Posted by John Gray Wallace on 7/21/2008, 1:57 am, in reply to "Thanks for your invite to “stand and fight”."
70.162.33.173
Rasheedah,
Thanks for reappearing. Please stay. Understand that my invitation to stand and fight was to encourage you to stand and fight the fight YOU brought to this board with passion and feeling.
No, I cannot experience, first hand, what being black in the USA has meant & does mean, but I can comprehend it to some degree from observation and through dialogue with people of color. Even with some people of color who are still hurting & angry. And that's more than some try to do.
I grew up in a home where the father thought the Imperial Wizard of the United Klans of America was a great American. My dad was appalled when, from an early age, I pleaded with him not to say some of the things he said about black people to me, or in my presence. Called me a "N----- Lover". Asked me once, in exasperation, if I was sick & in a hospital room, who I'd rather have as a roommate sharing a semi-private room, and a bathroom, Dr. King (and that's NOT the way he said Dr. King's name) or Robert Shelton (the aforementioned Imperial Poobah...")? Was absolutely enraged when I responded, without hesitation, "Dr. King. Because I could have an intelligent conversation with him." I was 12 years old. I was punished for my "insolence".
I was honored to be asked by the Right Wonderful Mayor Doctor Holley, when he faced a Recall Election in 1988 to do a radio call-in talk show on his behalf and to do an editorial rebuttal on WTKR-TV for his campaign to remain in office. I spoke on his right to "due process" in other fora, as well, at that time. I took some flak from "my own kind" for that, Rasheedah. Very much like the flak you take for not being black enough.
Life is tough for everybody, Rasheedah. It's just tough for each of us differently. It is unfair for all of us, it's just unfair for each of us differently. Yes, to be black in America adds to this a great deal. I know that. But I have never condoned it. Neither have many others like me.
Elsewhere on this board, and not long ago, I told of the "race riots" at the old mid-city site (now Wal-Mart). When a young Dr. Holley & others from the Gandhi ("Satyagraha", non-violent resistance) inspired movement led by men like Dr. King staged "sit-down" or "sit-in" protests at places like "Peoples Drug Store" to have their right to "service" at the soda fountains in such places be "recognized". Portsmouth Police came in on horseback with dogs to "disperse" the "protesters". A white Sunday School teacher of mine at that time walked out of his business to go to lunch & encountered a police riot. Cops were waylaying people all over the place. He saw one cop swing a club at a small black little boy, and threw himself over the child protectively. He was roughly handled and arrested himself, as a result. It was maybe 20 years after that when he told me of the incident.
Dr. King DID "serve himself up", Rasheedah, So did Dr. Holley when he exposed himself to the billy clubs and horses and police dogs that put hooves and teeth and real hate to "Jim Crow". So did Malcolm when he stood up first for black people, and later to renounce his earlier teaching that ALL white men are devils. So did my hero, the great Celtics Legend Bill Russell, when he spoke out for civil rights as early as 1956, fresh out of the University of San Francisco. So did my sunday school teacher when he threw himself over that small child.
Many of these people, Rosa Parks and others, are gone now, Rasheedah. They, and those who remain, deserve to have others to come along and take up the fight they led, but which is not yet finished. Those still kept back by lingering ignorance & prejudice deserve to have a voice that CAN to speak for them. Not all can. But YOU can Rasheedah. I know; I've heard your cry of protest and outrage. And, my dear, beautiful, bright, caring black young lady, this is a responsibility you have already acknowledged and therefore, try as you want, in the end, cannot escape. It is not "fun". It is not always "pleasant"---but it IS necessary that someone DO it, as did Dr. King. As has, and does, still, in his eighties, Dr. Holley, Mayor Holley.
My feeling is that anyone wanting to "carve (YOU) up" will be in for a real battle. And you cannot avoid those people anyway, no matter your desire to just live your own Life. If not challenged and beaten they will track you down. The proverbial midnight knock on the door...
Rasheedah, it is your turn. It is your fight. It is your destiny. So, I say it again, & louder & longer than before, even though it might upset the genuinely delicate sensibilities of some, "Rasheedah; stand and fight. Become another champion for your race; the human race."
People CAN change, too, Rasheedah. A small, dying black child so pricked my father's heart late in his Life that after he met that child, and came to love that child, my dad never uttered a racial slur or anything close to one ever again.
Paternally,
An old, fat, white-haired, white guy; John
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