Robert G. Kaiser's essay: "Same Place, Different Frenzy"

Robert G. Kaiser’s essay, “Same Place, Different Frenzy,” looks back in 1986 on his Washington childhood in the 1940’s. He reflects on how Washington has changed, especially the social changes, since his childhood. Kaiser states that “The Washington I grew up in was for whites only. It was a southern town in the era of American apartheid--populated with lots of black people, of course, but they seemed to know ‘their place.’" Although Kaiser’s first memory is of the sounds and sights of people riding a roller coaster at Glen Echo Amusement Park, this memory doesn’t include a fact we learn later--that Glen Echo, which he considered “a neighborhood amenity,” excluded blacks. So his experiences concerned only whites on the roller coaster, but he took this for granted at the time.

Since the 1940’s, Washington like other American cities has experienced some integration, but the author finds that “The Washington I live in today is still divided along racial lines.” What he does find comforting is “that your skin color no longer dictates how rude you can be.” He is referring to a friend’s statement that he realized the racial situation in Washington had changed by 1966 when a young black cut in front of him in line without apologizing; “he acted just like any rude white man.”

When I first read this, I couldn’t understand why Kaiser would approve of anyone’s rudeness. The idea that blacks should “know their place,” fortunately no longer acceptable, implies that “their place” is inferior. They should know that they don’t belong in white parts of Washington and shouldn’t hold white jobs. They, like servants, should be more polite than whites. The good news of the young black’s rudeness is that it suggests he doesn’t accept that his place is to be inferior. That may be one reason why, as Kaiser states, the Washington city government that was “almost totally white” in the late 1960’s, “is now run at least as well by blacks.”