Now is a Good Time for Rage
White Americans Must Stand With Black Americans to Counter Administration-Supported Racism
I can speak only for myself as a White member of the Boomer generation. And I say this: What is happening in America today--the public images of murders of African Americans and the overt racism that continues to infect every corner of our country--and the total lack of federal leadership, moral and otherwise, is sadly confounding, deeply troubling, and morally intolerable.
Many generations are guilty of lack of accountability
Yes, my generation has much to account for, just as my parents' generations and the ones before them had much to account for inasmuch as we were unable or unwilling to meet racism head on and end it where we saw it.
As a military dependent in the 50s and 60s, I went to schools in the South where I saw and heard the vile, the profane, the hated words and deeds of racism. I lived not far from several lynchings, and knew full well, even at 14, what was going on a few hundred miles away from my home in Louisiana. "Colored Only" signs were commonplace.
White privilege was a sick and wicked tool used by the parents of the kids I went to school with, and used by the kids themselves. It never occurred to them that a Black boy or girl or adult was capable of rising above their oppressed stations.
I am grateful that my parents were quick to point out the stark and cruel inequities that existed between Whites and Blacks, and I am grateful that they taught fairness, kindness, and humanity by their own examples.
A reality of the White America’s DNA
But there was an irony behind their firm and heartfelt lessons: my great great grandfather on my mother's side, Dr. Hiram Corliss, was a well-known abolitionist, supporting the Underground Railroad from his home in New York state; my great great grandfather on my father's side, John Moore, was a lieutenant in the Confederate army, and there is little doubt that my father's line--ranging across North Carolina and Tennessee--included slave owners.
One grandfather served to free Blacks; one grandfather served to keep them enslaved.
I mention this not because I have suddenly become "woke" to what one side of my family did to fertilize the soil of slavery and am now speaking out against the Minneapolis murder, or any other White-on-Black murders, Black economic oppression, Black educational disparity, Black White-induced fear and nightmares.
No, I mention this bifurcated family history because I caught the spirit of Dr. King's dream back in the 60s. Throughout my career as a journalist, I held King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail close to my heart, and tried to judge my actions by his words.
I truly believed that by 2020 such things as we are seeing 24/7/365 would become little more than a fading mist of a never-to-be-repeated past.
I truly believed that by 2020 such things as we are seeing 24/7/365 would become little more than a fading mist of a never-to-be-repeated past.
I believed that no matter what soil my roots were once in, I would choose a sweeter field in which to plant myself and direct my life toward kindness, understanding, and the shaken-hand of friendship.
I believed in the possibility, if not the likelihood, of a redemptive sense of humanity that would sweep away racism and hatred and fill the newly-cleared spaces with respect and friendship and a genuine sense of national responsibility to promote the highest ideals of human kindness.
The torch of justice must be passed to the generations to come
My wife and I raised our three children to seek out those who shared such ideals, and to promote, whenever and wherever possible, justice, equality, and activism in the face of tyranny.
Our neighbors, to a family, are among the kindest, warmest, charitable, and welcoming people you'd ever want to know. We're White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant. We're older, younger, professional, retired, veterans, doctors, nurses, scientists, artists...we're the blend I dreamed of in the mid-60s.
In the nearly 50 years we've lived here in this small corner of Northern Virginia, the idea that any of us would espouse the kind of MAGA fever that burns hot in the hearts of another America is totally anathema to who we are in our community.
We can no longer turn a blind eye
The world is watching us
And yet...and yet. Here we are. As I write this, the town of my birth, Washington, DC, is under a curfew, joining a long list of towns and cities across the country where legitimate protests are undercut by purposeful fear-inciting violence.
I woke up Monday morning to the images of more fires, more anger, more protests, and to the expected news that the President has not yet uttered a decent, empathetic, consoling word on matters of high national import. I am not holding my breath for such a statement.
It is the White House position that Antifa is to blame for the violence, that outside agitators from the left are inciting riots and fomenting anger. It is never the fault of leadership; it is always the fault of the critics.
We don’t need the Washington Post’s Fact Checker to know what lies are being sown like seeds of weeds in a hurricane of hate.
Black men and women, families and students, have every right to express their outrage, frustration, and mistrust of the White-controlled institutions that are failing...have always been failing...to treat them as equal partners in the America enjoyed by Whites.
No American should be denied what other Americans take for granted
In my 71 years, I've never met a Black man or woman who wanted more than what I had; who wanted access to a better education than I accessed; who wanted more opportunities for employment than were available to me; who wanted better food than I ate, or cleaner water than I drank, or a fairer playing field that I played in.
All they asked for was parity in citizenship, equality in justice, education, business, and home ownership, and the human right to walk without fear and to sleep in peace. When that is all I would ask for, why should anyone be denied the same?
And yet....and yet. A madman is in the White House. He derives his power from hate, xenophobia, ignorance, entitlement, and racism, is fomenting--tacitly or with malice aforethought-- home-grown terrorism. His plan, abetted by the Republicans on Capitol Hill, is devised to tear apart the fabric of our society in an attempt to sow discord and confusion.
It is a transparent attempt to pit us one against the other and distract us from the one thing we can to do put paid to his tyranny: vote the scoundrels out in the November election.
We can and must do more; we are not innocent passersby
It is incumbent on comfortable Whites like me to do what we can...with whatever skills we have...to stand up and speak out and take what actions we can for the rights of Black Americans to enjoy what they have been denied for 400 years: their human rights, their existential rights, and, more recently, their Constitutionally-granted Civil Rights.
As I wrote at the beginning of this piece, I can only speak for myself, but I cannot be a disinterested passerby at a murder scene; nor can I sit quietly and hope the tide of hatred will not rise across my doorstep nor the winds of injustice tear away my roof.
That tide and those winds are rising across this country my friends, and they increase with every racist murder, with every racist injustice, with every racist tweet, with every government-sponsored racist insult to our shared humanity.
Rage against the tide; rage against the wind. Let your shout be heard in the meanest shadows and in the highest places of tyrannical power. Your silence is their permission; your reluctance is their power; your acceptance is their victory. We cannot let them win.
