Maybe it's just a Southern thing. When a young black person gets in trouble and there's a concerned, non-family member white person who feels compelled to jump into the fray and protect the young black person. In the instance I'm thinking about, I heard from a client's church youth group leader, Ms. Dupree, last week. Great name for the white lady with the thick as peanut butter southern accent. Eudora Welty could have written her dialogue.
So Ms. Dupree called me to talk to me about her protege. I called her back and she said she had the client's mother on the other line. "Ah told her, no offense, but [Client X] is just dumb." She talked about my client and his family. "Theyah good people. Not church people, but theyah workin' people." Oh, my. Ms. Dupree's hierarchy: 1. God; 2. Church People; 3. Working People; 4. No Account People; 5. Trash.
She talked about taking my client to church with her. "He'd just call an' beg me to take him to church." A teen-aged boy begging to go to church with a white woman? I'm thinking a buffet lunch after church was involved. Or a ride to and from church in a really nice car.
Ms. Dupree related my client's phone call from jail (unclear if he called her or his parents) in which he detailed the events that resulted in his arrest. (As an aside, I love it when clients tell their whole story on the jailhouse phone. You know, the phone that tells you before you even get connected to the other party that your call is being recorded? Recorded for use in court against you by the District Attorney's office? So, no offense, but maybe Ms. Dupree was right about my client's mental ability.) Ms. Dupree related that my client tearfully told his parents that "he went with the othuh boys to buy, and I quote, 'weed'." I'm trying to listen to what she's saying, but I also thought: remember this, don't forget her phrasing, this is awesome. I also wished for the phone system we had when I worked in the PD's office in Tifton. Those phones had a record button and you could record any phone conversation allowing one to replay it, if one were so callous, to entertain co-workers with the crazy stuff people said to their or their family member's lawyer.
Without the record button on my phone, I had to go from office to office doing my impression of Ms. Dupree for my co-workers. I doubt I did her justice (pun intended).
We'll leave for another day an analysis of why I think it is okay to mock and ridicule people like Ms. Dupree. Today I want to think about the noblesse oblige angle of Ms. Dupree. Her phone call and conversation with me assumes that my client's mother and father are not capable of communicating with their son's lawyer or that they are ignorant of the need to do so. It is the manifestation of an antebellum mentality that a white person needs to step in and make sure this "good boy" is taken care of or he'll be ground into dust by the system. Her tone with me indicates that she thinks of us as a team, that I am complicit in her mission to take care of this "good boy". That he is not capable of taking care of himself and that his family is not capable of taking care of him. That we, as white people, have invented the system so we must guide other races through it because they cannot possibly navigate it on their own.
In these situations I do not, but I wonder whether I should, point out to the Ms. Duprees of the world how insulting their meddling behavior is. Is that my responsibility? I worry that by not pointing this out I am somehow complicit in what the Ms. Duprees are doing. Silence = Assent at some level, right? I believe Ms. Duprees mean well, but do their good intentions inoculate them against outrage at their paternalistic (or is it maternalistic?) and racist world view?
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