By Rhea K. Farberman
Monitor Executive Editor

When psychologist Terrence Roberts was born in 1941, his name and those of his parents appeared in the city?s daily paper, as was the custom in Little Rock, Ark.

White babies and their parents? names (?Mr. and Mrs??) were always listed at the top of the page; black newborns and their parents?minus the sir titles?appeared at the bottom.

This was the America Terrence Roberts, PhD, was born into?an America that, according to Roberts, still very much exists today.

Fifteen years later, Roberts was one of nine black students who integrated Little Rock?s Central High School. While some of the nation cheered and others looked on in horror, the Little Rock Nine (as Roberts and his eight black classmates came to be known) withstood a daily barrage of insults, harassment and physical danger.

This past fall marked the 40th anniversary of the struggle to desegregate Central High School. In September Roberts, now a psychologist in private practice in Pasadena, Calif., joined many of his classmates, both black and white, in attending an anniversary event at Central hosted by President Clinton, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Little Rock Mayor Jim Dailey.

The event?although criticized by some as declaring victory over racism though racial prejudice is still very much a part of American life?was important to Roberts because of the new symbols it created.

?This country utilizes symbolism to a great degree,? says Roberts, ?and we needed a new symbol from the South. We have symbols of George Wallace in Alabama, Maddox in Georgia and Barnett in Mississippi standing in the doorways blocking the entrance. Now we?ve got the new president, the governor and the mayor opening the door. In and of itself it?s meaningless, but as a symbol it?s very important.?

But Roberts is quick to add that symbols aren?t enough, and that it is every American?s responsibility to confront racism at its roots by learning about each other and challenging stereotypes.

?Many people in this country experience racism every single day of their lives,? he said. ?Many people never experience racism. But, until all people become equally concerned about it, it?s not going to go away.?

Harsh preparation

Roberts? choice to be one of the students who would integrate Central was his own, although he points to the unwavering support of his parents and the skills he learned growing up black in the South as two factors that saw him through the experience.

Roberts understood, even at an early age, that any discussion of race and race relations is visceral rather than cognitive. That understanding is what allowed him to shoulder a part of the burden of a nation?s struggle with desegregation 40 years ago.

As a youngster, well before Central High was integrated, Roberts began to observe the irrationality of segregation.

?When I would go downtown and there would be white porcelain drinking foundations on one side of a support pillar and a black porcelain drinking foundation on the other side, I could see the economic disadvantage. It made no sense, the water came up through the same pipe,? he says.

It was the irrationality and the daily humiliations of the Jim Crow South that made the decision to be one of the pioneers at Central High School easier for Roberts.

?There were a couple of times in my life that I literally had to run for my life,? Roberts states. ?That kind of thing helps you grow up really quickly. It also helped me make the decision to go to Central. There was no way I was going to back away from an opportunity to change this situation. The alternative was too frightening.?

He says he often felt despondent while at Central because he couldn?t at that time see any change happening. He relied on his maturity and survival instincts to continue to enter the school building each morning, he says.

?I would use this global concept where I would look to see what was there, try to make sense out of it and then chart a course through it that kept me safe and healthy as much as possible.?

When Roberts and his family left Little Rock for Los Angeles in 1958, he found California to be no less racist than Arkansas. He found that at Los Angeles High School, the student body segregated itself. ?Every place to me is the same,? he says. ?It?s just a matter of knowing how to cope with whatever variation [of racism] you are going to run into.

?For centuries there have been these belief systems that there is a racial hierarchy and that there is such a thing as white supremacy. That?s imbedded in the bone marrow. That doesn?t change if you cross a state boundary.?

Is America a less racist country today than it was 40 years ago? ?Yes,? but ?not nearly enough,? says Roberts. ?There is a passive belief in equality. I think there needs to be an active belief in equality. People need to do things and say things and make noises and really agitate always for equality of opportunity. Not enough of that is going on.?

On the question of affirmative action, Roberts isn?t greatly concerned about his home state?s moves away from such programs because he sees them as ?Band-aids? attempting to cover a much larger problem.

?I?ve been super concerned all along because we?ve never really focused on the main problem,? he says. ?What will really open up the pipeline [of minority students] is for us as a nation to confront racism head-on, no holds barred.?

Roberts says he understands that our society uses race as a convenient, safe way to categorize people and that people become frightened when they?re asked to strip away those divisions.

Powerful messages

Roberts has two immediately obvious passions, both involving messages he wants to spread. One is the power of learning; the other is the eradication of racism in this country.

In a class on race that Roberts team teaches at Antioch University in Los Angeles, he asks his students to embark on a road of self- and mutual discovery. ?You can boil this discussion about race down to two questions: Who are you and who am I?? he says.

Although his ultimate goal in the Antioch class is to help his students prepare to be better clinicians, Roberts? short-term objective is to have his students ?think about what they think about.?

?The class is really quite experiential,? he says. One class assignment is for students to interview someone different than themselves about their work. The goal of the assignment, according to Roberts, ?is to have the student focus on his or her preconceptions.?

He asks students to write about what they learned and how what they learned compared with what they thought they would learn.

Roberts well understands the irony in society?s habit of grouping whole peoples together (all blacks, all Asians, all Jews) and then making individual exceptions of people who don?t fit the mold. ?I don?t see you as a black person,? Roberts is often told. ?That?s shorthand,? he explains, ?for, ?You?re not like all those other folks that I see so very negatively.??

Roberts calls upon parents to create multicultural environments for their children; in the people they know and socialize with, in the books they bring into the home and so on.

But if cognitive discussion doesn?t work to divorce people from their racist beliefs, how can we solve racism in this country? Roberts thinks he may have a partial model in his Antioch class.