Ex Concessis

Evenings have been beautiful lately, so I’ve been riding my bike at dusk when the temperature is dropping quickly and there aren’t many people out and about. Earlier this week I coasted onto my street to find my neighbors, a married couple, out walking.

I see them often, walking down to our community mailboxes every day to get their mail, chatting amiably with each other, always holding hands. She had hip replacement surgery a while back, and he told me at the time how hard it was for him to be separated from her while she was hospitalized. They were cordial to me three years ago when I moved in, showing me their home (same model as mine) and welcoming me.

When I saw them the other night, they were just heading out, and I was returning home. I was masked. They were not. I stopped about ten feet from them and said hello.

“Kay? Is that you? We don’t recognize people with their masks on.”

“Yep, it’s Kay. How are you two tonight?”

We chatted about the gorgeous sunset, the weather, then the virus. They said they’d be going on vacation in July, flying to Minnesota to visit family.

“We ordered face shields off the internet,” he said. “I hope Southwest lets us wear them.”

I commented that the face shields would be a great extra precaution, but He explained that they wanted to wear them instead of masks. Because masks are “uncomfortable,” and they didn’t want to wear them for the entire six-hour flight.

“So we’re hoping Southwest will allow it,” he went on. “I talked to my son about it today, and he said, Well, if they insist on you wearing the masks, just tell them ‘I can’t breathe.’”

He laughed.

She laughed.

…

…

…

“I’ll let you two get on with your walk,” I said. I pulled my bike up onto the porch and slipped quietly into the house.

This is what I want to stop doing.

Because, make no mistake, my dear white friends, when we are faced with racial discrimination on any level and we choose to say nothing, we are complicit.

When we say nothing, we are complicit.

Many of my white friends are earnestly, sincerely, genuinely wanting to “do things differently,” wanting to “be an ally,” and I am deeply grateful for that. If that’s you, then okay, here’s the deal:

Let’s agree to stop being complicit.

As the privileged majority in this country, this is what we know: That white folks will say things to other white folks with this assumption: ‘We all agree on this, right?’

No. No, we certainly do not.

Look, I’m not trying to say my sweet neighbors are racists. I am saying that, at the very least, his remark—which mocks a dying man’s last words—was racially insensitive, and my point is, I should have said something. Not to be confrontational or combative or an angry ass about it, but just to gently make them aware that making a joke out of a man’s tragic death says something about them and that something is not flattering.

In my younger years, I was angry and abrasive all the time, and I had zero tolerance for racist chatter. Back then, I thought nothing of getting in someone’s face and expressing exactly what I thought. But I’ve softened in my older years as I try harder to be a kinder, gentler version of my early self. And that has caused me to silence myself in situations such as the one described above.

I don’t want to do that anymore. My friends, we can’t do that anymore. Giving others a free pass to mock or demean persons of color makes us complicit in their racism. Those who do so have been emboldened by our silence—because we didn’t want to make a conversation tense or awkward or uncomfortable.

Let’s not allow those folks to be comfortable anymore. We do not all have to carry signs and march in protest (although if you’ve never done it, I highly recommend it, as it is an excellent curative for the soul, to say nothing of its power to spark a fire). Our voices have power. The more we speak up and speak out, the more uncomfortable certain folks will become. Maybe it won’t change them, but it will certainly put them on notice that such talk will be tolerated no longer.

The Voices in My Head

“Please help me.

“Please… I can’t breathe, sir.”

“… Mama….”

(The final words of George Floyd.)

“Black lives matter.”

“All lives matter.”

“Then Jesus told them this parable: ‘Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety and nine and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?’ We are the ‘ninety and nine,’ and we must focus on the black community right now until they are safe. That doesn’t mean other lives don’t matter. It means black lives matter, too.”

(From a friend’s Facebook post. I have paraphrased somewhat. Thank you, Donna.)

