“We need a national conversation about race,” several pundits said last fall after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. They said so again after the 50th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery march last month, and again after the slaying of a black man by a white police officer in South Carolina two weeks ago.

I don’t think so. We’ve been having a national conversation about race for the better part of a century, in film, over the airwaves, and on newspaper op-ed pages. There have been some encouraging changes, but many things have stayed the same and some things have gotten worse.

We need more than a national conversation---we need millions of one-on-one conversations in coffee shops, union halls, churches, offices, college dorms, locker rooms, and living rooms. Whites and blacks (and native Americans, Latinos, Asians, and others of us) see each other every day and talk about sports, weather, movies, work, and current events---so long as the current events don’t pertain to race.

I have worked alongside black people on a factory assembly line, at a car dealership, in a supermarket, and in two newspaper offices. Never once do I recall our discussing race relations.

For ten years in the 1990s, I was pastor of a church in Baldwin County. We had one black family among our members, but we never talked about race. At ecumenical gatherings, I occasionally sat on a podium with black pastors, but race was not discussed.

Following the news of Michael Brown’s killing, Carl Jones, a black software engineer in New York City, told his white colleagues in their break room that he felt outraged and asked, “How could this happen?”

One colleague replied, “How do you know the shooting wasn’t justified?” The conversation ended right there. Others in the room averted their eyes and finished their break in silence before returning to work.

Starbucks made an aborted effort last month to encourage one-on-one conversations on race. Baristas in their stores were instructed to write the words “Race together” on customers’ coffee cups.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said this was intended to be “the catalyst for a much broader and longer-term conversation,” but retracted his directive on March 22 after being mercilessly lampooned on social media. Another Starbucks executive deleted his Twitter account because he felt “personally attacked in a cascade of negativity.”

I agree that writing “Race together” on coffee cups and expecting it to produce deep discussions of race relations over lattes sounds almost comical. But the vehemence of the reaction was unexpected.

One of my best friends in college was a black student named John. He hung out with members of my fraternity but was not a member (blacks were ineligible for membership, a policy I wish I had challenged but didn’t).

Our dining hall conversations often included overtly racist jokes. John laughed with the rest of us, as if he found these jokes hilarious.

One day it occurred to me that John’s laughter might be feigned. So I pulled him aside and said, “John, you laugh as hard as anyone at jokes about black people. But I’m thinking maybe you don’t really find them funny. I wouldn’t like those jokes if they were told about white people. I guess I understand why you, being a minority of one in our group, don’t say anything about it, but I could say something. Or if you’d rather, I’ll just stop laughing at those jokes.”

“Thank you, Dick,” John said. “Don’t say anything to the guys, but I’d like it if you didn’t laugh at the jokes.” From then on, I remained stone-faced when a racist joke was told.

That was 50 years ago and it’s the only significant conversation on race I’ve ever had with a member of another race. Most people would probably share the information on their Form 1040s or tell what they do in the bedroom before discussing race relations with someone of a different race.

Why don’t these conversations take place? Events with racial overtones are in the news daily, but we discuss them, if at all, only with our own kind. Why? What are we afraid of?

Richard H. Schmidt is a retired Episcopal priest, editor and author who lives in Fairhope. He can be reached at courier@gulfcoastnewspapers.com.