Posted by John Gray Wallace on 4/30/2008, 7:16 am, in reply to "Racial wrongs and Wright"
70.162.33.173
Hi Mr. English,
I remember the racial fights at Mid-City; On mounds of earth being used in the construction of the then-to-be W.T. Grant store, as I recall.
A student at nearby Westhaven Elementary School at the time, I remember how news of the fighting spread to our school and gripped many in fear that the violence would spread into our midst.
I would agree that SOME progress has been made in race relations in this country---probably a bit more than Rev. Wright seems to recognize; however, at the same time, I believe that racism still thrives in this country as well: only its forms have changed. Therefore, I doubt that the progress is as great as many of us in the white community seem to believe it has been, or has been as much as might have been hoped.
I remember that in the late 1980's, blacks still were obstructed from playing golf at the Bide-a-Wee Country Club.
I remember how many in Portsmouth sought to deprive Mayor Holley of his right to a presumption of innocence in the "Hate Mail" controversy and that, AFTER his ouster (which I am proud to say I was prominent in opposing!) the federal grand jury investigating the case found no merit in the accusations.
Of course, Mayor Holley is mayor again these days, and that in itself is a wonderful evidence of a climate of racial change, in Portsmouth and in the nation. It offers hope for redemption, for forgiveness and for so much more...
Bill Russell, the great center of 11 NBA championship teams in a 13 year period, in Boston ( a record of accomplishment which included a string of EIGHT straight titles!!), has always had a simple test to determine whether or not a person of another race might be prejudiced; he offers them a drink from his cup after he has, himself, taken a drink from it.
By that test, many who profess impartiality might fail to pass muster.
I was priveledged, on occasion, to be the only white guy in a group of otherwise exclusively African-American young men who gathered to play basketball at the Effingham Street Armory and the Old Dominion University Fieldhouse; I played well-enough to be accorded that priveledge but NOT well-enough to realize my childhood dream of becoming the "Next Bill Russell". A salient memory is a day in which a group of us entered a 7-11 store near O.D.U. after an afternoon of joyous fellowship only to walk in at a time when a street-tough (a white guy) was menacing the female clerk. We crowded around the counter. The troublemaker left. However, the police had apparently already somehow been called and were approaching at about the same time as the troublemaker decided to flee the scene. One of our group gave voice to the fear that the police would come into the store, see all the black faces and automatically assume that THEY were the source of the problem. (Sound a bit like the wedding groom in NYC who was shot 50-plus times & for whose killing the police accused in the case were just exonerated??) My friend Otis King (Otis, are you out there?) then spoke up and said, "No they won't; Wallace is with us." My friends all laughed. I did not. For me, it was a bracing moment. Although I had always been of a very liberal mind-set where matters of race were concerned, this moment was, even for me, astonishing. I felt sad that my friends should have to be so "on-guard" when it was they who were "coming to the rescue" of the hectored clerk. Who, by the way, was white.
My Sensei is an African-American, 60-ish, a Viet Nam vet, wounded there, a POW there, also. Just like John McCain. My Sensei worked for me right after moving here to Tucson, while I served as head of security at a local hospital. He had not worked for me long before I realized that he was infinitely better suited in some ways for my position than I was. And I was good at it. I have letters from people who had worked there for 20-plus years asserting that I was the best they'd ever seen. And I was not even the best one on my staff. Sensei was.
People were not deliberately missing this. But they were missing it.
Of course, racism does cut both ways---many ways, really, in an increasingly multi-cultural society. Bigotry may even be proliferating in ways, not decreasing. And it transcends the merely racial aspect. Religious bigotry, bigotry on the basis of other factors, all seem to be spreading. I have even coined a term, "Christophobic"---bigotry towards all things Christian, to include with others of a similar nature.
In an editorial I wrote for a Sunday edition of the Virginian-Pilot (at the Pilot's request) in November, 1991), I addressed black racism towards whites, which some black activists assert CANNOT exist, as blacks do not exercise the levers of power, by and large, in our society; a specious and insidious argument---as sinister and deceptive as the arguments supporting the racism of Slavery, Jim Crow, Apartheid and Hitler's Aryan Supremacy. Anyone can be a racist, regardless of their own race.
But some see the light. Gov. George Wallace and Rev. Jesse Jackson, as I recall, became friends.
The Right Wonderful Reverend Doctor Mayor Holley (I take license!!) has long spoken of "The Portsmouth Family".
The great Malcolm X eventually rejected his earlier hatred of whites.
"The Greatest", Muhammad Ali, has said in the wake of Nine-Eleven that "there are devils in every race", implying that no one race has a monopoly on either bigotry, or open-mindeness.
We all have work to do. We have made some progress, thanks to many, the "Freedom Riders" of the 60's, the Bishop Desmond Tutus, the Dr. Kings, the Gandhis, the Malcolm X's, the Bobby Kennedys, the many others along the way. But we are not so far along the road as it might be comfortable for some of us to believe, either. More work remains.
Do Rev. Jeremiah Wright's controversial pronouncements faciltate the discussion of race-relations in the USA??? Certainly they do. Does that justify all that he says, OR the often incendiary way that he expresses what he has to say? Certainly not. He might, however, argue, in his own defense---IF he was of a mind to even offer a defense---that you cannot make an omlette without breaking an egg or two and making the proverbial mess along the way.
Just some thoughts on the questions you raised. All good questions and worthy of consideration and comment.
Respectfully,
John Gray
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