I told this story for the first time last year to our Chatt State visiting Writer@Work Tayari Jones. She suggested then that I should write it as I had thought of doing on various occasions. Today, a high school friend posted about being proud of being white, and I posted this as my reply to her post. I thought I would post it here as well.

Growing up, I never thought of myself as white. I thought of myself as Pennsylvania Dutch, as part Irish, as Pennsylvanian, as Christian, as American. Over the years, people have thought I was Jewish or Iranian or Greek, various shades of not-quite-white. Some years ago, a perfect stranger asked me if I was Jewish. When I told her no, she asked, “Well, what are you then?” I answered the first thing that came to mind, “Pennsylvanian.”

Nowadays, with everyone talking about “white,” I resist the label. I recognize most people see me as white. Over time, my internal self-image has adjusted to having a beard, to being old. I suppose I will one day become accustomed to being “white.” But I can’t think of anything about it that would make me feel pride, something I can point to with pride.

The first time I knew I was white was the summer of 1972. I was working at Teen Encounter in York, PA, a local ministry similar to Youth for Christ. Several local black churches had asked to use the Teen Encounter Tabernacle on Duke Street for a gospel music festival.  I was given the responsibility of locking up after the event.  I love music, but I had never attended a black church or music event. For the first hour or so, I sat with a young black couple from Baltimore who had been ministering at Teen Encounter that past week. After they left, I didn’t know anyone in the room. I was enjoying the music until the last two groups. The next to the last group performed music and were dressed in the style of the Supremes, a style at odds with country church music or any other music I associated with worship. It was nearing midnight when the last group took the stage.  I attended a church almost Amish in its stillness.  This last group, four black men in dark grey suits, hopped on stage, their bodies rigid and drawn tight, their eyes glazed as though inebriated, their faces glistening with sweat.  The music was loud, and the crowd joined in, screaming, hands waving in the air.  Never having attended a Pentecostal service, the people seemed demon possessed, and I was terrified.

Then a young woman shrieked and fell to the floor. What if she died?  What should I do? Should I call an ambulance?  I was responsible.  Several of the older men carried the young woman  into the darkened gym next to the auditorium, and I went back to see how she was.

I learned what it meant to be white and black in America.

I was barely 18, a kid, scared. These black men in their 30’s and 40’s and 50’s came to me, scared, scared that I would cause them trouble. Scared of me. Scared of me because I was white, and they were black.

The young woman was fine. She had just fainted. The concert ended a short time later, everyone left, I locked up and walked the seven or eight blocks back to where I was staying.

I knew I was not going to tell the director about what had happened. I knew how afraid those men were, I could see them still, standing in the darkened room, frightened of what I might say or do, and I knew I would never do anything to justify their fear.

That night I was white. It was nothing I felt pride in.