A Reader’s First Memory of Racism: ‘These Things Take Time’

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/us/a-readers-first-memory-of-racism-these-things-take-time.html

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A few weeks ago, we asked you to share your memories of the first time you encountered racism or a racist belief. We were overwhelmed by the responses, and wanted to share some of them with you.

The first one comes to us from Robert Goldfarb, 89, a consultant from the Bronx who said he subscribed to Race/Related because, “I served alongside men smarter, more competent and physically my superior who were often judged not by their excellence as soldiers, but by their race.” His story has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Do you want to see more letters from Race/Related readers? Email us your thoughts at racerelated@nytimes.com.

When I was in the fourth grade, my white teacher stormed into the classroom and claimed that a Jew walking alongside her had spit onto the sidewalk. She then turned to me — the only Jew in the class — and said, “I’ll fix you, you little Christ-killer.”

A few weeks later she happily announced that with one exception, everyone in the class was being promoted. She then pointed to me and said, “You’ve been left back.”

The only students left back in my blue-collar Bronx neighborhood would today be described as “learning disabled.” I was already reading Dickens at that time and would later be elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Columbia. But, like most poor people, my parents could not conceive of questioning an authority figure.

Never in my 89 years has another person caused me more pain than that teacher.

I saw that same injustice as a soldier nine years later. I had been sent to school to learn a more demanding military skill. On the last day of class, my closest buddy, a black man, hurried with me to the board where final grades were posted. There was his name, at the very top of the list.

After congratulating him, I reminded him under Army regulations the soldier earning the highest grade was automatically sent to a more advanced school. He shrugged and said, “Tomorrow we’ll learn I came in second.”

I insisted the Army had just desegregated and achievement, not color, was all that mattered. He said, “You’ll see what I mean at the graduation ceremony.”

He was right. Somehow he slipped to second and returned to his unit without orders to go to a more advanced school. Prejudice that denied me promotion was also holding him back. I wasn’t going to let happen to him what had happened to me. I hurried to see our first sergeant, a man I admired, and asked if he or our captain could correct this injustice.

He did something few first sergeant’s ever do. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Kid, these things take time. You did everything you could. Now, go back to work.”

— Robert Goldfarb