Racial Profiling - At the Intersection of Ignorance and Hate

Racial Profiling – At the Intersection of Ignorance and Hate

April 4, 2012

Page 1 of 7 © 2012 Raymond Lucas - Rev 6.1

R Lucas 1975 R Lucas 2010

Which One Gets Racially Profiled?.........BOTH!

I saw the police cars out of the corner of my eye as they pulled in head first, right up to the

point of breaching the curb.

It was spring 1976, the sun was beaming and my girlfriend wanted to go shopping in

Georgetown before my shift began at Westinghouse Defense Electronics that evening. I was 20

years old and a Labor Grade 9 Electronics Technician making good money. And, I was excited

for the opportunity to show off my relatively new economic independence to my girlfriend.

Simultaneously, the squad cars stopped while officers emerged from the vehicles with the cars

lightly bouncing in slow motion from the abrupt stop. That familiar sick feeling came over me,

as it often did while in the presence of white people sending out signals of disdain for my

presence like a powerful radar beacon; a beacon saying with abundant clarity that “You Don’t

Belong Here!”

I began executing an auto-internal program - a review of my routine checklist that had been

hardwired into my brain like firmware in a mainframe, sourced from the teachings of my

parents, especially, my father, on how to behave around white people:

No sudden moves!

POSE NO THREAT! Not even the perception of a threat!

Don’t show anger!

Monitor your volume and tone of voice.

Be respectful and humble.

Scan the environment for potential witnesses.


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Remember that intellect can be interpreted as arrogance and disrespect to some white

people, especially the REALLY ignorant ones.

Checklist 1 automatically branched to checklist 2:

NO SUDDEN MOVES!

POSE NO THREAT! Not even the perception of a threat!

DON’T SHOW ANGER!

What did I do wrong?

Did the person I am with do anything wrong?

Are there any other Black people around

What is the demeanor of the Police Officers?

Are there any friendly faces in the crowd?

Maintain a total awareness of your expressions and posture.

I remember my father once saying to me after recognizing that I was very adept at expressing

my anger with regard to a blatant racist incident we were watching on TV, “…would you rather

be RIGHT or DEAD?” But, I had done nothing wrong and this dehumanizing and demoralizing

situation on a crowded street in Georgetown was unfolding in front of my girlfriend like the

opening scenes of a Blaxploitation movie setting up a heroic character to make the white man

pay for a horrible transgression on the Black Man! However, my mind was not entertaining

“Payback.” I was yet wondering whether I would even live to see tomorrow or lose one of the

most precious things I had come to love and appreciate so much – My Freedom!

One of the officers aggressively approached me and said, “Give me your license!” Without a

word, I slowly reached in my left back pocket, with my left hand and retrieved my wallet. My

hands were shaking as I slid my license out of one of the plastic windows and other cards and

pictures fell to the ground. While fumbling with my scattered wallet contents, I reran my

second auto-program…”NO SUDDEN MOVES…POSE NO THREAT…SHOW NO ANGER...” The

other three officers, all white, stood leaning against the cars, arms folded, looking on with

approval at the performance of the lead officer. While still holding my license, the officer

pulled out a pad and pen, scribbled some information from my license and handed it back to

me. I gently took my license, and for the first time since this ordeal began, I very politely asked,

“Excuse me officer…Why do you need information from my license?” And, he replied, while

scanning my girlfriends face and returning his eyes towards me with a menacing glare, “We just

want to know where to find you if anything turns up missing in Georgetown!” The police

watched us as we walked to the car while I executed my auto-program in a continuous loop.


April 4, 2012


The ride back to Baltimore was more miserable than any trip in my lifetime. My girlfriend and I

said absolutely nothing – no reassurances, no flaring rage and cursing that would normally be

expressed in a post racial incident like this, just silence. This was clearly one of the most

embarrassing moments of my life that challenge my manhood beyond anything I have ever

experienced. My girlfriend and I never, ever talked about it, and I can’t say with any certainty

that this event and the aftermath had no impact on the demise of our relationship.

I could fill volumes recounting the thousands of racial profiling scenarios from police stopping

me for Spot Checks DAILY in the 70’s, to customers not allowing me to fix their computers while

serving as a Customer Engineer for IBM in the mid 70’s, to customers and fellow managers

assuming that one of my employees was the boss rather than me when we entered meeting

rooms to conduct business! However, recounting the many scenarios is not productive and my

experiences being profiled are certainly not unique. I share these demoralizing experiences,

not only with other Black Men, but with men and women from a wide variety of minority and

ethnic backgrounds.

Ignorance and Hate are destructive forces by themselves, yet when combined, generate levels

of devastation that are often off the scale and beyond measure. And, since I truly believe that

Racial Profiling lives at the intersection of Ignorance and Hate, I conclude that Racial Profilers

are most often Ignorant and/or Hateful SOB’s!

Racial Profiling thrives at the intersection of Ignorance and Hate, and the real cost of this

despicable discriminatory behavior is incalculable. Consider the massive amount of brain


April 4, 2012


power required by racially profiled victims to safely and successfully navigate through the

gauntlet of Ignorance and Hate to get through any given day. All of the additional programming

and subroutines I had to use to be successful in life expended brain power and resources that

should have been dedicated, in the case of my employment, to the job I was being paid to do. I

can conclude from this that I was able to be very effective and incredibly successful using

significantly less brain capacity then my white counterparts, who in most cases, made more

money than I did. Multiple times in my IBM career, my salary had to be adjusted because it was

significantly out of balance with my white peers. One instance resulted in a 22% increase in

1979!

