who puts his hand on my shoulder to express empathy.
"I feel you, man," he'd say. "I feel you."
As in, empathy.
I shut up in a heartbeat. We watched more football.
I still don't get it. I never will get it. But here's what I've taken upon myself to learn since then: It's not up to me to talk about it anywhere near as much as it is to listen. And learn.
Since then, we witnessed the NFL's autumn of discontent, then far too many other incidents around the country that grew our racial gulf including our own in East Pittsburgh, and now the Minneapolis police officer killing an African-American man by criminally, mercilessly kneeling on his neck. On camera.
Yesterday, that one hit home in our own city, too, as thousands protested through Downtown. I'll get into elements of that below.
But to the core issue, the underlying issue, where this takes root, I'm deferring to Carter this morning.
We can talk all we want. But for the most part, talking is a self-absorbed exercise in any walk of life. That's what I was doing that day. I was talking from the heart. I meant every syllable, but all I did was talk, talk, talk. I learned not a damned thing I didn't already know. Even though I was sitting next to someone who's been a dedicated civic servant and activist in Homewood and beyond for the better part of his life.
This morning, I'm here to listen. To learn. To offer my own empathy and, ideally, a better understanding. Because that's the stuff of which real dialogue and real progress are made.
• For the omnipresent stick-to-sports crowd: Each week through the pandemic, I've been writing a non-sports column. Anyone who'd rather not read it is certainly free to bypass it. I can assure you it doesn't come at the expense of sports content. We're offering the same amount that we would under any circumstance.
• If it's pure sports anyone seeks, the defacing of the Mario Lemieux statue has to count, right?
Here's that:
PPG Paints Arena, yesterday. - AP
Doughboy, Lawrenceville. - TWITTER
— mary turak (@TurakMary) May 31, 2020
— Dad Chad (@madchad412) May 30, 2020
Honored to march with my family and neighbors in Sewickley. Be apart of the solution my good people. pic.twitter.com/X6KSW60PYR
— Brett Keisel (@bkeisel99) May 30, 2020
We have liftoff. History is made as @NASA_Astronauts launch from @NASAKennedy for the first time in nine years on the @SpaceX Crew Dragon: pic.twitter.com/alX1t1JBAt
— NASA (@NASA) May 30, 2020
