Opinion |

Thinking about race relations, with ‘Trouble in Mind’

The play “Trouble in Mind” opened recently at The Old Globe theater, and it’s got me wondering how far we’ve come as a nation — and where we are headed — when it comes to matters of race.

You see, “Trouble in Mind” was written nearly 70 years ago. It tells the story of Wiletta Mayer, a veteran Black actress, who’s rehearsing an anti-lynching play set in the South. Mayer is tired of the stereotypical, demeaning roles for Black women, but mainstream jobs are few. She clashes with the White director; he tells Mayer that the American public isn’t ready to see her the way she wants to be seen. “They don’t believe it and they don’t want to,” he says.

“Trouble in Mind” was written by Alice Childress. While it was optioned for Broadway, it never opened there during her lifetime. The show’s White producers wanted Childress to tone down the dialogue and give the play a happier ending. She refused.

Childress died in 1994, her play long forgotten. It finally had its Broadway debut last fall. And now, San Diego audiences get to see “Trouble in Mind” exactly as Childress wrote it. Chalk one up for progress.

It’s hard to assess how far we have (or haven’t) come, race-wise, without talking about affirmative action. Someone once described it as “the eternal bone in the national throat.” Broadly speaking, affirmative action policies seek, affirmatively, to achieve racial and gender balance in workplaces and educational institutions.

The Supreme Court is on the precipice of eliminating affirmative action, at least when it comes to higher education. I’m not sure we’re ready.

Just last month, the court decided it will hear two affirmative action cases challenging the use of race as an admissions factor at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. The suits were filed on the same day in 2014 by Students for Fair Admissions, a conservative activist group; they claimed admissions practices at the two schools discriminated against Asian Americans. The group’s founder has said their aim is to eliminate affirmative action altogether.

If you’re thinking this tune sounds familiar, you’re right. Since colleges and universities first implemented affirmative action in the 1960s, there have been five challenges that found their way to our highest court. In each case, the constitutionality of affirmative action has been narrowly upheld, allowing schools to consider race as part of a broader plan to achieve diversity.

What’s changed, of course, is the composition of the court. Today, six of the nine justices are conservatives; three of them voted against affirmative action in 2016, when the court last heard an affirmative action case.

Americans, overall, aren’t fans of affirmative action either, when it comes to making decisions about student admissions to colleges and universities. In a 2019 Pew Research Center survey, 73 percent of Americans said race and ethnicity should not be considered. While White adults were particularly likely to hold this view (78 percent), so did a majority of the Hispanic, Black and Asian Americans polled.

Even still, most Americans agree with the goals of affirmative action. It’s the means of achieving them that still tie us in knots.

And so, it was easy enough to predict the outcry when President Joe Biden announced that he would nominate a Black female to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer — the first such nomination. To some, it sounded like an affirmative action play that checked two boxes: race and gender.

Biden categorically stated his intent during the presidential campaign. No wonder he’s following through: Biden was elected in part because of support from Black women, even when he wasn’t the Democratic frontrunner. NYU law professor Melissa Murray (who is Black) noted that the court’s docket will include matters like reproductive and gun rights that affect the Black community — and Black women — in profound ways.

Naysayers can take solace in knowing that Biden has a large and deep pool of talent from which to choose his nominee. They might also recall that President Ronald Reagan and President Donald Trump made affirmative action picks, each nominating a woman (Sandra Day O’Connor and Amy Coney Barrett, respectively) to serve on the high court. Both women were swiftly approved.

Biden’s forthcoming nomination of a Black woman should be a cause for celebration, not consternation. It’s another sign of progress.

Alice Childress would be thrilled.

“Trouble in Mind” runs through March 13 at The Old Globe. On Feb. 26, the National Conflict Resolution Center will host a free, pre-show panel discussion —”Race Relations: How Our Past Informs the Future.” For information and tickets, visit ncrconline.com.

Dinkin is president of the National Conflict Resolution Center, a San Diego-based group working to create solutions to challenging issues, including intolerance and incivility. To learn about NCRC’s programming, visit ncrconline.com.