“I pray that you might be shielded from the ignorance and stupidity of racists. And they are racist idiots as well. When a person tries to make every single issue about race they reveal their true nature. Sorry these folks are allowed to breed.”

(From a comment to a Facebook post. The man who wrote this was not addressing me, he was addressing his pastor, who had posted the notion that the family of George Floyd should not be allowed a large funeral, since churches in California are not being allowed to hold large funerals. The man who wrote this ‘prayer’ for his pastor is white. He was referencing me as the ‘racist idiot’ who should not be ‘allowed to breed.’ Oh, and, he thought I was black. So maybe go back and read his ‘prayer’ again and imagine you are reading it as a black woman, knowing that it is targeting you.)

“Burn. it. all. down.”

(In a text from someone I love dearly.)

“But why? Why are they marching? I don’t get it. George Floyd didn’t do anything. Except die. Accidently. He’s not a hero.”

(In a phone call with someone else I love dearly.)

“But I’ve seen black people at my job. I’ve seen black men in business suits. Do you really think they are oppressed?”

(My neighbor, in a conversation in my driveway. I responded with a few anecdotes about my sons being pulled over for Driving While Black. He replied with the following.)

“Your son, the one that comes to visit you here? I’ve met him. He seems like a nice young man.”

(There is profound but very subtle subtext here that black people will recognize right away but may be more difficult for some white people to pick up on. Maybe you’d have to hear my neighbor’s tone to catch it, but let me clarify what he is actually saying: ‘Wow, that’s outrageous that the cops would do that’ [given that your son is a nice young man]. If I had told him that my son was wearing a hoodie and sitting in his car at night, listening to rap music, and he was confronted by police and handcuffed with no probable cause (which is what actually happened), he would not have found it so outrageous. Because there is this history of black people—including my sons—being told they “fit the description…” and white people saying or thinking things like, ‘If you don’t want to be taken for a thug, don’t act/dress/behave like one.’

“The presence of the confederate flag at NASCAR events runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all fans, our competitors and our industry…The display of the confederate flag will be prohibited from all NASCAR events and properties.”

(From the official NASCAR Twitter account.)

“But I bet people can fly their rainbow flags all day.”

(A tweet in reply to the NASCAR announcement. Well, it is Pride month, after all.)

“NASCAR is a sport born in the south if you ban my flag you are stepping on my second Amendment right you also will never make another dime from me I will call all of the products I Buy and tell them Ian will no longer buy their products because of this you can kiss my southern ass”

(A tweet [copied verbatim] in reply to NASCAR—by a guy named George. I don’t know who Ian is. Also not sure how the right to bear arms got caught up in this—unless this guy is arming himself with a confederate flag. I want to say there were more articulate responses than this one in opposition to NASCAR. I want to say that. I did not find any, but then again, I did not read all of the 11.6 thousand tweets in response.)

“This is AMAZING! As a southerner with ancestors who fought for the confederacy, I think that stupid flag belongs in a history book/museum, not being waved around or hung in public as a sign of “pride.” Everyone KNOWS it’s a racist symbol at this point. Good job, @NASCAR!”

(Another tweet in reply to NASCAR’s announcement. There were many, many more like it. I had intended to include some of the more severely racist (you don’t really want to know anyway) tweets in response to NASCAR’s announcement, but with a new feature, Twitter users can “hide” replies. Which, in this case, is a really good thing, and someone whose job it is to hide them is working overtime at the NASCAR social media office right now.)

“Where is the outrage?”

(My friend Kelli posted this on her Facebook page in the first days after George Floyd was killed. This is not the first time she has felt like the lone voice crying out for justice for the black community in the wilderness of social media.)

“This is why I’m not on social media/Facebook.”

“I saw his racist comment but I choose not to engage with people like that.”

“I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything. I’m afraid of offending someone.”

“I’ll just be happy when all this is over and we can get back to normal.”

