When I was a
young girl I read, Gone with the Wind. I loved Scarlett O’Hara because
she was nothing like me. She had spunk and let nothing stop her, whereas I was like
a shadow in the corner of a house, observing but unheard. I wanted spunk.
One day,
after I finished reading, I ran downstairs to my mother and said, “Mom, It says
in this book that slaves were happy. They didn’t want to be free!” She looked
at me with pity and told me how evil slavery was and why. She encouraged me to
study the subject.
On our next
visit to the library, I took out the book called, “Black Boy,” by Richard
Wright. I will never forget the impact that book had on me. I was horrified,
sad and disgusted by what he had gone through. After that, I read many biographies
on how black people had been treated by white people throughout their lives. I
wish I could remember the names of the other books but one that I read recently,
that was just wonderful is, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou.
I grew up in
the 1950s and 60s and remember when Martin Luther King and his followers marched
in a peaceful protest to Selma, Alabama. My parents subscribed to Life magazine
and I poured over the pictures of snarling dogs and water hoses being turned on
the protesters. I admired King so much, and even now, when I read a quote
online attributed to him, my esteem grows larger.
When I went
to high school, (Southern California) I noticed that white students hung around
together and black kids and Hispanic kids did the same. It was puzzling to me because
in the church school I had attended previously, I had black and Hispanic friends.
Now I was in public school and it was certainly different. I will say though, I
never heard any of my white friends say or do anything racist. In fact, later
on, after I had left school, I met up with an old friend and she had married a
black guy. I went to her place and met him and their new baby. The last year of
high school my boyfriend was Hispanic. I was crazy about him.
Now, since
the terrible death of George Floyd, we are again having peaceful protests. Of
course, there has been some acts of violence and looting, which has been the
actions of only a few and some have been committed by white protesters.
Whenever there is a movement or coalition of any kind there are good people,
bad people and crazy people involved. I saw this in churches I attended. My mother
noticed it in the feminist movement and the Author’s Association to which she
belonged. And we cannot forget politicians. Yes, good, bad and crazy.
A lot of
people can’t understand the slogan, “Black Lives Matter.” They say that every
person’s life matters and they are right, but they can’t seem to see that when
someone is hated and oppressed, it looks to them as if their lives don’t matter
to other people. White people don’t generally feel that way. We expect the police
and those in the medical field to care about our problems. When they don’t, we
tell everyone we know about that policeman or doctor. We feel insulted, get
angry and will sometimes complain to those who are in authority over these
people.
But what if
we knew police and doctors hated us? What if we knew they would get rid of all
of us if they could? And what if we knew some of them would like to kill us?
What would it be like to live with that all our lives?
I have a
friend online who is black. She told me her beloved uncle was in the hospital
and very ill. It was possible he could die. Yet she was afraid to go to the
hospital and visit him. Why? Because of the way the white doctors and nurses
talked to and treated her and her family. She went anyway. I felt so sad for
her. It is hard to believe people can be so cruel, and for no reason in the
world but their hatred of the color of a person’s skin.
I remember an
old Star Trek episode where the crew of the Enterprise came to a world that was
in the midst of a terrible civil war. Captain Kirk tried to intervene and bring
peace and couldn’t understand the basis of the two sides hatred of each other.
Near the very end of the show one man said to Kirk something like this, “Are
you blind? Can’t you see? My skin is blue on the right side of my face and his
skin is blue on the left side!”
That’s
racism in a nutshell: utter stupidity. Victor Frankl once wrote, “There are two races of men in this world but
only these two: the race of the decent man and the race of the indecent man.”
I believe this to be true.
(I began
this blog post thinking I would write about what justice is according to God.
But I got carried away with my feelings about what is happening right now. I’ll
write the one on how God feels about justice next time. He feels very strongly
about it.)
