NET Journal; 165; Where Is Prejudice?

The following program is from NET, the National Educational Television Network. The National Educational Television Network New Yorkers love the Puerto Rican cause it's very chic. Step up and shake the hand out. Someone you can't stand. You can tolerate it if you try. Hold the Protestants, hate the Catholics and the Catholics, hate the Protestants and the Hindus, hate the Muslims and everybody hates the Jews by doing. Nice to people who are inferior to you. It's only for a week, so have no fear. Be grateful and it does last all year.

As they first walked into this courtyard in Gloucester, Massachusetts, they were convinced that for them, Brotherhood would last forever. Twelve college students representing the spectrum of middle-class attitudes, of different religions, different races, from different sections of the country. They're common bond, a denial that they are uncommonly prejudiced. For one week, they are to live together to test that conviction, a workshop created by National Educational Television to determine the degree of prejudice in educated America. Terry Alexander, Jewish, from Atlanta, Georgia, Philip Chan from Oceanside, New York, Harvard University, Sandra Clementine Walker, Radcliffe College, from Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, Dennis Feldman, Beverly Hills, California, Harvard, self-described Jew by birth. Joel and Richard Brown, Jews by choice, married just a few days before.

Linda Shen, Radcliffe, from Hamden, Connecticut, Tom Thompson, Catholic, living and attending college in Providence, Rhode Island. Carla Hallstead, Boston University. Her father is a Protestant minister here in Gloucester. Gil McMillan, Newark, New Jersey, Brandeis University. Wayne Grudum, Harvard, a fundamentalist Baptist from O'Clar, Wisconsin. Ann Pepper, Catholic, Boston University, hometown, Newton, Connecticut. Working and living with them, Max Burnbaum, director of the Boston University Human Relations Laboratory. My task was to stimulate and encourage the members of the group to become aware of their attitudes and feelings and to express them. Prejudice in our society has many targets, the Negro, the Jew, the Oriental, the Puerto Rican, the Protestant and national and ethnic groups. Social class and generational factors often make for significant differences in the awareness and the mode of expression of prejudice.

We live together for six days and nights and after many starts and hesitations, we meld it into a society of our own. This is a distillation of that community's experience. You see the girl, you know, you say, all right, this wonderful girl, she looks fine, nice, fine. And you want to ask her out. And then you talk to her for a while and you say, I have a couple of things and certain ideas, the violence comes up. And all of a sudden, you realize this girl isn't going out with me. She doesn't want me. It wouldn't matter. I can substitute anybody and she'd be happy. And she's out with my skin. For me, brightness isn't that important. Because the way I've been brought up, all the Negroes I've lived around are just not particularly Negro. If you know what I mean, I mean, they're black, but they aren't soulful. They aren't, you know, being black is, isn't it a hell of a lot of different from being white?

I know this is particularly true in Brandeis. It seems to be some sort of, but apparently the Jewish character of the university is that even though people might be unfigured emotionally, they're intellectualized. I'd rather confront a bigger, I want to see a man with an assamble in his hand who was dead set against me or against my skin. And they had some joker who was scolding about the periphery of the group, saying, oh, yes, you're a wonderful person. And perhaps not even realizing for himself that this is that he has us within him. I make a basic round of a assumption about white people in general, and I keep up to disprove it. It's not, this is for my own well-being and mental health. I assume persons are modern bigot, and then we work away from that.

I said that perhaps because you were in a Jewish-sponsored institution, that this becomes a special problem. It seems to me that this is a trait exhibited by the Jewish community. Don't you rather have joker at counter to campaign, you give prejudices on the photo orientals in America? I've had very little contact. Most orientals feel more openly hostile to me versus the most other Americans. I'm not sure. Part of it is a certain dislike for the civil rights movement, because the people that have worked with the civil rights are saying, the government, you give us training, give us this and that. And so we can become like you. And the orientals take great deal of pride, saying, you know, we had San Francisco and we had riots too. But we made it on our own. You know, why the hell are you taxing us and using our tax money to raise you up when we could do it ourselves?

The reaction against Negroes is very, very strong. Really very strong. Gil soon became the focus of the group because he challenged their liberal assumptions that it is possible rationally to resolve Negro white hostilities and anxieties. I don't see Gil that you can totally reject this type of thing. If I want to be nice to him, it doesn't have to be hypocritical at all. It's not a consideration. You started being so nice, for instance, you live in a town and there's one Negro kid, right? Everybody in the world is strong. Bricks that. Except you. Well, that's fine. You know, you say, how you doing Harry? You meet him with a story. You say, you want to cigarette me? No, that's fine. But when you run around, you know, and say, oh, well, you want to come with me tonight? Come on. You know, and you cut everybody else off, you cut yourself off.