(These are remarks made to me by dear friends—all of them white—in recent weeks. I’ll be happy when “this” is “over,” too—and I pray that comes within the lifetime of my children. Also: I interpret “normal” as “status quo.”)

“You have to be willing to make mistakes. You have to be willing to put your foot in your mouth. Lord knows I put my foot in my mouth enough times when I first became involved in social activism, but that’s how we learn, from our mistakes, and we become better at articulating our message to others.”

(From a really cool gentleman giving an interview on NPR, and I’m sorry I didn’t catch his name but I was driving and listening and crying and hoping. But if somebody else heard it and knows who he is, let me know so I can credit him.)

“white people. do something.”

(On a sign created by Temple University’s Tyler School of Art graduate student Kara Springer. Her work was photographed and published widely online in the days following the death of George Floyd—and she has endured repeated ugly racist comments regarding it. Sigh….)

“We need a break in the action, Kay.”

(My favorite neighbor, after I remarked to him, “Things seem a bit calmer today.” My first response when he said this was to agree. I was worn out and worn down and had been doing my utmost to guide my own race toward love, acceptance and mutual understanding for weeks. But no. A break is exactly what we don’t need right now. We need momentum, and we need it to keep building. Please, for the love of all that is sacred in this “land of the free,” please, I beg of you, my white friends, do not allow us to return to status quo, to “get back to normal.” Because our normal is not everyone’s normal. Please do not turn away this time and return to the life you enjoy without first doing all you can to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to enjoy that same level of safety, security and happiness.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

(Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Thank you, Jennette, for reminding me of the beauty of his words.)

Black Lives Matter

(Written in black marker on white paper and taped in a window in my senior community. There are 554 occupied homes here and close to a thousand residents. It is the only sign in the entire community in support of Black Lives Matter.)

Understanding Amy

Unless you’ve been living on Mars in recent days, you’re no doubt aware of the altercation that took place last week in New York’s Central Park between a white woman, Amy Cooper, and a black man, Christian Cooper. (They are “not related”—that we know of. Wouldn’t it be something if their DNA showed a connection?)

This post is not about that altercation, essentially; it is about my post on Facebook about that altercation. Because I need to clarify (or justify, if you would have it so) something I said about that.

But to summarize (and forgive me for the lack of journalistic form as I use their first rather than last names for obvious reasons): While Christian was bird-watching in a section of the park called “the Ramblings,” where dogs are not allowed off leash, he noticed Amy’s dog diving into the foliage and whatnot (as dogs will do). When he asked her to leash her dog, she refused, so he began to record their interaction on his phone, at which point she demanded he stop, and when he didn’t, she called 9-1-1 and shouted to the dispatcher that she needed help because a black man was threatening her and her dog.

The video taken by Christian has been posted repeatedly by multiple news outlets on Youtube, so go take a look if you need to see “exactly” what happened. You’ll note that Christian is courteous (“Please do”) when she threatens to call the cops—even when she threatens him with “I’m going to call the cops and tell them a black man is threatening my life,” which clearly has not happened, and he remains courteous even after her hysterical plea to the dispatcher of “Help me! I’m being threatened by a black man in the Ramblings!” (He tells her “Thank you” after she ends the call.) I’m not going to post a link here, for multiple reasons that aren’t important; you can find it easily enough.

Initially, I simply posted a link to the video on my Facebook page. Why? I want to be very clear with my answer: I did not do so to vilify Amy. I resent that people are calling her “Central Park Karen” and other names. I am horrified that she has received death threats. I didn’t post that video to pile on. Not at all.

I posted the video because, of my 793 “friends” on Facebook, the vast majority are white. And, sadly, in that group, there are a few folks who still don’t “get” what “white privilege” is, a few folks who still claim that, yes, there are “a few bad apples,” but overall, racism died out long ago. Try as I might, no matter how many blog posts and Facebook comments I make, I can’t seem to convince this small handful of people that, in fact, racism remains a very powerful threat in America. How powerful? Powerful enough that black men like Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd are still losing their lives in modern-day lynchings in this country.

