The Man in the Crowd

Isabel Wilkerson’s book, Caste, begins with Wilkerson’s description of a moment captured in black and white, a snapshot from the Third Reich era called The Man in the Crowd.

“It is a picture taken in Hamburg, Germany, in 1936, of shipyard workers, a hundred or more, facing the same direction in the light of the sun. They are heiling in unison, their right arms rigid in outstretched allegiance to the Fuhrer. If you look closely, you can see a man in the upper right who is different from others…He keeps his arms folded to his chest, as the stiff palms of the others hover just inches from him. He alone is refusing to salute. He is the one man standing against the tide. Looking back from our vantage point, he is the only person in the entire scene who is on the right side of history.”
– The Man in the Crowd, page xv, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

It is of enormous importance that our children look back on our lives and believe their parents stood on the right side of history. Therefore, it would be easy to make this post one of pride, knowing that I have spent a painful year unraveling blind spots and personal contributions to racism (work that will be ongoing for me).

Nevertheless, as a White American woman, my stance has been easy to take. My rights protect me even when people detest me. It may hurt when a friend or commenter turns on me, but it is merely a personal matter; it does not risk my life. Moreover, when I need a break, my Whiteness allows me to walk around in society and turn it all off. I am honest about that because it is an essential distinction between myself and my Black friends doing this work. I have helplessly watched them suffer these past months. I have also watched in awe as they move ever forward.

However, pictures like The Man in the Crowd create a distressing peek into what might have been, had I lived during harsher times. Such stories invite questions about my character and lead me down a rabbit hole, and suddenly I am spending the worst moments I have ever spent while alone in my head.

Furthermore, all those thoughts revolve around this one question: Whom would I have been in history?

Would I have hidden a Jewish family at the peril of my husband and children, knowing what would happen if we were found out, or would the need for my children to remember me standing on the right side of history have slipped away with ease? Would I have left my Jewish friends alone, desperate, and sure to perish? Out of fear, would I have pledged my loyalty to a controlling man and an army who killed innocent humans en masse?

I want so badly to believe that I would have been a rare voice against slavery. Unfortunately, I think the most I could hope for myself was that I would have been the kind of person who treated enslaved workers well. Isn’t that enough to cause your soul unrest, though? There is no treating an enslaved person well. The only kindness would have been fighting for their freedom or helping them run. Would I have lived on a plantation, wearing expensive clothes and living a life of wealth and affluence built on the backs of the enslaved? Would I have married someone who could be violent and cruel to slaves and stood by when he was? I have read that the wives could be much harder on slaves, probably reveling in exerting power in a man-led society.

Here is what those moments ultimately cause me to consider, and now I would like to challenge you to ponder.

Suppose you and I were capable of being White people who took every advantage of slavery or Germans who wanted only to stay out of harm’s way during the Holocaust while allowing innocent children, women, and men to be violently murdered. If we could be those people then, in that case, I ask you—what blind spots could we possibly have right now?

What are we enjoying while turning a blind eye? What will someone in the future see when they reflect upon our time in history? What will fill them with disgust and contempt, followed by the question…God help me, would that have been me?

Please take some time to talk with a safe group of friends about who you all might have been in history. And consider the things that you have the power to speak against now, with all your current-day freedoms.