No, well, that's what it means, old conversation. I wonder whether we are really ready to face up to our own prejudices. You're making it sound so scary. And I think you're trying to give it a sense of drama that it just doesn't have. Would you really like to find out how prejudiced you are? It seems unreal to me. I mean, you know, you make it sound like, if I say, yes, I'd like to find out how prejudiced I am. It's not real. I'm there by submitting myself to what's going to be a cathodic experience or something. You know what? And then I can't visualize that it's going to be that way. He sounds like he doesn't think he has any prejudice, but I think he might. I might have some prejudice. And I may be able to hold it up and say, well, when there are certain prejudices that you hold. But what I am, what I am holding back against is this tendency that I feel,

you know, maybe you want me to have of saying, ah, here's a prejudice. Ah, here's another prejudice. And here's another one. And look at how prejudiced I am. Right, you know, the other day I met Gil. And I said, hey, do you do the boogaloo? Because I assume that almost all immigrants now have to do the boogaloo except me. Someone asked me this morning if I guess they'll ask me. If I was sort of angry at Gil or something for you. Yeah, because I was sort of, you know, wondering if he could ever accept me. And I never really wanted about being accepted, you know, I... Revolving if he did. Probably. I think anybody's not accepting you with boogaloo. I want to ask Gil some, do you differentiate among various types of white people? According to groups, then react very quickly. How do you feel about Catholics?

It's indifferent, unless they're Italian. Was that it? I don't like Italian Catholics. How about Jews? Jews. Jews I suspect most of all. Why? Because they're liberals. Have you ever gone around with a Negro girl? Phil? Me? Yes. No. Why not? I've met a very few that I found attractive, physically attractive. Would you find a problem to go personal problem to be single woman? Maybe, much more so than a white. My father looks white. And I don't know. He may have something about looking white. But... positive and negative. You know, it gets to be a little touching for daddy sometimes. Of course, you know, it's an advantage living in the South because he could always go any place he darned wealth chose.

But really funny things happen. I walk down the street in a small town holding hands with my father. And the looks we get are just incredible. You know, what is this luxurious old man going out and getting a Negro girl to walk down the street with? Yeah, it's really incredible. It is. It is. But the problem is people didn't do it on the main street of town. They did it behind the bar. Which is probably how my father got the way he is anyway, you know. My grandmother, I had grandmother on my mother's side here, American Indian. Nobody ever gives you any grief about that. Doesn't mean I have to go back to the reservation. Together, it may be the reservation. I think that someone said once, every morning you wake up and shave. And it means something because you look at that face and that face says, you're a black baby and you're an American.

And it means a lot. And every black man who wakes up in the morning has to go through that same change. Yeah, but the difference is whether the difference you see in the mirror means something inside to you or whether that's something that's a label that's been put on being black. It's what those who think function as human beings. It does in establishing truth and fact as to whether or not Negroes are different from anybody else. Oh, no. Oh, no. Sandy biology. Sandy biology doesn't mean a thing. It really doesn't. It's what people believe. It's not what's true. It's what people think. You know, black is good. Black is what we're all going to be. We're going to be black, black, black. You know, as if there were the whole picture. And it's not. It's just a part of it. Well, as some people, as some people advocated, it does. And this is the kind of thing that frightens me. Would you rather have been born white? No.

And you're not quite being honest. I will all admit a virtue of the fact that I'm here, that I'm dressed as I am, and that I'm doing things that I am and we go to school where I am. And that I'll probably end up doing things that I will do, that I probably, I'm going to end even if I don't consciously admit that I'd like to be white. I'm going to emulate. Well, what do you emulate? Are you implementing white people? Are you just emulating happiness for yourself? I mean, happiness for myself and American happiness. You think you should wrestle with an Africa? The happiness for myself is since I am an American regrettably. Since I am American and in America, then that becomes white America. I must emulate what white America defines as happiness. How do you feel when people say to you that you don't look Jewish? What's your immediate reaction?

