Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, he boarded a plane in Dallas alongside a Texan in cowboy boots who he suspects wouldn't have paid him any notice at another time. Instead, "He said, 'It's you and me, partner. If something happens, you and me make a move for the door.' "
That solidarity faded, though. Maybe this time, a new expansion in perspective will be permanent. Or maybe it will just be a temporary, feel-good moment: "People felt bad and this makes them feel better."
Almost every African American man has an anecdote, if not a dozen, about the insults they've endured merely because they are black.
Don Sanders, 55, an orthopedic surgeon who practices in the South Bay, has experienced the sting of being black in America. In Las Vegas, when he attends medical conferences, he often can't hail a cab.
"They probably wouldn't pick up Barack Obama," he said.
And he had plenty of encounters with the police when he was younger.
"I couldn't count the number of times I was stopped in my 20s while I was at UCLA," he said.
During the years in which he earned undergraduate, master's and medical degrees at the Westwood campus, "I was arrested, taken to jail, put in jail overnight, accused of participating in a burglary. My favorite was being stopped for being black in Westwood. I said, 'What am I being stopped for?'. . . . He said, 'Well, you know most of the crime in Westwood is being committed by young black men just like you.' "
Black men in the rarefied high ranks of business are accustomed to being, well, not perceived at all. When Broadway Federal Bank President and Chief Executive Paul Hudson attends a meeting of banking chiefs, there are maybe two African Americans in the room.
"I'm really not acknowledged," he said. "It's almost like I'm invisible." It's not entirely the fault of his white colleagues, he says. "I still don't feel comfortable in white environments."
Some black men worry that discomfort could even increase as an Obama presidency fosters the perception among some whites that racism no longer exists, dispelled magically Nov. 4.
Warner Brothers executive Chaz Fitzhugh, 53, who is black, earned undergraduate and MBA degrees from Harvard and has always counted conservative and liberal whites among his friends.
"The message I've heard from my conservative friends loud and clear is, 'OK, you guys got what you want, so stop your whining,' " said Fitzhugh, who managed a good-natured chuckle even though he admitted the comments annoy him a bit.
