By Charles Melton
Melton’s Musings
With the ongoing assault on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs by the current occupant of the White House and his supporters, I want to tell you a deeply personal part of my story that few of y’all have heard yet.
Most of y’all don’t know that for the last 23 years, I have learned to navigate between the two separate Americas that have existed since time immemorial: the white America and the black America. I am a white man. My son is a young black man. His name is also Charles Melton. There are two Americas for the two Charles Meltons. I have seen it with my own eyes and through the eyes of my son. I have also lived it as the white husband of a black wife in both the Northwest and the South. Yes, it does exist, and I wish it didn’t.
Growing up in Texas, attending and graduating from high school in Kansas, and spending five years at Texas Tech University, I had black friends and friends of other races and ethnicities, but it wasn’t until I dated and married my son’s mother that I really began noticing how much race matters in America. That was more than 20 years ago, and I wish I could say that things have improved since then, but sadly they haven’t.
The differences go beyond food, music, clothing, and worship styles. Most white people don’t know the difference between lacefronts, sew-ins, braids, and Yaki and Brazilian hair, but I do. Those are hair products and styles for those of y’all who don’t know. They go to how people are treated and the opportunities they are given. That’s where the problem in America lies.
It’s one thing to prefer Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes instead of pigs feet, collard greens and cornbread. (I prefer pigs feet over Salisbury steak any day of the week by the way.) It’s whole other thing to automatically assume someone is a real threat to steal items from your store, physically harm you, or is uneducated simply because of the color of their skin. But that happens every day in America.
I remember when my son went into a store well ahead of me and noticing a store employee following him everywhere he went because they didn’t realize that he was my son. Other kids his age were unaccompanied in the store, but they were white. I spent a good five minutes just pretending to be another customer in the store until I noticed my son pick up something that he wanted. When I walked up to him, and said, “Are you sure that’s what you want, son? If it is, I’ll get it for you,” the store employee’s whole demeanor changed. They went from being cold and suspicious to overly friendly and asking if they could check us out. Strange how that happened, isn’t it?
When my son was a teenager, especially in the wake of the George Floyd protests and the Trayvon Martin, I was scared every time my son went out with his friends because I didn’t know if they would get harassed or worse by law enforcement because someone called the police on them for just walking through a white neighborhood. I had to give my son clear instructions on how to conduct himself if he got stopped by law enforcement or some ignorant person in hopes that it would be enough to keep him safe. None of my white friends had to do that, but I did.
As I look at all the opportunities and second chances I’ve been given throughout my life even though I’ve made a lot of the same mistakes my son has, the only obvious reason I’ve received those is the because of the color of my skin. I’m white. He’s black. People of color often don’t get the opportunities and second chances white people do in America.
That’s the truth that the current administration and its enablers, especially those who remain silent and fail to speak out against it, don’t want the world to know. That 60 years after the peak of the civil rights movement, which promised equity of opportunity for all Americans, that promise only remains fully fulfilled for white Americans. That’s a damn shame.
Charles Melton is the news editor of The Hutchinson Tribune. He can be reached at charles@hutchtribune.com.