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11/13/15

Racism Still Exists

11/13/2015
At dawn each day, we pass on the sidewalk on the bridge as I ride my bike to work, and he is out for a morning stroll. We nod in greeting, and I slow down to make sure we both have room to get by. He is carrying a big stick. Actually it looks more like a broken shovel handle that was once varnished and shiny. We are still in Temple Terrace, but this could be anywhere in Florida.

The man is black. He fears for his safety, so he carries a big stick. Maybe he is afraid a bear will come out of the woods, or a pit bull hound running loose will jump on him, or maybe he is afraid of a white person. It was less than a hundred short years ago that black people were not allowed to walk the street on the same side as a white, they had to sit in the back of the bus, they had separate entrances to stores, movies, bus stations. They were not allowed to go to white schools if they were educated at all. The 1900's were a terrible time in history for black people in Florida and the South.

So they began the great migration North, anywhere north of Virginia. They went by the hundreds of thousands to New York, Washington DC, Chicago and Milwaukee. And things slowly changed for the better, but the racism still exists. Everyday in the news we witness events where black people have their rights and freedoms denied or hassled.

I just finished this great book The Warmth of Other Suns and it is highly recommended. It will fascinate you to read about three different people who struggled with racism in the past fifty years and how moving away from the south didn't necessarily leave the racism behind. It will certainly increase your awareness of how much farther we have to go to treat all humans equal.

I am also attaching a letter written this week by an 8th grade boy in Virginia who has been bullied by classmates and his school is ignoring the problem. I'm wondering where the white kids learn this stuff. Did their parents really tell the kids about lynching? Or do they learn that in school?

Anyway, please be nice to everyone people, no matter what color they are.



 
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