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I met a racist when I was in college and it took me a long time to recognize what he was. I think the reason is that he had an innocent face. He had almost a Mr. Rodgers face, or maybe a Charlie Brown face. For the sake of this story, let’s call him Cletus.
He wasn’t a guy covered in muscles and tattoos. He didn’t have hard features. In fact, everything about him was soft. He was almost bland. If he were a flavor, he would have been plain vanilla.
He wore khakis and polo shirts. He drove an immaculate pickup truck. He played video games. He’d been in the military.
There was nothing intimidating about him at all. We always used to complain that whenever we were going somewhere it took him forever to get ready. It was like he needed help to dress himself.
And he was a racist. He still is a racist.
How I met Cletus
I moved to Peru after college. Oddly, I think moving away allowed some of my friendships to get pushed beyond their natural cycle.
We were friends because we were both cross-country skiers. We trained together. Actually, I did a workout with Cletus after I’d already done a workout for the day. Like I said, he was soft. He used to complain that I was better than him at everything. I thought it was funny, but I think it really bothered him.
In my 20s, I was simply ignorant about the level of racism in the United States. It’s easy to disregard it if you’re white. That’s probably the whole point of American racism. That’s why it is allowed to survive. If it was an inconvenience to white people, it would be over. But white people like it so racism endures.
I did not have a diverse social circle when I knew Cletus. He said some weird and stupid things every now and then, but I just brushed it off. He was kind of awkward around girls. He liked to chatter at them in checkout lines and things like that.
I’ve always thought it was inappropriate to engage in flirty talk with waitresses and cashiers. I mean, they’re stuck being there. They can’t get away from you. They might smile, but being polite is part of their job. Just leave them alone.
But Cletus would talk and talk and talk.
Looking back, I’m embarrassed that I didn’t recognize what a red flag this behavior was. Sometimes it takes me a long time to see the obvious.
He got worse instead of better
The depressing part about all this is that we had some decent conversations back in those days. College is a stressful time. You’re trying to figure things out. You’re trying to figure your life out.
Cletus was prudent with his money. I always thought he had a logical approach to things. I thought he was basically a decent human being. Everybody I’ve ever known had personality quirks that made me squirm. I kind of hoped his quirky behaviors would go away naturally.
I came back from Peru to visit once. Cletus was living out in Colorado with his girlfriend then. We went out to eat and I was disappointed to observe that some of his less appealing traits had become more prominent.
We were having a drink at one of those sports bars with televisions and bad food. This time the bartender was male and Cletus made friends with him right away. I remember a waitress came back with a couple drinks that had been made by mistake. The bartender was about to throw them away when Cletus said, “I’ll give you five bucks cash for those!”
The bartender pushed them over without another word. I thought it was funny and sat there happily sipping on my discount drink.
His first use of the n-bomb
After a while, Cletus started chatting away with the girl next to him. In his mind, this was all innocent. However, the girl’s boyfriend didn’t see it that way.
I didn’t have the right read on this situation at all and it went from bad to worse. The girl’s boyfriend was even softer than Cletus. He came over and started muttering to Cletus. Cletus responded like this conversation was part of a comedy routine.
Finally, the boyfriend said, “If you’d care to step outside…”
That’s when I thought, “Oh… whoops!” But then Cletus really blew it.
“That’s the most ignorant thing I’ve ever heard,” Cletus said.
But the word that came out of his mouth wasn’t “ignorant.” You can guess the word he did say.
Instantly, the bartender and I both went, “Hey now! You can’t say that.”
Cletus started to laugh and explain that’s not what he meant to say. The boyfriend was ready to fight, but his girlfriend restrained him. I paid the bill and got Cletus out of there.
My adrenaline went down when we got in the car. I just looked at Cletus. “I didn’t mean to say that,” he said laughing. “I meant to say ‘ignorant.’ I don’t know how that other word came out.”
I was only going to be in town for another day. In that moment, I was ready to accept that the use of that word hadn’t been intentional. I was an idiot.
Obviously, that word was on his mind a lot. It was a Freudian slip.
When the friendship ended
My wife always tells me that I’m overly focused on the good in people. I didn’t believe her at first, but after all these years, I’ve learned that she’s right.
“That friend of yours is a loser.”
“Naw, he means well.”
Maybe I give people a lot of second chances because once I’m forced to recognize their flaws, I have no interest in them any more. I’ve expelled a lot of people from my life. I seem to be doing it with greater frequency lately.
