Afterthoughts: Cain on Black

 

                                                              

I suppose right about here would be as good place as any to write a few more things about Herman Cain (in addition to what appears in the essay that follows) as in how we met (of marginal importance) and do I still talk to him (no) and maybe something about his 9-9-9 run for the GOP nomination (nope). However, while he was still a contender, I thought his points of view on race might be of interest to those of us following his campaign; that they might add another dimension to his personality that followers, supporters, mudslingers and cynics would appreciate, so with the help of high school buddy, Wilton Sogg (RIP, Wilt), a lawyer who once dabbled in PR, we contacted the news producer of the local NBC affiliate, told him about my essay, “Herman Cain and the Color Black,” (below) and would he like to read it with an eye to creating (my suggestion) “you know, an inoffensive and apolitical segment based on it.” He said he’d ask his boss; and if he liked the idea, he’d get back to us. Never did.

Photo by Juan Camilo Bernal/Shutterstock.com

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March 1991: Herman Cain and The Color Black

Herman Cain, president, Godfather’s Pizza (Omaha), is at the Ritz-Carlton (Naples, FL) addressing a conference sponsored by SFM (Society for Foodservice Management). SFM is an association for foodservice operators who feed employees in company food courts, cafeterias and executive dining rooms.

After his speech, which is about focusing on what you do best, he takes questions. Lease Plimpton, special services manager of MIT Lincoln Laboratory (Lexington, MA), and this year’s SFM president, asks one. Plimpton is white. “Based on our conversation last night, when did you stop being black and become regarded as a competent person?”

Herman Cain pauses a long pause. He’s not so sure what to make of the question. He twirls and twists it in his mind. The answer he gives is about attitude and performance; about focus and determination; above all, making sure that what has to be done gets done. He talks, also, about his blackness. He thinks he knows what Plimpton is asking even though he believes she has phrased her question clumsily. “I’ve never stopped being black,” he says. “I never forget it.”

The question, says a woman seated next to me, is “not politically correct.” It is, she thinks, inappropriate.

Forget inappropriate. “If you ask me, the question doesn’t make any sense. Here’s what I’m thinking,” I tell her. “It’s convoluted; and I’m being kind. Let me see if I’ve got this right; here’s what Plimpton wanted to ask, should have asked: ‘Will you be regarded as competent only when you stop behaving as a black man; does not your blackness get in the way of your message, of who you are.’  Or something like that. Is that it or am I completely off base?”

“I don’t think she realized what she was saying,” says the woman seated next to me.

Some think the question has insulted Cain. The question is questionable.

What does Cain think? Following the meeting, on a flight to Washington, D.C. where he will attend a meeting of the National Restaurant Association Board (he is a member), he whispers to an associate, “I thought the question was racist.”

Plimpton’s question has struck nerves. Some members are offended by it. Others feel it is totally out of place. Still others say it is in poor taste: they dredge up past instances of Plimpton’s poor judgment and timing.

“They want my head on a platter,” Plimpton tells me.

Not quite. Heads will not roll. What the association board decides to do is not a matter of concern here. What is, is whether Plimpton (or anyone), regardless of expediency, has the right to disrupt the gentle order of polite discussion with antithetical thought.

(Associations, by and large, shun controversy. Confrontation is their cross: it defeats their purpose and irritates their members, who must—at all costs—be spared unpleasantness. Disturbing their comfort zones antagonizes and alienates them. Confrontation and controversy place a pall on association conferences. Palls at conferences undermine association objectives. Associations will have none of that. Associations do not want their members to squirm. They lose members when they allow that to happen and that leads to flimsy attendance at conferences and both to a loss of revenue.

Which is why, when they plan their conferences they try to design a program that underscores the positive. Nothing wrong with that, provided one accepts, as a condition of conference behavior, an agenda brimming with sanitary discourse: how to wipe out your competition and live happily ever after—that sort of thing. Face it: conferences are pep rallies. Members love them. Associations thrive because of them.)

I ask Plimpton about the question, about the part that referred to the “conversation last night.”

“Exactly. We talked about blackness, we talked about whiteness.”

I ask Cain the same thing.

“Right,” says Cain. “Based on the discussions we had at dinner, I knew exactly where Lease was coming from. In retrospect, she should have asked that question in private. What ticks me off is that it’s important enough to be discussed openly, except that some people don’t know how to discuss it.”

Or, don’t want to discuss it?

“Right, don’t want to discuss it.”

Says Plimpton, “I found out at dinner that Cain’s father, Luther, was a chauffeur for Coca-Cola in Atlanta. I asked him if he had seen Driving Miss Daisy, because my cousin says it’s full of stereotypes. Herman said that that movie isn’t about my father; that movie is my father. I found out later that executives of Coca-Cola had a list of four employees who were never to be fired. One of them was Cain’s father.

“I left the South because I was determined that my children would not be brought up in an environment where color is a barrier,” says Plimpton. “Cain and I talked about that over dinner. You know what he said? He said ‘I prefer to live in the South because at least there you know where people are coming from.’

