Anywhoo, I spent a lot of time this weekend with some of my white friends. (Yes, field has white friends.) And, as Kat Williams says; all of you Negroes should get you some white friends. You never know what they could be plotting against us and one of your white friends might just mess up and spill the beans to you. Then, hopefully, you can warn the rest of us.
So anyway, I am talking to this young lady who is a declared republican who wants to recruit me to the dark side like some other black folks here in Phily. (Shout out to Renee Amoore)After a few drinks (it always takes a few drinks) she is telling me that her grandfather hated black people. But, she said, her father didn't dislike blacks quite as much. Still, she wanted to make a point that she broke the cycle. That after going to undergrad and law school with black folks and developing relationships with them, she truly felt that she could say that she did not have a problem with us Negroes like her father and grandfather did. (Thank you missy.) For the record, I don't think I was going to lose any sleep if she did.
Still, this all got me to thinking: I wonder how many people have the same story that this young lady had about her parents and grandparents? I am guessing quite a few. I have heard it more than a few times myself.
But on the day that we dedicate Dr. King's Memorial in D.C., you have to wonder why this was even the case. I mean it's not like black folks were wilding out back in the day, and we certainly weren't a threat to the white power structure. So why did they hate us so much? And why did they allow that hate to manifest itself in such a way that they either passed it on to their children or made their children aware of it? Those are rhetorical questions. I suspect that I know why, but it doesn't make it any less tragic.
In this young lady's case the cycle has been broken. (Or so she says)
Here is hoping that she is the norm and not the exception.
Pic from Slip N Slide online store.
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