By most American standards, I have been very successful having had a fruitful and incredible

career with a Fortune 100 company and a wonderful home that I share with a phenomenal

family. And, although I don’t have wealth of a Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey or their limousine

drivers, for that matter, author, Malcolm Gladwell has convinced me in his book, Outliers, that

the timing of many of my experiences along with specific timeline events, uniquely positioned

me for success. For example, I learned at a very early age, the necessary nuances for effectively

dealing with white people. In 1960, my brother and I integrated the youth bowling league at

Johnny Unitas Colt Lanes in Woodlawn, Maryland. I learned how to navigate in my native Black

world during the week, in school, and my bowling “white” world on the weekends. I learned

several VERY powerful lessons that continue to serve me to this day:

1. Kids are not the problem when it comes racism. We just wanted to have fun.

2. People respect you if you are very good at something regardless of what color

you are.


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3. People worship you if you are the best at something regardless of what color you

are.

4. You can keep people WAY off guard when you make hard things look easy and

treat big accomplishments like they are no big deal. Translation – Look Cool!

5. White Kids have the power, through their interaction with Black Kids, to

challenge and change their parent’s racist ideals.

6. All white people are not evil.

In twelve years from age 5 to 17, I went to my “Dealing with White People” class every Saturday

and many Sundays missing very few classes throughout that entire period.

In 1970, I was asked by a white guy that I beat in a tournament, to join his team in a Sunday

Traveling League, not knowing when I accepted that I was the only Black guy in the league. This

is when I learned another important lesson that color is irrelevant when people want to win!

And, win we did. I was also very proud of the fact that I finished with the highest average in the

league while watching cautious and reluctant white parents being taught about decency by a

bunch of testosterone saturated teenagers.

I really appreciated the opportunity that Mike gave me, but, I don’t know if he really

understands how impactful and significant this experience shaped the way I approached my life

resulting in great success.

Racial Profiling is a symptom with ignorance and hate serving as root causes. I try not to reflect

on “what could have been” for me, unencumbered by the vile effects of racism and prejudice.

But this would be premature since I am still on my journey. And, I still seek to be the best at

everything I do.

Collateral Benefit of Teleworking in the 21st Century

During my last fifteen years at IBM and IBM companies, working from home became the norm

ushering in occasional 80 hour work weeks filled with email, phone calls, texting and

conference calls. Weeks would go by without ever going to an IBM office or a customer site.

And, as cool as that might sound, it can be isolating, depressive and very destructive to family

life if not managed effectively. This is a world where you may work for a manager for as long as

two years and never meet them in person, or support customers around the world, only getting

to know them on the phone and through email.


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With virtually no budget for travel, and customers, across as many as 7 time zones, my virtual

persona and footprint revealed no indication of my race in this “pre-Facebook” world in the

90’s and across the turn of the century. Customers only cared that there was a helpful,

accountable voice on the other end of the line, or an email providing a solution to their

business critical problem. It was some time before coming to the realization that my “Auto-

White People Engagement Programming” was getting only limited use, freeing up unused brain

capacity for the work I was being paid to do! But I am still very adept at challenging racist

behavior while very casually and publicly embarrassing the perpetrator.

I had always intuitively known that Ignorance and Hate came at an incredible cost. And,

realizing the change in my productivity from the face-to-face world to the “Teleworking” world

brought incredible clarity to the cost of racism for me.

Powerful Lessons Learned

It is important to note that the purpose of this writing is not to draw attention to “Raymond

Lucas, The Victim of Racial Profiling and Racism.” My intent is to help people, especially young

Black males, see that they have choices with respect to how they handle the grossly inequitable

barriers they WILL face from the day they are born, until the day they die.

Consider this. If another person and I are walking down separate, but parallel roads bound for

a destination that will make our lives better, and someone continues to throw obstacles on, just

MY road – trees, deep valleys, boulders, whatever. I then have two choices:

1. Stare at each obstacle or look towards the sky and scream at the top of my

lungs about the unfairness of the situation, or

2. Learn and develop as many of the skills that will leverage my ability to

navigate around each obstacle to get what I want.

Choosing 0ption 2, first, is the true secret to my success. And, the rewards of subtly moving

your colleagues or competitors to the understanding that you beat them, even with their

advantage of “white privilege,” yielded victories so sweet that I still taste them today.

Options we identify when solving problems, like the two options above, are not always a

“either/or” choice. Did I express my disdain regarding unfair treatment of me or others?

Absolutely! But, I found ways to do this in non-threatening, intellectual ways, and was most

successful when my references in these discussions reflected some negative economic impact

to the perpetrator or the company. Over my years at IBM, I developed significant credibility


April 4, 2012


along with an unshakeable level of Integrity that made people listen when I spoke! I also found

that issues of gaining or losing GREEN most always trumped issues of someone being BLACK.

One of the most powerful lessons that I have learned (more so, from 33 years of marriage than

32 years with IBM) is that You Cannot Really Change People. You Can Only Change Yourself!

Next Steps

Bottom line, Racism and Racial Profiling is just WRONG. And NO ONE should lose their life,

have to bury their child, suffer injury, or have to perform unnatural acts because of it. Although

we can provide consequences for wrong behavior with legislation, this only addresses a

symptom. But, to address this problem at the root, each of us has to change ourselves. So,

until we do, I support Senate Bill S.1670, End Racial Profiling Act of 2011,

introduced by Senator Benjamin Cardin, D-MD

[email protected]

http://www.scribd.com/doc/39715646/Raymond-Lucas-Biography

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Racial Profiling - At the Intersection of Ignorance and Hate