“I remember being introduced to Herman at the conference. He wanted to know more about me. ‘Where are you from,’ he asked. When I said, ‘Mississippi,’ I could feel him cringe.”

Cringing is the knee-jerk reaction triggered by years and years of waspish racism. Plimpton’s drawl and her birthplace are prima facie evidence of her bigotry, right? It’s enough to send a caution to Cain that if he plans to say anything at all to this person, he better launder it.

“I have a sixth sense,” Cain says. “When I meet someone who has racist attitudes—no matter how subtle—I can detect it.”

“If I think people stereotype me because of my accent,” Plimpton says, “I have to signal very early on that my accent should not define me.”

Back to the question. “I understand you thought it was racist?”

“You misunderstand. Not racist,” Cain says. “It took me a split second to understand what she was asking. It was, keep in mind, poorly phrased. I think she was nervous when she asked it. What it was, poorly phrased or not, was thought-provoking. Not racist. But her question backfired because, as you know, there were some people there who weren’t sure what Lease meant or who didn’t know how to discuss it or, as you noted, didn’t want to discuss it. I could have answered Lease’s question quickly: ‘I have never forgotten that I am black,’ but that would have been flip. I wanted time to reflect on the best way to answer her.”

Whites—all kinds: trash, uptight, liberal or conservative, redneck, rich or poor, honkie—are brought up in an environment where they find it incomprehensible that a black person might succeed or might want to succeed. To be black means you cannot succeed, but if you do, you are regarded (at least inside white society) as odd; or, at best, a curiosity.

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“That’s not exactly true,” says Cain. “Let me tell you what I think. Because whites are brought up in a predominantly white environment, they are unaware of how difficult it is for someone brought up in a black environment to fit into their environment [right]. If a black person succeeds in a white environment, whites regard it as a novelty. White people don’t expect a black person to succeed. It’s so rare that when it does happen white people don’t understand how it could happen. How is it possible for a black person to make it considering all of the obstacles he or she has to hurdle? Furthermore, a black person has to be better than average to succeed on an average level.”

We live in a cultural quagmire. It does not matter what color or sex you are, what God you worship, what causes you champion: we are conditioned to believe that our desires, our accomplishments, even our ideas must parallel standards of excellence and conduct ordained by white Anglo-Saxon males; and where deviations from these standards are regarded suspiciously, often contemptuously. 

We judge black people not on the basis of ability or potential, but on how white they are. We let them know, matter-of-factly, that if they intend to succeed in the white male world, they must renounce their blackness—their culture and their heritage; they must espouse whiteness; they must, to the extent they intend to coexist inside the white business ghetto, dress white, talk white, eat and drink white, walk white, play white. And, when that happens: when black people ascend to an acceptable level of whiteness is when they are thought to be respectable and accountable. I believe that’s what Plimpton meant when she asked Cain, “When did you stop being black?”

Here’s something Danny Glover said recently. “The other day, I shocked myself. I was thinking about taking on a role and I found myself questioning, ‘Is this a part for a black man?’ Then I realized that’s crazy. This is a role for a human being. That’s what’s important.”

Blacks are not alone.

Women who perform brilliantly, who succeed beyond their wildest dreams, are never permitted to savor the exhilaration of their success. They are not persons whose extraordinary efforts stand alone, that are gender neutral. They are hybrids—androgynes, Tom-men—whose achievements are compared to those of their male counterparts. Woe be unto them should they exceed the standards by which we measure white men: that sort of performance courts envy and slur; risks ostracism and censure; or, if none of these reactions is apt, perhaps this one is: exceptional performance is looked upon with wonder. Men are startled it should ever happen. They rationalize it to excuse it: it is a deviation from acceptable standards, an aberration that never should occur.

Touchy subject, discrimination. Must we know how Herman Cain, today perched at the top of his profession, copes with it, does not forget it? Yes. Well then, what does that have to do with foodservice? A lot. Does it matter one whit that a discussion of it might offend those who would prefer not to talk about it? No. Should we coddle and accommodate those whom we might offend? No. Finally, is a discussion of it relevant at any meeting which worries incessantly about a labor market that continues to shrink? Yes.

We go out of our way to avoid provocative thought because we do not know how to deal with it dispassionately.

If we find ourselves challenged with real ideas, we react emotionally, sarcastically, or not at all. We namecall, we ridicule, we tell the foulest of dirty jokes, we character assassinate. We clam up.

Instead of encouraging controversy, we shrink from it, equating it with substandard behavior. And, God help us, when someone has the nerve to inspire us with a stimulating idea, as Lease Plimpton tried to do, we are repulsed. 

Stimulating ideas flourish everywhere. We don’t like to discuss them; we do not tolerate them; we hate to admit they exist.

What gives? What’s wrong? What’s the problem? Inside our warm and cuddly industry minorities predominate. We brag about it. Why is it we don’t like to talk about it?

Herman Cain: Christopher Halloran/Shutterstock.com