Philosopher Thomas Nagel famously wrote on What is it Like to be a Bat? But trying to understand other people is a more deeply felt part of our human nature. I’ve written much about pondering over my own conscious experience, hard enough to fathom. Harder yet trying to imagine being someone else.
I’ve particularly thought about what it’s like being Black. Those are shoes my imagination cannot really walk in. My whiteness does not require much of my attention; but a Black American must be forced to think about race pervasively.
I had an intense conversation about that with Hajira, a student from Somaliland. Where, everyone being Black, it’s just not an issue. Visiting there, I actually felt more conscious of being White. But not of course in the way Black Americans must be conscious of their race, given all the history there and still persisting social dynamics. Without that personal context, even in America Hajira did not similarly feel her Blackness.
Right after, I happened to read a book that was a veritable tutorial on this subject. It’s Searching for Solid Ground, a 2024 memoir by Reggie Harris, of the folk-singing couple Kim and Reggie Harris. I’m no music buff, but I really liked them back in the day, with inspiring songs about the Underground Railroad and resistance to slavery. So I went to Reggie’s talk at the Albany library and bought his book. It’s mainly about his life in music. And — how race infused its every aspect.
Kim and Reggie were never famous, and toured extensively giving performances to make a living. This was past the “Green Book” days when doing that while Black would have been much tougher. The nevertheless disturbing episodes Reggie does relate were small stuff in comparison. Yet, far as we’ve progressed, race was still always there for them in a way it never is for whites. Always a subtext in their minds in their interactions with whites. A constant source of anxiety and unease.
This afflicts Black Americans with an extra dimension of chronic psychological stress, that doesn’t appertain to whites; and it’s a presumptive factor in a poorer overall health picture.
I have written of coming to generally admire Black Americans, as actually superior people. Precisely because of all the shit they’ve had to endure. It’s so much harder being Black than white. I’ve quoted activist Kimberly Jones that we’re lucky Blacks seek only equality, not revenge. And noted how, given our fraught history, I’m often struck by the niceness of Black strangers toward me.
But maybe that’s been naivete. A passage in Harris’s book really hit me: “Like most African American men, I’ve learned many skills that have enabled me to navigate and survive the tricky terrain of being Black in America. These skills include reading people, observing their behavior . . . keeping a low profile, smiling to reduce conflict, and engaging in non-threatening behaviors so as not to offend White people and to promote solidarity.”
Suggesting that the smiles I’ve gotten from Black people may frequently have been a defensive front. I don’t fault this. People do what they feel they must. And anyhow, smiles are better than glares.
* * *
Kim and Reggie Harris were a couple for over forty years. For a dozen of which she helped him through an increasingly horrible illness, culminating in a liver transplant, and his slow recovery. Some years after, they parted ways. I was sad to read that; Harris has little to say about it.
The book ends on a positive note, elaborating on his own personal growth, with regard to race and other life issues. The “turmoil of 2020” looms large, with a scathing string of words to describe the first Trump administration. Which Harris saw us rising past. But his book was finished before the 2024 election, giving us a far bleaker encore. I too had once optimistically seen America rising past historical iniquity. But we’ve gone off course.
The Rational Pessimist 
