I really enjoy reading your blog each week. As a African-American woman, I was a bit hesitant to open this post “Racism at work, and why it doesn’t work to just say no”. I didn’t want the post to change my opinion about you, but I am glad that I read it.

I believe you handled the radio situation wonderfully. While it is important to “speak up when something is racist” as you said yourself. I believe that in this specific situation it was best for you professionally to not engage in that dialog. From my personal experience, I believe that caller was intentionally trying to create trouble and if you had chosen that instance to stand up it would have done more harm than good.

Cudos to you for writing about this experience in your blog and Congrats on your new company. I look forward to reading your future posts.

Hopefully you’ll stay true to what you wrote and address straight away that kind of ignorance whenever you hear/read/observe it. That’s the only way we can the frank discussions needed to move everyone forward…together.

We do not know about the caller’s race or his sexuality. But, of the 3 main descriptors he used - good, black, men - the host and Ms Trunk focus on one i.e. ‘black’. And this whole debate about racism ensues.

Why is this not a debate about the other 2 factors which outnumber 1 factor by 100%?

Is it that people are over-sensitive about some key issues, especially since they were discussing a high profile black couple?

Why is this not a discussion about how hard it is to find decent people of ANY kind nowadays, to date and/ or to marry, if the laments of some eternally eligible yet single people are anything to go by?

Many young friends I have in America’s cosmopolitan cities will date anyone, who is decent and well-educated, well-mannered and civilised. Race for them enters into the equation much later, if at all, and usually when parents get involved. Or is there some other understanding about dating in American society implied in this discussion that I as a naive ‘foreigner’ might be missing?

Remember when Joe Biden said, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy”? Now, that was racist.

This post really has me thinking and I still can’t fault Penelope (or anyone for that matter) for not engaging in a debate with the caller.

Based on this understanding, I disagree that the caller’s comment was an innocuous observation of fact. A prominent subtext in the comment is that all black people belong to the same class. What is true is that black people are overrepresented in the lower classes and underrepresented in the higher classes. I will concede that a disproportionate number of lower class black men have criminal records and I’m sure that other social ills display themselves in inordinate amounts. However, it does not necessarily follow that an equal proportion of upper/upper-middle class black men would not be good mates. In fact, I would argue that there should be fewer “bad men” among upper/upper-middle black men due to social pressure to refute the stereotypes associated with the lower-classes.

But let’s say that the caller is factually correct and there are very few “good” black men in the higher classes. Let’s say that this is due to external prejudice and not any racially-driven internal fault. Now if external prejudice prevents black men from gaining professional success, would it not follow that even fewer black women would be successful?
(Remember, we live in a patriarchy.) Given that Michelle Obama was a highly successful black professional woman, she should still have been out-numbered by black men sharing her social status. Why then would it make sense to say that there’s a shortage?

Professing a general shortage of “good black men” only works if class divisions are neglected. I think that’s racist.