[1911Tuner]

Yes, racial tensions have always been there...bubbling just under the surface...but they hadn't been at a boiling point until the shooting of Trayon Martin and Michael Brown.

Trayvon's killing could have been avoided, but once he launched into his blitz attack, it became a separate incident with a whole new set of rules.

Michael Brown's killing is a completely different ball game. For the record, I'd have shot him too under the same circumstances. A 6'4-inch 300-pound male doesn't have to be armed in order to be lethal...especially a male with all the wisdom and self-control of an 18 year-old. He got exactly what he asked for.

Barack Obama had the opportunity to quell the trouble that was brewing before it exploded...but he didn't do that. Instead, he stuck his nose and his 2 cents worth and his justice department in the middle of what was rightly a state concern, and threw gas on the smoldering fire...and that's where all this trouble began.

And look what it's led to.

He could have held a press conference to call for quiet...to allow the legal process to work...but he didn't do that. He stirred the hornet's nest instead.

And he knew that's what he was doing...and he knew what would happen...and I believe in my heart that he was hoping beyond hope that it would lead to widespread unrest on a level that would give him an excuse to declare Martial Law.

And at the bottom of his eleventh hour, he continues to agitate it by claiming that Trump was elected because ****** hates him.

Always about him, and always about race. Right?

And his useful idiots swallow it.

"If you want to put an end to the race problem, stop talking about it."

-Morgan Freeman-

January 20th can't get here fast enough.

 

[1911Tuner]

Well, I for one would not pin it all on the Prez. His comrades such as Mr Soros surely contributed to the effort.

Yes, but Obama was the front man. The voice that spoke. The "leader" who
held press conferences to honor a thug who was shot while attacking a police officer and to tell us to get off our high horse when an American journalist is beheaded by muslim barbarians...but remains silent when police officers are ambushed and murdered on the streets of America...and we all know that silence is consent.

The first black president that could have actually made things better. Instead, he chose to drive the wedge deeper and fan the flames higher and hotter.

He hasn't divided this country. He's fractured it...and it will take years to heal the rifts that he created.

 

[1911Tuner]

Tuner, I disagree with that quote from Morgan Freeman.

And I'll have do agree to disagree. He also said:

"You stop calling me a black man and I'll stop calling you a white man."

I was there in the 50s and 60s. I saw it. I went to school with black kids. We never thought of them as "The black guys" and they never thought of us as "The white kids." We were just kids all the way through high school. When I happen to bump into one of them these days, it's always a happy reunion, with handshakes and hugs and reliving old stories.

There were no racial slurs from either side...ever. When a boy who was transplanted from another state used "The word" we sorted him out pronto. They were our friends and our classmates and our teammates. We ran together and we played together, and sometimes...like all kids...we fought, and the next day all was well again.

And to top if off...I was raised by a racist. It didn't stick. I never saw things the way he did on that subject. I've never hated anybody because of what they are. You have to earn my hate and disrespect because of what you do.

I also saw the racism in the 60s, and I saw how ugly it was...and I've never seen anything like the things that are happening today...and most of it is coming from the very people who accuse me of being racist because of what I am...and most of that comes from the younger blacks...and I blame that on the people in the spotlight encouraging them. The Sharptons and the Jacksons...and Obama...and I guess that was simmering just under the surface all along, too. It couldn't have taken root otherwise.

So, I'll take a page from Freeman's advice. If we stop thinking of each other as black and white, there won't be any black vs white. I'll treat everybody with the same respect and the same level of dignity unless and until they decide otherwise.

 

[1911Tuner]

Tuner, you're making the mistake of making your personal experience something broader than just that....a personal experience.

And my personal experience is long and wide. It encompasses much more than school days.

I've noticed when discussing race with white people is they are co Stanly defending the fact that they aren't racist

I think that a lot of that comes from the assumption that we are...based on nothing more the fact that we're of Anglo Saxon descent. And it is automatically assumed much, if not most of the time.