But again, that is not what this post is about, and full disclosure here in case you came upon this page after doing a search for one of the topics or names I’ve tagged in it: I am a white woman with a white daughter and a black daughter and two bi-racial (black and white) sons. This post is about what happened after I posted Christian’s video on Facebook. Sean, a good friend and fabulous teacher with whom I have discussed race issues in the past, commented on the post regarding how discouraged he had become in trying to teach young people about racism. I replied with this:

“Getting people of privilege to ‘get it’ is so, so daunting. And always keep in mind, love, that people like this woman are reacting out of fear… because she has been taught to fear.”

My comment was not well received. A couple of friends—good friends, great people—commented, “She was NOT reacting out of fear….”

Well, but… she was. Yes, folks, I’m right there with you in terms of how horribly she behaved, how his very life could have been at stake by her false accusation. Trust me, I get that. It is something I fear for my own sons all the time as they try to navigate through a world populated by a privileged majority. And yes, yes, I agree! Of course! Racism is still out there (only now it’s filmed), and we should expose it whenever possible. I’m right there with ya. You only need to read my blog (keep scrolling after this post) to see that.

But I feel—agree with me or not—that it is imperative we find a way other than shouting and name-calling to help racists see themselves as they are. I’m pretty sure calling Amy Cooper names and threatening her life is not going to encourage self-examination or self-awareness on her part.

Quick side note here: Yes, Amy Cooper is a racist (despite Christian Cooper stating graciously in an interview that ‘only she knows whether that is true’). Simplest definition I could find online: “Racists discriminate against other races.” Did she? Yes—immediately, without even thinking twice.

You’ll have to trust me on this next bit: I’ve confronted a lot of racists in my day. This is how I used to do it in my youth:

At age 16, I was sitting at the dinner table in a friend’s home when the father of the family made some reference to “niggers.” I responded with this gem: “Ahem. My dad was a nigger.” Not my proudest moment, and I have rarely shared that, for obvious reasons. What a jerk! (Me, I mean. Well, the dad was a jerk, too, and a racist.) Most folks knew my dad had died when I was young. No one knew what he looked like. My skin was dark enough that kids in my neighborhood when I was small called me “nigger baby,” so I just responded in that way to shock the guy. Because I was profoundly offended by what he said, and I wanted to profoundly offend him in turn.

Would that have helped Mr. So-and-so to an epiphany wherein he became open and accepting of all races? Um… no.

We have been shocked and offended by Amy Cooper. Will offending or threatening her in return help her to a similar epiphany? No. No, it will not.

Can we please just try to take a breath and realize that the majority of racists don’t even realize that they are? Yes, I know, blatant white supremacists have become emboldened by persons in power who turn a blind eye to their hatred. I get that. Amy Cooper is not one of those people. She is a white woman with a nasty temper who lashed out from a place of deep-seated fear. Let me clarify: She was not fearful of Christian Cooper or anything he did. She is fearful of black people in general—whether she is aware of it or not.

Case in point: Just before the publication of The Tainted Legacy of Bertha Gifford, I went back through the book, deleting all the parts I thought might hurt my mother. Mom was 91. I wanted the book to bring her closure about her beloved grandmother. I didn’t want it to hurt her or cause yet another rift between us. So I took out the part where she barked at me, “Keep your eyes on your purse!” when she saw that our shuttle driver from the airport in St. Louis was a black man. I also took out the part in which I described her reaction when I got us lost in the rental car one day and we ended up in a predominantly black suburb… and how she literally slid down in her seat to hide, fumbling for the door lock, screaming at me in near-hysterics to “Turn around!” and “Get out of here!” Amy Cooper’s tone in her brief exchange with the 9-1-1 dispatcher was reminiscent of that.