Want to play there? In a way, because I know what they're thinking. What are they thinking? They're thinking of usually very large nose and very kinky hair. Large nose and kinky hair. Dark kinky hair. Dark kinky hair or fat fall with a large nose. This is usually what people are thinking of. I'm not saying this is... Jews is a rule that dark kinky hair. I'm not saying this rule, but this is the standard to us about kindness. Well, a number of guys at Brandeis are straighting their hair and a number of girls who must straighten their hair. Straighten it, curl for it. Curl for it. Jews have a future. Older men have a future. Tennis is Jewish. Tennis, you don't look Jewish. What's your immediate reaction? I don't like people that say that. That's my immediate reaction. What did you think yesterday when I thought you were a cat foot? You didn't get on my good side, I guess. No, I don't... I don't like people who say,

Oh, wow, you are Jewish. I mean, it's the first enemy that bothers me. How I look is secondary. The fact that they're starting to think of me as Jewish. I don't like. I'm me, and that's what I want to be. And if people start thinking of Jewish first and me second, or even Jewish maximum, I don't like it. Why? Because I don't want to be lived for the whole group of people and I don't want to be stereotyped. I'm me. If you say, I don't want to be considered out of all in terms of my group of dedication, what are you saying about your feelings concerning them? That's not what you're saying. I'm just saying where it comes in. If you, let's say you're an Arab, as far as you're concerned as an Arab, I would assume I'm a Jew. That's all I am. Boom. Now, if you're not an Arab, then you start being concerned about me as a person. Whether I'm a Jew comes maybe seven, eight or ten. The interweaving of Jews and Negroes continued into the next day. I worked in the grocery store for six years

and I was standing there one day ringing the cash register. There was a color guy in the line and this woman who looked like a pastel Jew and her little daughter. I mean, somebody's got a five-room ranch house and it's one of where it's pretty fancy. And he's short-fat full. Anyway, so the little girl, you know, so the turned her own mother and she pointed up at the Negro guy and said, look mommy, that guy's old 30. You know, I think, you know, that's more little kids do think that because they're his black. And I think that has a little effect on little kids who've never seen this little girl. Obviously, never saw a Negro guy. So right away she assumes bad because it's black. Do you believe in something sort of called light and prejudice? Another word is a guy can sort of be a friend with everything and he sort of acts okay about it. But all of a sudden,

if you get into a fist fight with him, you know, you really get to angry. You know, just when you're pushing the right way it's his nigger. After someone can make this gesture, can make that gesture. They're very different gestures than just the tone of his voice. And I didn't like the tone of your voice. If guerrilla warfare broke out in the streets, I wouldn't turn my back on your tone. The idea of the time he's going to put you in a group, in a big, you know, group and he's not going to judge you individually. It bothers me very much because I insist that people are going to judge me as me. And if they're not going to judge me as me, I get the feeling that they're just going to condemn me with a whole group or even praise me with a whole group. It's sort of, it's tricky. It's the same way I want to be praised and condemned on my own mirror.

Yeah, and this is even my little maid, and I'm pretty close to her. And then suddenly I think maybe we're not so close. But if she can think of me that way, it's too extreme. Do you feel the same way as I did about light and prejudice? Oh, yeah. Well, like, haven't you ever felt like being part of a race, right? Yeah. And that's what, that's maybe what scares me most because, you know, I can do it and can't. Yeah. I can do it and can't. If Tom got me to hit him in a mouth, in a way that would help justify his prejudice. Sure. Then he'd say, oh, what's that? The dude hit me in the mouth, man. The dude's, look at how, you know, that doesn't help. What's good, you know? Yeah, okay. Sure. I mean, so, should I try to fight it that way? Is there a problem with him going in a bigger than a mouth? Or is there a problem with that? You know, to do something that'll be more effective, that'll help the situation. I don't know. I mean, if I hit him in a mouth, in which he almost seems to want,

this is part of the anti-semetic feeling, you know, he's so much of jellyfish. I think, I don't know. But I mean, this is, the response could be, and this is part of, maybe this is part of my feeling of stuff too. Yeah, I mean, you know, I could, well, what would you do if you'd hit him out, you know? You're a big hit, so I should hit. It just aggravates. I mean, when we're trying to solve, or we're trying to- Just to understand. Right now, we're trying to understand. We're not trying to solve problems. I see. He's taking out a situation so he can help justify his prejudice in a way. Well, I'm not trying to justify. Well, I'm talking about time. Okay. And I don't want to help him justify. I want to say, you know, no, I'm, you know, I won't help him justify. I'm trying to do this thing. It'll help remove it. And he's worried about it as long as I don't help him justify it. That's why he shakes, I think. Maybe. If I hit him in a mouth, then it, you know, it'd be simple for me to say, you know, during a basket cut. I know. Another guy was there. A racetrack for a jester. Last summer.

