Re: July 14 Megan McArdle column.
Thank you to Megan McArdle for her perceptive column. McArdle writes: “I was shocked when a black friend told me that clerks followed her around stores. What she said was completely alien to my own experience. But after she told me, I did observe it happening occasionally. Previously, presumably, I had not noticed, because it wasn’t happening to me.”
I think that we, far too often, mistakenly assume that our experience is universal and, as a consequence, are dismissive of others’ reports to the contrary.
Before her death in 2007, I was married to a black woman for 20 years, and I’ve lost track of how many times that, when we were out together, she would ask me, “Did you see that?” and my reply was, invariably, “See what?” It took a while before it finally occurred to me that I wasn’t seeing anything because I’ve never, with rare exceptions, had to appraise each situation to determine if there were potential hazards I needed to be mindful of. This is particularly true of whites who are either unable or unwilling to consider that the American experience of non-whites has been substantially different from that of whites.
Thank you for highlighting this human blind spot in a non-threatening manner.
Robert Greene, Denver
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