When my wife and I moved back to the US from Peru, I spent a few days hanging out with Cletus. At that time, he’d started working as a prison guard. He brought a gun with him wherever he went. In the past, I blamed the job for the change in his character, but I now realize the flaws were always there.
He’d grown a goatee to make himself look a little tougher. Imagine Charlie Brown with a goatee.
Complaining about mosques
At the time, conservative news was inciting rage about a plan to build a mosque near the World Trade Center site. Cletus started to rant about it.
“We can’t let them get away with this, this country was founded on Christian values,” he said.
“Cletus, what are you talking about? If they have the money and they own the property, the Constitution gives anyone the right to build any kind of church they want.”
I thought his position was bizarre. A few days later, I wrote a blog post about his attitude. I do things like this because I hope the people I’m mad at find the post.
He found it.
I woke up one morning to a voicemail on my phone from 2AM. It was Cletus screaming profanities at me. This is why I always turn my ringer off when I go to sleep.
“I got your voicemail,” I wrote. “That wasn’t very smart. Now I have a recording of you harassing me.”
I didn’t talk to him after that for more than ten years.
The divorce
I cut a lot of people out of my life, but I never completely close the door. I am always hopeful of redemption. It almost never happens, but I still hope.
A couple years ago, I got a message from Cletus. He apologized to me for “the things he had said.” Then he mentioned that he was getting a divorce.
I thought that maybe the good side had finally prevailed. I agreed to meet him for lunch.
It was the kind of lunch you’d expect. He was both angry and hurting from the divorce. Back in college, his girlfriend had spent a semester in England. Although they’d stayed together as a couple, it had put a strain on them.
Cletus told me how a few months earlier, his wife said she wanted to take a trip to England. So Cletus started digging into her social media and found she’d been getting messages from some guy she’d met back in college.
To make a long story short, she went on the trip and then was surprised when Cletus decided that meant the end of their relationship.
N-bomb round two
We started talking about other things, the topics bounced around, and then Cletus started in with some more n-bombs. He was unabashed about them this time. He didn’t even try to pretend he meant to say another word. He declared his racism in a voice that carried across the room.
“That language is unacceptable,” I said. My first objective was to get him to stop. If you told Cletus not to say something, he responded by screaming whatever it was twenty times at the top of his voice. I tried to calm him down. This was my first time in a situation like this and I wasn’t prepared for it.
I recognized he was probably armed in addition to being emotionally unhinged due to the divorce. I realized my life might be at risk just by being in his presence.
I kept it civil, paid the bill, and left. I knew that would be the last time I’d ever see him.
Racists are easy to underestimate
You look at these soft white men with flaccid faces and you think there’s nothing to fear. They look like human Muppets. But then they purchase AR-15s and go on murder sprees.
The picture at the top of this article is of Hiram Wesley Evans. He took over the KKK in the 1920s and reformed it into a terrorist organization. He looks soft. He looks weak. He looks like a complete milquetoast. He looks like a pastor.
That’s the face of racism for you. They’re pitiful. They slink around and seem too pathetic to even worry about.
I went out shooting with Cletus once. He handed me the gun and in a vaguely annoyed tone said, “You’ll probably do better with it on your first try than I ever have even though I’ve been practicing for six months.”
And it was true. We were shooting these pop-up targets at a range and I hit all five in rapid succession. Cletus took back the gun and shook his head in frustrated amusement.
These are people who live in constant embarrassment of how weak they are. Their wives leave them for better men and they grind their teeth. They cover themselves with guns.
They’re forgotten people. They’re unremarkable. You don’t even notice they’re in the room. That’s what makes them dangerous. They’re so pathetic you don’t think twice about letting them get close.
Learn to recognize the face of evil
I’m grateful for my wife for helping me to realize the danger of trying to see the good in people. I used to hope that you could guide people onto the path of decency by being kind to them. All that does with a racist is put you in harm’s way.
The truth is that we can’t let them have their little illusions. They’re not allowed to say, “Oh, I meant to say ‘ignorant.’” We’re not allowed to give them the benefit of the doubt.
These people are monsters. Go have another look at the “innocent” face of Hiram Wesley Evans. That’s the face of a racist. I see that face a lot whenever I walk out my front door. I see that face in the halls of congress.
That’s the face you need to learn to fear, that falsely innocent face on a soft and pathetic man that masks a murderous contempt for humanity.
Don’t be fooled. That’s the true face of evil.
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