But not me. Yeah, he shot. What? He shot at me. He shot at me. And the kid was playing crabs in the alley. He was bending over. He started buying a car and he shot him in the ass of the 22. It started quite the ride. People just pulled out. No reason at all. No reason that, maybe, on the surface. Oh, yeah, I mean, there's some kind of, you know, some kind of silly haspility. It's, you know, it's not a, It's, you know, it's not that she didn't do it for purpose, or for purpose, you know. It's like throwing her brick at somebody you don't like her. But why don't they start fighting? They weren't fighting? Yeah, I'll fight. I didn't say you weren't. Well, how can you say they really don't care? You don't really care. It's the point. You didn't really care you wouldn't follow them. No, it's not like that. You don't care one way or another about whether they, you know, live next door to you or they don't live next door to you, right? You just don't like them. My reaction is that, you know.

Of course, people like Tom upset me very much, but, you know, I didn't associate with them before. I went out with Richard, you know. Of course, I want to associate with them now. You know, I'm theory, not in practice. I dislike them intensely. I, you know, our children have better choice of friends, I hope. You know, I don't feel that I'm denying my whiteness or reaches denying this blackness by us marrying each other. It's pure prejudice. Because it's, you know, it's my country type of prejudice. You know, these are our girls, leave them alone type of thing. And I know that's what it is, you know. So it's more, it's more latent than anything else. But it's, it's pretty strong, you know. As far as visceral reaction comes. I just, you know, see, I can't, you know, condone it. Only on that level, you know what I mean? You get a rage. Which you can see with yourself actually using physical force, or allowing other people to use physical force.

You mean standing by? Yes. Yeah, probably. You probably would. Would you feel different about a white man marrying a black woman? I mean, would that have made you as much? No, obviously wouldn't. You see, because the reason I think that I feel that strongly is because, you know, like these are our women. See, but when you're going, when you're talking about the guy doing something, he can take care of himself. You see, if you see, you know, Caucasian guy with an negro girl or a black girl, you always check to see whether she's, she's a nice looking. And normally, you know, with a, you know, sexual phobia is attached and stuff like that. And she's some sort of, you know, super sex queen or something, you know. And it's just a really sexual phobia, these sexual fantasies. Yeah. Then the normal kind of thing that, you know, people say that. What do they say? For instance, you know, that there seems to be an image of more prowess attached to the negro male.

Last night, you're talking about different sexual planes, kind of, that are attached to males of the three different races. And you admitted that oriental males were up by far and large on the lowest plane. If I were in bed with some woman, you know, I couldn't bring her to the height of glory that you could, since I wouldn't be presenting the same kind of threat to your ego. Because, you know, the image of, you know, fantastically athletic blah, blah, blah, big stud type negro kid. You know what I mean? That would give it a, but that, you know, that's not me pressing. But I know people who said that. The mood of the experience became more somber. Those who have denied the existence of prejudice in themselves are now taking a second look.

I'm concerned. That is yesterday I felt that here we work from a very objective standpoint able to examine our society, examine the older generation that is so prejudiced and leading to all these riots and things like that. And find out what's wrong with that. And then maybe they can see us and maybe they can understand why they're doing it and maybe they'll stop. But now I don't know, because now I see that there are some of these Latin feelings right here. And for instance, Gil. It's the younger riot. It is. And I wonder, Gil, I wonder if you will ever let anyone not be prejudiced. Good question. Probably not. Do you want to keep everything, everybody's prejudice strong and you want to keep everything, everyone's segregated?

You know, I just don't understand, because I've never come across anyone like you before and I'm just completely befuddled. And it's been very upsetting to me. I mean, I could have cried when Gil was talking. You said you're anti-Semitic, haven't you? You didn't use the word, but you sure said you didn't. Are you getting paranoid, Dennis? It's happening, it's happening. No, did you? Did I say it? Well, do you? Am I, am I anti-Semitic? Okay, yeah. You are. Gil represents, I think, a big threat to me, because he's proposing a world that I don't think I have any place in. People like Gil hurt me, I think, more than anybody else ever can. I mean, he's proposing a complete exclusion, sort of. He wants to put me in a society where the only reason I'm there is because I'm black.

And I'm not sure that's enough of a reason to make people look together. Terry, how do you feel about the past? About the past? Can I say something? That designation might not bother you as a designation. In other words, you might not fear that you have those traits, but you might fear people that round you up. I'm more concerned about the person who says it, but that person, you know, I feel, right away, is dangerous. If he thinks that way, I think he's dangerous. It isn't that I'm worried about. Before I meet her, have any comments about me grows, which if they are, might cause them embarrassment? Have you ever used the word digger? Have you thought the word digger? Other than a chest.

