Kay Madson, I hope somewhere out there you see this.

Dr. Kay Madson is a wonderful university administrator who, at the time I knew her, was the Assistant to the President at Concordia College (St. Paul, MN). In 1993-94, I was employed as a Lecturer at Concordia College and combined this with some English as a Second Language (ESL) work as a consultant for St. Paul Technical College. Not only was she a great academician who made my work at Concordia possible, but she also was able to obtain (through her husband) some affordable temporary housing for me which contributed a lot toward my overall positive memories of my stay in Minnesota.

I remember one cold winter's day (they were all cold) in St. Paul when my stay at Concordia was coming to an end. My plans were laid out to leave before the spring tri-mester and I was in Kay's office wrapping things up. We talked about a number of things and, as my area of expertise was "race" relations, our talk drifted over to the subject of "race" and, ultimately, to the subject of African Americans in general.

Kay, a senstitive woman deeply concerned with the plight of African Americans, asked me if there was "any hope" for the future in the African American picture. I was about to give her an answer -- as best I could -- but suddenly replied to Kay:

"I don't know about the future...but I know what could have happened." Kay said, "What could have happened? What do you mean, Javier?" "Well," I said, "when the U.S. Civil War ended, the United States was, officially, at least, committed to a policy of Reconstruction. Suppose, Kay, that anti-black-ancestry prejudice could have been suspended for a window of only forty years or so, when the South had a population of West Africans and Northern Europeans (many of whom were Scotch-Irish) who were (aside from some rich planters and other elite groups) humble, poor and tied to an agrarian economy. Without anti-black-ancestry prejudice, both the Northern European and West African farmers, both posessing rural roots and mores, would have eventually intermixed and started to produce mixed-"race" populations. As you know, most of the large European immigration which occurred from 1880-1920 affected the Northern, industrial states. By the time we were well into the 20th Century, the North, its population bolstered by additional people from Europe, would have been overwhelmingly European and the South would have possessed large numbers of mixed race individuals. In fact, by now, if this had occurred, a typical Southerner would probably be a person of deep olive or brown complexion marked by a drawl."

As Kay was a blue-eyed blond of Norwegian ancestry (like many of the faculty at Concordia, a Lutheran college), she could not help but give a chuckle, "Brown-skinned with a drawl, huh?" "Yep," I replied. "We would have had a different system of 'race' relations entirely and the question you originally asked me may have had a different form."

I have never forgotten either Kay Madson or our conversation that day.

"Race" relations are not set into stone. There is no "race"-ray which automatically prohibits a "white" person from finding a "black" person attractive. Or vice versa. There is no natural inclination for a person to state that, being of both European and African ancestry, he or she has to choose one or the other.

We all know (and Kay Madson full-well knew) that Reconstruction did not last in the South. "Whites" and "blacks" of the lower classes never really got together in the South. Instead, encouraged by ruling interests, lower class "whites" set out to distance themselves from "blacks" as much as possible. This occurred for almost 100 years. But it could have been different. Reconstruction could have taken hold. Historians have noted that the potential was there.

Like 1865-1877 we are at a crossroads also. I have written in editorials and letters in the past that I believe that an era of greater "racial" flexibility and openness awaits us. Demographic trends point to that. However, if North Americans insist on keeping around hypodescent, insist on using zero-sum terms such as "black" and "white", and insist on socially organizing themselves around Stone-Age "racially" prejudicial thinking, the trends I foresee will take much longer to develop -- and additional people will continue to have to put up with "race" as a significant (and damaging) part of their lives.

William Javier Nelson, Ph.D.

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