Robert Buontempo Jr.: America has an alternate reality for some people

To The Daily Sun,

I recently read a letter here that asked where the America someone knew had gone. She spoke of the America that she knew and loved. She spoke of unity in hard times, opportunities for those less fortunate and how after the war families flourished financially and educationally. While the letter was certainly sincere, heartfelt and anxious for the future of America, it failed to address an alternate and parallel reality occurring in America.

The other reality is that of people of color, a reality that has not been quite as bright, promising and optimistic as experienced by the writer and I would say experienced by most white Americans. During her lifetime, white Americans were never banned from restrooms, restaurants or forced to move to the back of a bus during the years that the writer mentioned. I recall a story my father told me when he was coming through the south while in the Navy after WWII, where a bus driver refused to move the bus until a black woman surrendered her seat to a white man. White Americans never faced the threat of being lynched for challenging these and other segregated societal norms with little or no protection from the law. They were instead told not to challenge norms and accept the crumbs allotted them and like it. Unlike Ms. Baer’s circle, people of color were denied loans, jobs, housing and educational opportunities after the war. Ms. Baer also lived through a time when Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron and Willie Mays endured hate, racial epitaphs, neglect and unacceptance for the color of their skin and told to remain silent to bring about cultural change so that others could follow. What happened to these ballplayers was a snippet of the daily realities of people of color. While change has certainly evolved over time, we’re not there yet. You don’t have to look farther than the Confederate flag that was carried through our nation’s capital earlier this year to know that the underlings of hate are alive and well in America.

Ms. Baer said that was at a loss for what has happened to us. Based on these parallel realities it’s clear that white people have created the game, made and enforced the rules of the game and now feel threatened that another group is challenging the rules to level out the playing field so that America can live up to, as Baer stated, “its promise to all of us.” Michael Che of SNL hit the core when he said “I don’t want to matter more than you, but I don’t want to matter less either.”

How do we ease fear, anxiety, feeling of hopelessness that Ms. Baer and so many others are experiencing? It’s called EMPATHY; actively and sincerely listening to, validating and having compassion for another group’s reality and letting that knowledge and understanding lead the conversation forward. True empathy challenges pre-conceived notions, dissolves fear, hate and anxiety many feel today. Fear divides. Empathy unites us.

Robert Buontempo Jr.

Gilmanton Iron Works