Other than a chest. And set something to me as I went out. I asked her why she was sitting there. It struck me as a comment that should be shared with the group. Well, I was a little bit disturbed to hear everyone talking about it. Being afraid to turn your back on someone else. Because granted, perhaps I'm too audioistic. I know that I'm naive. But I've always been under the impression that the older generation was... The older generation was the bad guys, and they were the ones who would mess this world up the way it was. And I figured that we'd come in, and we'd be more open-minded, and sort of straighten things out. And I just couldn't believe what everyone was saying about... Okay, you're going to be very friendly with Tom. But if things get a little rough, then you'll just shoot them in the back.

They have to show where you're all going. And we're just going around. And I backed him up into a rock, and then he tripped over the rock, and he knocked the little statue over. And you know, I knew that, that there was some day bringing himself, but I just pushed him up against the rock. And I don't know if you're just moving around, or maybe there's something else. That's what I said. If you could blame the older generation as being responsible for all this... I mean, I always have. You always have. But now you're beginning to see that the danger is where? Well, I'm taking it for granted that we could see what was wrong with the older generation that we would trust people. And you're just getting rid of all the trust. And have you run into any prejudice of any kind? Ever? No, no, no, no. Seriously, have you? My own prejudice?

More prejudiced against Catholics. No, I haven't. I've run into a little. Enough to realize that it's fair and it threatens me. And I sometimes feel threatened. And if someone sort of... I don't just constantly walk around feeling threatened. But if someone somehow brings it up, like, you know, it talks about a pastel Jew, suddenly I realize that's a threatening gesture. But that makes it a war. You know, six million Jews, but like, you know, you had to... You had to be a kind of corner of the market. And I'm prejudiced there. And especially, wouldn't you? I mean, if I was in the one-store ghetto, I would have... I would have, you know, hired anyone of those guys. But I wouldn't hire anyone who marched a slaughter. Passively. My feelings, too. I wouldn't... And I have absolutely no respect for it. I'm always having an example of extermination of the Jews from up my face.

The comparisons about, you know, how what we use the Jews through and through. But I don't know like this. If those six... If even half of those six million Jews when the Gestapo came for them, greeted the Gestapo with a barrage, perhaps in Pans even, even Iraq's. They would cut that out. Very soon. The reason that Jews were slaughtered was because the reason they were slaughtered as land is because they went to the slaughter as land. Tom, may I ask you a question? How do you feel about the Christians who went to the arms? Quite planned. Probably the Bible is more perfect than any human bookshelves written. But that's not the point. To me is... The fundamental truth of the divinity of Jesus Christ and the fact that he can right now be alive to me

and I can have a personal relationship with God. You say, am I fundamentalist? For instance, do I believe that Christ walked on the water? Yes. Do I believe in the version of earth? Yes. Do I believe in the feeding of the 5,000? Yes. You know, breaking the loaves and fishes. Oh, yeah. No, they're residents. How's things going up there in Minneapolis? Well, Martin, you do pretty well with the churches. Got a member in the congregational church, Methodist church, and a member in the Catholic church, and a member in the Episcopalian church, and a member in the Lutheran church. Well, residents, what about the Baptist church? Are there lots of Baptist up there? Well, Martin, we had a member in the Baptist church but how long are they supposed to hold them under that water anyhow? Well, I laugh about it.

It's really hard when I heard it the first time. You know, because I thought it was funny. And nobody here identified with it, and it didn't laugh. How do you feel about getting a dialect story? Do you know that? That rose. That rose. That rose. That rose. That rose. That rose. Yes. And I know that I can't imitate the dialect. Well, that's what I questioned in my mind. Well, I was waiting just before I told the church. But you asked over it outside this room. Yes. And you found the line. Yes. It will laugh. Nobody laughed here. Let's talk about it. A lot of people do all those answers in question. Well, shouldn't it do always answer a question? I think it makes a difference. It's a good job for church. Often, I feel very comfortable when Jews are telling Jewish jokes. But somehow, when an outsider tells Jewish jokes about Jews, you begin wondering for one thing.

I think whether the person who tells does believe someone in this day type. You don't know for sure. But when a Jew tells it, you know that you probably doesn't believe in this. And you feel more comfortable. And you feel it's more his place to be doing this in an outsider. And that Jews, of course, you know, in the third grade, Catholic probably goes school is a bad guy. When I went there, he isn't anymore. But when I went there, he was. You know what I mean? But as I think, as the Catholic grows up, he begins to find out what it says in St. Paul's Epistle of Romans, where the Jew is the prophet, the tree, for which we are the branches. The longer we were there, the more minority group members began to explore their negative feelings toward the dominant majority. Well, I have had certain feelings that were someone anti-Jentile, not totally. But I've shared people I felt were all in jail.

