Diversity Diaries: Joe Grimm

By Joe Grimm
Recruiting and development editor, Detroit Free Press

07.18.01

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As a newspaper editor and history buff, I was invited to participate on a panel billed as one about whether the framers of the Constitution were righteous racists or pragmatists. When I arrived, I found that, with the exception of another panelist, I was the only white person there. Everyone else was black. Someone heartily greeted me as "Jerry." "How odd," I thought. "Jerry is a short, skinny guy with curly hair, and I am none of those things. How could they?" And then it hit me. Although Jerry and I did not look anything alike, our skin color made it seem so. I realized that I was getting a tiny glimpse of what it is like when African-American or Asian-American people get called by each other's names. Of course, it happened to me just this one time.

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