This was my mom, though. Grandma to my children, who loved her, and whom she loved in return.

But… Mom was taught from a young age not to trust black people, to be fearful of them. I was not. Thank all the gods and the Universe that, in my childhood, I never once heard my parents speak ill of anyone of another race. I knew people were “different.” I was never taught that “different” meant “inferior or “dangerous.” Mom and Dad knew what was right and just, and we saw them, as our role models, practice that at home. But taking Mom back to the location of her childhood after she’d been gone for decades triggered that latent, sub-conscious fear in her.

In the decades since being an ass to Mr. So-and-so, I have had a lot of heartfelt conversations with racists. With the exception of my former father-in-law, who told me when my son was an infant that he would never be as smart as my daughter because he was black, the vast majority of racists I have known will eventually (with enough patience and careful listening on my part) admit to some incident in their childhood when they learned to fear black people. Or Mexicans. Or Japanese people because of the racist propaganda distributed by so many (including the U.S. government) during WWII. (Ever done a Google image search of WWII propaganda posters? Take a deep breath first.)

I could write an entire blog post (or book, really) about how fear is the most powerful weapon in controlling people. When fear of certain things, certain people, becomes ingrained in our psyche at a very young age, it is very, very difficult to root out—because, while we may mature and begin to think of ourselves as nice, grown-up people with good manners who treat everyone with decency and respect, it remains there, on a sub-conscious level, until something happens to trigger that fear.

I don’t advocate that you feel sorry for Amy Cooper. I just ask that you attempt to understand what motivated her to do what she did.

As for me, I was a nerdy kid who grew up fascinated by TV and newspaper coverage of current events, so I watched the Civil Rights Movement unfold before my very eyes, and it left a huge impression on the very strong sense of justice I inherited from my father. Thus my intense anger toward Mr. So-and-so or anyone else who crossed my path who referred to others by racial or xenophobic slurs. I’ve never been able to tolerate that sort of thing. Only now, instead of shocking and offending, I really try to consider the source and engage in a conversation that leans more toward enlightenment than further anger and hatred.

What Scout said

"Well, Dill, after all he's just a negro." –Scout Finch

During the trial of Tom Robinson, a Black man falsely accused of raping the White woman who tried to take advantage of him in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout's best friend Dill begins to cry uncontrollably. As he struggles to collect himself outside, he tries to explain to Scout that what upset him was the treatment of Tom Robinson by the prosecuting attorney who was "talking so hateful to him" during his cross examination.

"The way that man called him 'boy' all the time and sneered at him," Dill tells her, prompting Scout's short retort above.

"He's just a negro."

I read this novel with my students in twenty-five of the twenty-seven years I taught high school. When we reached this point, which is roughly three-quarters of the way through the book, I'd have them write to this prompt: Is Scout a racist?

Year after year, from 1990 to 2017, I asked the same question. Of course, they were required to explain to me why they believed what they concluded about her. Among individual students, the answers would vary.

"Yes!"
"No!"
"IDK." (Translation: I Don't Know.)
"She can't be racist because she's black." (Some students assumed that because Jem, Scout and Dill spoke with Southern accents, they were Black.)
"She's racist because she lives in the South and all White people in the South were racists back then."
"She's not racist because racists hate Black people and she doesn't hate Black people."

True, Scout does not hate Black people.

But yes, she is a racist.

This scene, this conversation between Scout and Dill, this is the crux of the matter. Tom Robinson is fighting for his very life before their eyes, and Scout attempts to comfort her friend by suggesting he not get too upset since this man is "just a negro."

To Scout, his life matters less than hers because he is Black.

Yes, she is a child, and yes, this is a novel and she's the protagonist, so by the time Scout has had time to process the trial and listen to further discussion by her father and brother, she is already drawing new conclusions about her racist third grade teacher, and by the end of the novel she has come to fully understand why it is "a sin to kill a mockingbird."