Anybody I thought might try to convert me or think that I needed saving or something. But when I first met Wayne, in fact, I was a little afraid to be like that. And I felt you might think I was good material for a conversion of sorts or trying to. And so Christianity were the only true way of believing, and that you went to hell if you didn't believe in someone. Okay. Do you think that I believe in a very exclusive sort of religion? In other words, you can't come to God other than through Jesus Christ. Would you say that I believe that? I think we're actually doing. Let's take a break now, and I understand we're going to be bringing out there in the courtyard.

How powerful are the feelings of prejudice? Even these soothing surroundings could not soften the increasingly abrasive impact of one group member on another. What are your prejudices? My prejudices, I don't really, did not really clear cut, you know, long racial lines or anything. Or what are they clear cut along? I don't know. I don't shite this. Ask Tom why he was shaky. I can't stop it. He's getting worse right now. Why? You people scare me silly. No. I haven't been, you know, totally honest. I try to start so many fights. Stop feeling you just sort of go around like a robot in a computer. No, maybe it's just kind of antagonism. I mean, you said things that offended me very seriously.

Certainly the thing not to do if it would not be to blow my cool. I mean, I can just stand here with it. And it's totally straight or almost. And you'll be shaking and I won't. And that's the way I, you know, that's the way I react. Do you want to develop hard feelings? I want to talk about prejudice, right? I'll let it. Precious isn't, you know, you don't sit around and say, well, he's got three and I've got four. And I know his, but, you know, I'm not quite sure whether it's right or not. But I like him anyway and all that kind of good stuff. That's just baloney. Do you try to say something across here? Say it. Tom is a bigot. He's an honest bigot. He's honest about his bigotry, but when a bigot trembles, I fight him. I mean, when he gets really upset, I mean, when he's going to take it out on me? You know, what Gil told us the other day about the, you know, when he was a little kid,

he used to fight with the Italians, you know? No, I've got a Negro prejudice when I see five Negro guys in the corner in my neighborhood. I go across the street and maybe for absolutely no reason. Made uneasy by the intensity of their encounter, the group left the compound and attended a high school dance in town. And the next day, this discussion. Last night, when I was dancing, I danced with Sandy and I noticed this girl looking at it and she was cute. And yet she was looking, you know, kind of like this. And so the next dance came and I went up and asked her to dance. And she was glad to dance with me. And I'm no big stud. But, you know, I wasn't... I was just talking to her.

Now, isn't it? It was the worst dance all that was when that drummer started getting carried away. And I wasn't charming the poor girl at all. And yet she stayed around, she wanted to talk to me and everything. And she was really... I had acquired some mystique. Really? I... Stimulated by their attendance at the high school dance, significant memories of childhood began to well up. I think it had to do with the girl named Geraldine Clarkson. I don't know, Geraldine and I were in love. You know, as in love as you can be in fourth grade. And I went home with Geraldine once. And, you know, there was Geraldine. And I said, you know, Geraldine and I were feeling all this stuff. I went home and met Mama. Mama cast a dark eye on what was going on. She said, this is Gilmic Millen. You know, what a name like Gilmic Millen. You know, good Irish cat with kid.

So I write it. You know, then there was Mama turning coal light. And I didn't say a word to me for the rest of time I knew her. And I knew her for three years after that. Now we're... We need to look at it. Three years. And I've been the best of friends. You know, fourth grade, third grade, second grade, first grade, kindergarten type friend. For four or five years. And at grant me. I did it for life, I think. I really do. I mean, you really did it for life. Do you really think? Father Smith, did I have been deluded for the past five years about being accepted by people who are school with me? That... That's the kind of impression they got, you know. You put the... Put the dark skin one up on the pedestal. Come on. You didn't go to the dance last night. Would you feel any hesitancy about inviting this group to your father's church tomorrow? I never even thought of inviting a group to my father's church.

My answer was that I didn't want to go to that church because that's the church I really got to go to. Now, if you want to suggest that the group go to my father's church tomorrow, I don't say no. The first thing I had was that you're trying to get me to say that I don't want them to come to my church for some reason. But that's what you're... That's what I see you. I'm expecting that maybe. Well, that's what I say anyway. I don't think that's true. You're still not satisfied with my answer, right? Are you?