I'm not black...therefore I must be at least prejudiced if not outright racist. Right?

Is that not racism? Or is it just that the accusation only flows in one direction?

Later...maybe in the wee hours tomorrow...I'll tell the story of my earliest experience with a lady named Lucille.

 

[1911Tuner]

Annnnnd best of all it keeps your bullshit race bater thread alive!

Why? Because it pointed out a few basic truths? My parents moved here from the coal towns of Harlan, Ky, and Norton, Va. They worked hard, and instilled that wthic in me from an early age...and because I'm "white" I'm lumped in with the "white privilege" claims?

This is Lucille's story, as promised.

A couple months before I finished the 1st grade, my mother became ill and mostly disabled. She needed help with the household, so we hired one of the ladies who could be seen waiting for the bus on Country Club Road in Winston-Salem.

Her name was Lucille, and I'd estimate that she was in her late 20s at the time. Lucille became my mentor and my math tutor and my surrogate mother. She'd had a hard life, and it showed in her prematurely lined face and her crooked teeth and her calloused hands. Her husband was in prison for a stabbing in a drink house in what was then known locally as 11th Street Bottom...now the Cherry-Marshal Freeway.

She was also raising a boy about my age pretty much alone, with only her aging mother to help.

Around mid-June, Lucille arrived for her day's work visibly upset. Her mother had suffered a stroke, and was unable to look after Jimmy...her son. Her older aunt was able to look in on her sister, but was unable to handle an active 6 year-old boy...so Lucille would be forced to quit her job and apply for public assistance...welfare.

Mo mother offered her a solution. Bring the wee sprite to work with her. And she did.

In a fairly new neighborhood that was short of kids my age, Jimmy became my partner in crime, and Lucille handed out hugs and snacks...and she also tore out butts up when we needed it...with my mother's full blessing and consent. When summer ended, we went back to school, and our reign of terror ended.

Even my racist father softened, and he began driving Lucille and Jimmy home so she could save the 20-cent bus fare. She'd have him drop her off three block or so from her house, telling him: "Mister,(She called him mister)...you just drop us here. That ain't an area where you wanna be in. You go turn left right there."

Fast-forward 25 years, and Lucille...beaten down by a lifetime of hard work...died of a stroke far too young. Mom read it in the paper, and I decided to go and pay my respects, even though I hadn't seen her or Jimmy in nearly a quarter century. Mine was the only white face in a sea of black, and I had several glares filled with mistrust and hate when I walked in.

Jimmy looked around and realized who I was...crossed the room and wrapped me up in a big bear hug...and took me around the room to introduce me to Lucille's friends and family.

And immediately, all the hateful looks melted into big, wide grins and warm handshakes. They'd all heard about me from Lucille and Jimmy, and were very pleased to make my acquaintance.

I never saw Jimmy again after that night. He only lived another 6 months.

I remember my Lucille and my "Brother from another mother" and the summer of '58 when two small boys tore down the racial barrier that separated our worlds.

 

[1911Tuner]

Here's a little more personal experience.

About 18 years ago, a 14 year-old girl was slipped a dose of the date rape drug at a party, and became pregnant. Although abortion was on the table, she took a page from Rob Roy, saying that it wasn't the child who needed killing. Much to the angst and protests from her friends and family...she had her baby and became another student/mother who struggled to do what she could for her baby daughter.

When the girl was old enough to be told the truth, tears welled up in her eyes and she promised her mother that she'd never do anything to make her regret her decision, and she's kept that promise. She's a twice honor roll student, and will be attending Ohio State University on a sports scholarship. According to all reports, she's been a blessing to her family.

She's biracial, but she doesn't identify with either race. She just smiles and says "I'm just me. Who else can I be?"

She's also my niece's granddaughter. This is her sophomore picture.

 

[1911Tuner]

We have the same in my family. I don't talk about it much because I get dog piled on here.

That's sad.

Here's a more recent picture of Skye and her proclaimed "bff" who she says has been there for her from the first grade.