But before that... Scout is a product of her family, her history and her community and yes, she is a racist.

If folks grow up seeing and hearing a distinction made between races--between who gets the highest regard, the best jobs, the most convenient seat on the bus--and they emulate that behavior, they are tacitly complicit in the preservation of this learned behavior we call racism.

Time and again in my life, I have had racists tell me, "I don't hate Black people...." And it's very possible that they don't associate what they feel with hatred. But if they hold themselves in higher regard because they are not Black, they are racists.

Because Black lives matter as much as any lives.

This idea that others are less valuable because of their race or ethnicity or geographic origin or socio-economic level is, well, in Dill's words, "It ain't right.... Hasn't anybody got any business talkin' like that--it just makes me sick."

The events in Virgina over the past two days have made me sick indeed, and I know that many of my friends feel the same way. We are sickened by the rage and hate and violence, but we are also sickened by the disparity we continue to experience, even among those who say, "I don't hate anyone." Racism isn't always this blatant. Most often, it is subtle and insidious, which is why it is still so pervasive.

Regarding Donald Sterling

I am relieved and encouraged that NBA commissioner AdamSilver handed Donald Sterling a lifetime ban from the league. How that ban plays out and whether Sterling will be forced to sell the Clippers and whether the NBA will ever see any of the quarter of a million dollars Sterling has been fined are all issues for another time, another discussion.

For now, I just want to comment on racism in America.

I hate to say it, but Mr. Sterling has done me a solid. For decades, I have had to listen to white people tell me, "Thank God we're past all that." For decades I have responded, "Racism hasn't stopped; it's just gone underground." Sterling's despicable remarks to his mistress have validated the point I have tried to make to my well-intentioned but very naive white friends. Putting on the mask of acceptance and tolerance is not the same thing—definitely NOT the same thing—as embracing diversity.

As the white mother of children who identify themselves as black, I could tell you stories of racism and discrimination that would make you feel the burn of shame, from the Bank of America employee who lied to my son to keep him from opening a checking account to the smog inspector who asked him if he stole his car to his boss (at his high paying white collar job in Los Angeles) who suggested he 'stick to dating within his race' to the countless cops who pulled him over for DWB. These aren't incidents that occurred in the 1950s or the 1960s. These experiences have all happened in the last twenty years. Racist remarks by his boss are on-going and as recent as last week.

Of course, I have my own stories. White people who are close to my age feel safe making bigoted comments for two reasons. Either they assume I am going to be in agreement with them, or (and this is the more insidious of the two) they assume that if I disagree, I will keep quiet about it.

Because this is what we do. We hear someone say something and we may cringe, but in keeping with this facade that has us all 'going along to get along,' we don't confront the person. We don't make a scene, we don't accuse. We may keep our heads high and walk away but we fail to point the finger and call a racist a racist. We stop short of embarrassing people. We stop short of shaming them. And what a shame that is.

Thank you, Adam Silver, for not sweeping this under the rug, for not using evasive language about this being a personnel matter or one the league would deal with privately. Thank you for pointing the finger at the exposed racist and saying with such great determination and fortitude, 'You, sir, are a racist.' Perhaps we can all learn a lesson from your example.

“For the record, prejudices can kill.” ~ Rod Serling

Maple Street, U.S.A. Late summer. A tree-lined little world of front porch gliders, barbecues, the laughter of children and the bell of an ice cream vendor.  This is Maple Street on a late Saturday afternoon. Maple Street...in the last calm and reflective moment...before the monsters came.

If you have been politically polarized by the tragic misunderstanding between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin, please stop reading here and carry the opinion you are entitled to away with you.  If you are open to considering a slightly less one-sided view, read on.

First:  How did the jury acquit George Zimmerman?  The answer is simple; the judge told the jury this:  If a “reasonable” person would have feared for his life in George Zimmerman’s situation, you must vote to acquit him.  And they did.