I am, yeah. So, in school, very suspicious of everyone hearing that I don't believe that they believe me. Do you think she's prejudiced? Yeah, of course. It's prejudiced. I mean, it's anti-black, in a sense. It's anti-anything that isn't what you are. The one that's in my early school for years has had a real effect on the way I look at all. I guess it would be more gentiles than anyone else. But on the first day of kindergarten, this is sort of the classical story. There was a tall thin fellow who just greeted me with the dance and the song and various chants about slap the odds of watching it and etc. You know, how much of this is karaoke? I don't know. But it seems to me that ever since then and all the situations in which I can have some kind of social power,

I will always use it to some degree against the guy like you. And maybe this is just me. But I don't know. I somehow think that this one little trauma has greatly influenced all of my, all the way I look at everything around me and all the way I treat the people in any kind of group situation. Maybe it's all me, maybe. But you know, I have this one incident that I can remember very clearly. And I know that whenever I meet someone that's tall and thin, obviously was, we should look at how that uniform was. You'll always be a certain amount of power play to kind of down. You won't be the only one who took it along with instantaneous dislike to Tom. I did show it all to you. I think you talked about it, which you did. The conflict of faiths was pervasive throughout. It was easy to be a member of a dominant faith,

a struggle for the minority to maintain its identity. We had a long talk, you know, like the first night, about what we believed and how we believed. Now, you know, we disagreed. In other words, on sort of doctrine, right? We sort of agreed on everything, but sort of whether Jesus Christ was the Son of God. And, you know, we sort of agreed that we both had to do the same things and we wanted the same things for people, didn't we? I mean, do I feel that in a given situation involving human dignity? When we go to the U.S., the same as Bob. I think your response would be just as courageous if that's what you mean. But do you think it would be just as sort of... I think it might be different, because I think our centers of value might differ in a few other cases, if you other areas. Well, do you think yours is sort of better because you have this thing with it? Well, yes. You do? Yes. See, I don't. I think mine's as good as yours. I think yours is great. And I think mine's great.

And I think Tom's is great. And I think Tom and I might, you know, differ in part. But on the general, we're trying to do the same thing. Do you, Tom, think we are? Yeah, but mine's better than yours. It implies... It makes your face better than somebody else. I don't do well. I was talking to this morning, Gandhi, who was not a Christian, was a very fine person. I think a few... No, it's fine. No, wait a minute. No, I think if you were a Christian, you would have been fine. Nobody's going to cut his wrist right here on the ground and say, see, I've got the values. There's a proof. But now we can say, you know, yeah, we're going forward and we're hoping we can. Dennis, maybe you have the values and maybe you won't discriminate. Maybe you will invite Richie and Joel over on a summer afternoon to your house. But the question is, 90% of the world won't. And are you going to do anything other than your own example to help change that? And I said, there's a spectrum. It's a Nazi president. I said, I'd shoot him. And that's a big thing to do because I don't think killing is so great. I'm not going to shoot the people that don't invite Richie and Joel to their house on a summer afternoon

and I'll tell you that too. I'm not committed to that. The final session. By now, the group had created a small society of its own, a society which mirrored the world outside. And in this mirror, they saw themselves and the parental influences which helped shape them. My thought is, is it intellectualized that stage? Or is he raised about civil rights or something like that? Or, you know, a god down the people who don't give other people rights and things like this. I was hearing all this. You know, I never saw him practice anything, but in every question, if he would practice what he was preaching, testing. And then, when I went away to campus, interracial campus, it was too late then. I already found out for myself that he is people and people. And we're proud of what you are. Joel said, I had a problem about me and you were on. I do. I'm sure I do. Now, I was talking about it

a little bit afterwards with Gary and with Joel. I think I hadn't mentioned it before because, you know, it's a national television program and my parents are probably going to see it somewhere. And the people that at home and I think some of my resentments are based on are going to see this show. And, you know, it's embarrassing situation. After a while, you get a little tired of having black white going on in every among the group of Negroes. Maybe it's just a minority feeling. Maybe, you know, all Jews get together and talk about being Jewish. But I just get so sick of it. You know, five o'clock in the morning coming home from the airport. Black, white, weay. Three o'clock in the morning after being up all day. Black, white, weay. All during, you know, throughout the day. You get so tired of it, especially when some of your good friends are white. And I resent the fact that a lot of Negroes don't really make distinctions

between people. I resent, I guess, I resent their prejudices, which is, you know, kind of like having a reverse prejudice on my part, which is why I feel hesitant to identify with being a Negro very strongly, other than, you know, just the fact that I know I'm a Negro. Because it gets to be petty sometimes. You're raising a Protestant family. As you grew up, did you grow up with anti-Catholic feelings? Was this part of the culture? Yeah. Because I think, just in learning about, you know, how Protestantism started from Catholicism. You know, just why?

