ON FRIDAY, October 12, 2007, I bought two black women at auction.
Well, that's one way to look at it. Another way is: I got dates with two ladies I'm looking forward to getting to know.
Or perhaps it would be plainest to say: I attended the Organization of African Students date auction and was the winning bidder twice.
I said it the shocking way first because that was the way of thinking about the date auction that made me hesitant to attend. I see a first date, however obtained, as a mutual audition for a relationship involving mutual affection and respect. But I had a hard time pushing aside the thought that a white man bidding on a black woman, even with the best of romantic intentions, is a very ugly sight because of the never-to-be-forgotten crime of slavery.
Once I was at the auction, the atmosphere was just as advertised: light-hearted fun. One of the auctioneers was herself auctioned, and almost nobody seemed to be taking anything very seriously, except perhaps the person collecting the money. Not one person suggested, at least to me, that there might possibly be something wrong with my bidding and winning; to the contrary, I was offered advice a gentleman does not take about one of the ladies with whom I'd won a date, and someone tried to set me up with a third lady. My doubts about the propriety of my participation -- at least the doubts related to race -- faded quickly.
But if that was not a night to be serious, in these pages we can be serious about it. We can ask what it means for a white man to bid on a black woman at a date auction and nobody (nobody black, at least) to object.
I have long believed that racial progress must include social integration, that if we are going to fight racism, it has to be by developing and encouraging interracial relationships of all sorts. Today, the crucial racial problems are social and psychological, not institutional -- not bad laws, but bad attitudes, often held at some emotional level by people whose rational minds are convinced that they are wrong. And the law cannot solve these problems. Nor can any amount of opposing discrimination.
Love and respect, in their truest forms, are not felt for races or any other groups. They are felt for individuals. And that means that much of the important work of integration is done on the individual level, when we build professional, friendships and romantic relationships with people of other backgrounds. These relationships are built on positive feelings -- respect, trust and sometimes love, not merely the absence of contempt, fear and hatred. And these feelings come about in response to the merits we see in individuals and the experiences we share with them.
But social integration isn't just about serious things -- it's about fun, too. Nor is it only about individual relationships -- it's about how we deal with strangers and the public, too. It's about letting fun be fun and conversation be conversation, both among friends and in the community in general.
And that means that racial sensitivity, which always looks to the bad ways of seeing things and struggles to avoid offense, is not an unmixed good. While it can be an expression of mutual respect, it can also act as a barrier to social integration. If the goal is to be comfortable with one another, sensitivity helps insofar as it guards against hurting one another, but hinders insofar as it warns against relaxing with one another. Sensitivity is a means to fostering trust and goodwill, but we should be careful not to be so sensitive that we sacrifice the ends on the altar of the means. If we worry too much about offending one another, the fear of giving offense can stifle our efforts to get to know one another. It can obstruct our discussions of important issues. It can get in the way when we're trying to have a good time -- and sharing good times is part of building a relationship or a community.
So what was the meaning of the date auction, of my participation and of the fact that I was welcome? I don't want to read too much into it. Interracial dating means something. Acceptance of it means something. But perhaps the most meaningful thing about the auction was what it didn't mean.
Alexander R. Cohen's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier daily. He can be reached at acohen@cavalierdaily.com
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