Mayor DeBlasio of New York blames it on “centuries of racism”; the media are ablaze with it; civil-rights leaders are up in arms; there have been protests and charges and cries of “racism” and “racist police” in Missouri, California, New York and a growing list of other states across America.
With all due respect, and with sympathy for those who have lost loved ones, whether white (like the young man in St. Louis who was beaten to death with hammers by a pack of black and Hispanic youths) or black (like the man who died while resisting arrest by an interracial group of police in New York), I’d like to add my two cents’ worth.
These charges are particularly interesting to me because having been to most of the 50 states (including almost all the Southern states) during the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, I was only been stopped by police (all white) when I was breaking a law – you know, like speeding or public intoxication. I never got beat up one time. Maybe I wasn’t black enough.
Today’s “racism” causing black leaders (and some white spokespersons) such heartburn would have been hailed by the rank-and-file blacks in the ’40s, ’50s and even the ’60s of having “reached the promised land.” The prospect of having been possibly redlined for a bank loan, perhaps not promoted on a well-paying job with a major corporation, having encountered an insensitive clerk in a major department store or experienced deliberately slow service in a restaurant would have been an occasion for singing, “We have overcome,” not “We shall overcome.”
If white America were as racist as many critics allege, “racist” would be a label eagerly sought by politicians and other public figures, as the so-called “racist whites” are the overwhelming majority of the voting public.
In my opinion, what we are hearing about today is something I call “virtual racism.” The charges of racism today are like a virtual football game or a virtual war game. One can get quite exercised about it, but it’s not likely to draw blood. Civil rights demonstrations today mostly consist of black and white liberals harassing black and white conservatives. If I might be permitted to speak from the standpoint of someone who has personally experienced the institutionalized segregation and hard-core racism of the past, I am mystified at the seeming dichotomy in some of the cries of racism today.
Some may have forgotten that not long ago at many Ivy League schools, black students were demanding, and got, something called “Ujamaa houses.” For those of you who are unfamiliar with this term, it meant they were demanding separate black dorms and eating facilities. Yo, Dudes, I hate to bring this up, but we had separate dorms and separate eating facilities, and much more. We also did not have to insist on “white folk” not intruding into our Ujamaa – “cultural space.” (Stanford University, for instance, still has one.)
(By the way, critics, save your insults. “Uncle Tom,” “Oreo,” “White Wanna-be” and “Clarence” (as in Thomas) are a mere smattering of phrases heaped on me in my career. For an extended list, see my book, “Black YellowDogs.”)
Rev. Al Sharpton is calling for a march on Washington, D.C., to complain about the violations of the civil rights of two black men. While there, he will no doubt be met by black President Obama, black Attorney General Eric Holder and black National Security Adviser and Ambassador Susan Rice. At the risk of offending some and perhaps being redundant, or worse, being relegated to a bygone era, please allow me – as one who drank from colored water fountains, used colored restrooms, sat in colored waiting rooms, ate in colored-only restaurants and slept in colored-only motels – to offer an extremely brief refresher course on actual, not virtual racism. I offer this quick refresher course for those stressed-out blacks who may feel a bit put upon or discriminated against by this virtual racism they so love to embrace. Blacks, who “back in the day” were denigrated, spat upon, last hired/first fired and denied basic human rights (much less civil rights) understood who real racists were and what real racism meant.
Here is one shining example: the integration of Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas under the presence of the National Guard (sent by a Republican president). What “racist” public school in America would allow this to be done to a teenage girl today just because she was black? She was stabbed and had acid thrown in her face by real racists who were determined to keep her out. Just FYI, the students selected to integrate the school were also alienated by other blacks.
This teenager briefly described her experience thusly: “My eight friends and I paid for the integration of Central High with our innocence. During those years when we desperately needed approval from our peers, we were victims of the most harsh rejection imaginable. The physical and psychological punishment we endured profoundly affected our lives. It transformed us into warriors who dare not cry even when we suffered intolerable pain.”
According to the National Park Service, the black students who integrated Little Rock Central High School were elbowed, poked, kicked and punched, never mind the onslaught of verbal abuse from segregationists. They received death threats against themselves and their families and other members of the black community. At home, their families received threatening phone calls. Some of the parents lost their jobs, and the black community as a whole was harassed by bomb threats, gunshots and bricks thrown through windows.
Let’s call it what it is – real racism then, virtual racism now.
America is not a racist country.
Media wishing to interview Ben Kinchlow, please contact [email protected].
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