You know, that it was because there was something wrong in a Catholic church. And therefore, you associate something wrong in a Catholic church. You know, that they're more dogmatic and that they're more narrow-minded. These two things I associate with people who are Catholic. I remember a joke to that that I heard about a bunch of a litter of kittens were born. And the first day, the priest would walk by and say, are there eyes open yet? And I, being Protestant, said, no, they're not. And the second day, the same thing happened. No, they're not. The seventh day, he walked by, and he said, are there eyes open yet? And I said, no, they're still not. They're Catholic kittens. And he said, oh, they're Catholic kittens. And I said, yes. So the priest walked by again. And the next day, he came by and the eyes were open. And I said, yes. They're Protestant kittens now. And this is a story that I heard from my father. Yellow, how do you feel when you see a black woman with a white man? It cares me up a little bit.

It's taken me. It took me three years in school. This year was the first year that I mean, like I took, I actually tried to date, you know, date a white girl. And care about her rather than a body. You know, when she was just wasn't something to roll around in the haywood. It was the first year, it was taking me three years, longer than that, and off in high school, it's good. That long before I could do it. And not just be friends with somebody, you know, like, but like you love her. The same thing at Tom. I think it's the same sort of feeling at Tom Day. This is our women. Well, you feel exactly as Tom does, but the other way, the other side of the coin. Yeah. And then you really understand how Tom feels. I think Tom and I are pretty close. And a lot of things. Right. I consider my women, you know, black women. Black women are y'all women. Right. He can say there's white women, his women. And I would really find it very hard to trust a needle after knowing you. You're the first needle I've known it all well.

There's been both articulate and outspoken and near. And, you know, I really feel I wouldn't go out of my way to meet a needle. What did you get out of this session? What one thing comes through? The one thing that I got out of this thing is, you know, that there's a lot more rationalists in the world than I thought there were. You know, for me, it's a quagmire. I'm not really sure what the whole experience means to me. Yeah, I think I'll see, you know, months from now, maybe years from now, things that affected me here that I haven't seen yet, really. But I know it shook me up. It's made me less sure, if not more sure, about what I really believe in. I'm scared. And I'm worried

because what I see is you people going to run this world. You're going to run it in circles. I could spend run for hundreds of years. And I'm not blaming you for that because I don't think you can be certain. The reason you can't be certain is because you don't have the answer. But I can't excuse myself on that basis. I'm going to say I do have some convictions and they are right and anything else is wrong. I say, Paul, I can do all things through Christ of strengthen for me because if I'm right and I am, then you're all going to eternal condemnation and this whole world is going with you.

All right. It's too bad about that, just something like, you know, just shattered you or something. What's too bad about a guy who has faith in something doesn't wonder about anything else?

It's dangerous to you because we believe in something. It's not that he believes in something, it's not that he believes in something, that he believes unswerving it, that there is no possibility of error. Well, last night, you know, very late, you read to me out of the Bible, and you read to me about the prophecy about the Jews taking Jerusalem again, the Gentiles of the victory. What were you trying to say to me then, were you trying to convert me? Of course, I was trying to convert you, Dennis, because I'm concerned about you. Yes, that's what makes you dance. It's you. That kind of thinking. I'm right, and nobody can tell me I'm wrong. I mean, you know, that's exactly what the world's been going around with, and so are people

like us. People like us don't move the world sometimes, it's true. You may sit there and say there always be war, but people like you cause war. Where is prejudice among too many other places right here, in these products of the educated affluent American middle class? Their varied prejudices are passed from generation to generation, from home to church to school. They result not in the riot or the lynching, but too often in restricted real estate, unwritten employment practices, all the quiet insidious expressions of prejudice in respectable America. And if it exists even here, how can it be eliminated in other sectors of our society? So disturbingly, there is no way of gauging how long it will be before Dennis Feldman or any of us can realize this seemingly modest hope.

I don't want to be stereotyped by me, and that's what I want to be. All the poor folks hate the rich folks, and the rich folks hate the poor folks. All of my folks hate all of your folks, it's American as apple pie, but during national brotherhood week, national brotherhood week, New Yorkers love the Puerto Ricans cause it's very chic. Step up and shake the hand of someone you can't stand, you can tolerate him if you try. All the Protestants hate the Catholics, and the Catholics hate the Protestants, and the Hindus hate the Muslims, and everybody hates the Jews, but during national brotherhood week, national brotherhood week gets national, everyone smiles at one and neverhood week feet. Nice to people who are inferior to you, it's only for a week, so have no fear.

Be grateful that it doesn't last all year. This is NET, the National Educational Television Network.