Pulitzer Prize winner reflects on reality of racism

Clarence Page, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes and a national syndicated columnist, addressed the Wittenberg community, Oct. 13, during the Wittenberg Series 1999 Fred R. Leventhal Family Endowed Lecture.

One of the nation's most recognized newspaper columnists and author of Showing My Color: Impolite Essays on Race and Identity, Page shared some of his own race-related experiences, including not being able to go to an amusement park because of his skin color and seeing drinking fountains labeled “colored.”

“My first experience with race was when I was 4 years old,” the Dayton native explained. Now 52, Page said that black people still face “certain realities” in the world today.

He, himself, has been told by numerous real estate agents that in order to sell his home, located in an affluent area outside Washington, D.C., he should remove all of the family photos and the Kwanzaa calendar if he wants white people to look at the house.

Page also said that there is the perception in America that the nation is integrated.

However, some, according to Page, would argue that integration is that time period between when the first black family moves in and the last white family moves out.

“Every person's experience and perception is different,” he explained, which is why “race relations in America have become so vexing.”

Despite the problems, Page thinks that race relations can improve if people first recognize that there is a problem. Second, Page said, people should not be satisfied with being “non-racist.”

Instead, people should be “anti-racist.” Third, people need to seek first to understand before they can be understood. Fourth, people should build alliances on common ground.

Page cited the Oklahoma City bombing as an example of where color didn’t matter.

“We all helped,” he said. Lastly, quoting Martin Luther King Jr., Page encouraged all those present to enter the world dissatisfied with the problems they see.

“We all have a task to do; let us go out and do it with divine dissatisfaction.” Based in Washington, D.C., Page’s columns are syndicated nationally by Tribune Media Services.

Page can also be seen on ABC's This Week and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.