If I learned anything in law school (and I learned a great deal in a short amount of time, let me tell you), I learned that cases are not decided on passion.  Cases must be decided based on the law at hand.  In Florida, this is the law at hand—like it, love it, hate it, shake a fist at it, it is the law, and a jury—whether it’s made up of primarily white women or primarily green men—has a duty to base a judgment on the law as it stands.

But as I see it, the problem in this whole controversy should not center on whether or not Zimmerman was determined by the law in his state to be culpable.  The problem is much, much deeper than that.  And it stems from the fact that poor George Zimmerman did fear for his life.  But so did Trayvon Martin.

Both men were frightened.  Both reacted as they did out of fear.  For Trayvon Martin, acting on his fear of George Zimmerman cost him his life.  And, if we are compassionate… and I know we are, in our hearts… acting on his fear of Trayvon Martin cost George Zimmerman the life he knew.  Because he can never go back to the privacy of anonymity, never feel safe again while others threaten his life, and if a civil suit is brought against him, he will most assuredly be found culpable there… and will spend the good part of the rest of his life paying for his stubborn decision to follow a boy he deemed suspicious.

Why?  Because we live in a culture of fear.  And yes, that fear is race-based.  OK, calm down, I’m not calling anyone a racist.  I know how we hate that word.

But can we just be perfectly honest?  We have been living with this build-up of racial tension for a long time.  It’s not my imagination.  It’s not me “pulling the race card” to point the blame one way or another.  It is the truth that I know because I have seen and experienced it.

I grew up during the civil rights movement of the 1960’s.  I saw the March on Washington… and the Watts Rebellion.  I was encouraged by the signing of the Civil Rights Act… and defeated by the race riot that occurred at my own high school in 1969. In my adulthood, I have had the unique experience of living life as a white woman while raising black children. If you are a white person who believes “racism” at its core no longer exists in this country, forgive me, but you are simply naïve.

Racism is still pervasive in this land of diversity.  It just wears a different set of clothes.  Gone are the white robes, the placards held high with racial epithets boldly emblazoned.  White people tend to think of “racists” as white supremacists who spew hate and refer to non-whites in derogatory terms.  The truth is, whenever a person makes a judgment about a set of people, predicting a specific action or behavior based on race, that person is guilty of race-ism.  Thus, the young black man who calls a radio talk show to say, ‘I could have told you Zimmerman would be acquitted—as soon as I heard the jury was all white women, I knew it’ is just as guilty of race-ism as the middle-aged white man who says, ‘If they don’t want to be treated like criminals, they shouldn’t dress like criminals,’ a reference to the hip-hop music inspired fashion of wearing hooded shirts.

None of us want to be thought of as racist.  Racists aren’t nice people.  And we all want to be thought of as nice people—proper, appropriate, good people.  And “good” I think most of us are.  Just… frightened.

The social climate we’ve been living in for some time now has been much like that depicted in the old Twilight Zone episode, “TheMonsters Are Due on Maple Street,” named by Time magazine as one of the top ten best Twilight Zone episodes, by the way.  If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend a quick viewing via YouTube or Netflix.  (It’s episode 22 of the first season of the original TZ.)  Because… there we all are.  An incident occurs which is somewhat frightening to the folks on Maple Street because they don’t know what really happened, don’t understand what’s going on.  Their fear leads them to arm themselves… and the next thing you know, one man kills his neighbor… which of course, only adds to the escalating hysteria.

And that escalating hysteria is what I see on the news right now.  People are terrified of vigilante justice—on both sides.  Trayvon Martin’s family is entreating the country to move forward peacefully… just as Rodney King once did.

The thing is, we can’t do that as long as we fear each other.  As Rod Serling said, “There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices—to be found only in the minds of men.”

The truth is, we will never have peace until we see each other as individuals, not black or white or privileged or poor.  Just… people who share the same needs, who just want to make it to our next destination unscathed.