Today, Ken is a 38-year-old P&G executive. He has been there 13 years. I've known him the last five. I met him in person for the first time Wednesday.

        Before that, we'd talked on the phone. He called once about something I'd written. I saved his number. Since then, every time I write something racially sensitive, I try to run it past Ken, for perspective I might be missing.

        I've asked for miles in Ken's shoes. He has provided them. I've learned from him. I'm better for it. Isn't that how it should work?

        I'm no saint for having met Ken on Wednesday. He's no savior for taking the time. We're just two guys, trying to figure things out.

        I didn't want to talk to Ken Wilson about race relations in Cincinnati. I needed to talk to him.

        We had lunch.

        Anger is an exhausting emotion and right now, Cincinnati is worn out. Usually when it comes to race, we hear but don't listen. Now, we don't even hear.

        We stand on opposite sides of the fence, screaming. Being right is more important than being righteous.

        As Mr. Wilson put it, “It's like we're looking at the same TV screen, and I'm seeing a football game and you're seeing a John Wayne movie.” Blacks and whites don't listen to each other, Mr. Wilson said, so how can we ever have a conversation?

        I certainly don't know what to say to black people now. I don't know how to act. I'm guessing blacks feel the same around me.

        It's awkward, confusing, uneasy. It's like being on an endless elevator ride with a total stranger.

        “We need to get to a greater intimacy,” Ken Wilson said, “as opposed to this polite tolerance and co-existence.”

        We need to talk, as equals, with respect.

        Mr. Wilson asks for “a higher level of accountabilty in the black community.” Shortly after the April riots in Cincinnati, Mr. Wilson met with a group of young black men, who vented to him their frustrations about the police.

        Mr. Wilson asked them, “Suppose we hired a black police chief and an all-black police force? What would that mean to the problems in the black community?”

        Mr. Wilson says whites need a clearer understanding of history, one not so wedded to the notion that all men are created equal. Because all men aren't, and never have been.

        His father could not go to college. Clarence Wilson could have been an architect, but there was nowhere he could be trained. His lack of opportunity affected his life, which in turn affected Ken's life. “My kids are the first generation who can truly be and do what they want, no limits,” Mr. Wilson said.

        “If you were born 40 years ago to a single, crack-addicted mother,” Mr. Wilson said to me, “you probably wouldn't be a sportswriter now. That goes against the American grain of up-from-the-bootstraps. But it's true.”

        We went on like this for an hour, comparing verbal notes on the American Dream. Trying to listen instead of hear, hoping to soften our minds with ideas from across the fence.

        “To blacks, I would say, "We're not victims. We can achieve. We don't have to wait on the goodness of white people to let us up off the mat,' ” said Mr. Wilson. “To whites: "You have privileges based on your race. I have to deal with things that you don't.'

        “Collectively, we need to listen to each other. Listen and understand. As uncomfortable as we are talking about it, everybody cares. I really believe that.

        “Things can change. I've seen it happen. I know it can happen. One person at a time.”

        We hoped on that awhile. Then we agreed to more lunches. Souls, we figured, can always use a good meal.

       Contact Paul Daugherty by phone: 768-8454; fax: 768-8330; e-mail: pdaugherty@enquirer.com.

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