We've Come A Long Way in Race Relations Despite Poor Leaders

Slavery was bad.  It was horrendous.  And, in parts of the world, it still exists.  America was not unique in practicing slavery.  Half of all enslaved Africans sent to the New World were shipped to Brazil.  Roughly, three eighth were shipped to countries in the Caribbean.  Only about 12 % were shipped to America.

At the time, Europe did not have the kind of agricultural economy that would gain from slavery.  Be that as it may,  countries like England, Holland and others, with their commercial fleets, were deeply involved in buying, selling and shipping slaves.

When slavery in America ended, we still had a problem with Jim Crow laws that reflected a culture hostile to people of color.  But with leaders like Martin Luther King, Jim Crow was brought low.  And, it speaks well of America, that white Americans joined the Rev. King in this struggle.  Indeed, American religious leaders, Jews, Catholics and Protestants joined him in Selma.  Much earlier, Harriet Tubman was assisted by members of the white population in running her underground railroad.

Whites played an important role in the early days of the NAACP.  Clearly, African-Americans have borne the heavy brunt of racism in America.  But, to deny the role of white Americans in their support of black people does nothing to help America defeat racism.

This is a situation where the president seems to possess little insight.  A black man is found looking in the rear windows of a house in Cambridge.  A police officer notices the man, and asks to see his driver's license in order to establish who he is and where he lived.  The black man refuses, and so the officer brings him to the station house.

As it happened,  the black man was a Harvard professor who had misplaced his house keys and was trying to figure out how he could get into his house.  So why didn't he produce his ID?  Because he felt that he was so famous that the police officer should have recognized him for who he was, and should have known that this was his house.  Was this a reasonable attitude for the professor, or was it  simply arrogance.  Obama's solution:  Get the two men to sit down together and have a beer.  Actually, not a bad outcome.  It enabled the professor to demonstrate that he was not above having a beer with a Cambridge police officer.  That must have made the cop feel very good.

Consider the Trayvon Martin story where a black kid in a hoody gets stopped by a community watchman in an area where there had been a number of break-ins.  The watchman, by the name of Zimmerman, may not have had the coolest head, but it wasn't smart of Mr. Martin to punch him in the nose and then slam him onto the pavement.  Zimmerman pulled out his gun and shot Mr. Martin as he, Zimmerman, was being pummeled.

President Obama then went on TV and told America that if,  he had had a son, he would have looked like Trayvon.  But, Travon Martin's looks are not the issue.  The real question is if Obama had had a son, would he have acted like Trayvon Martin.

The airwaves were then filled by black fathers explaining how they had made clear to their sons how to act when stopped by a police officer.  I thought that was funny.  My dad never took the time to explain such a thing to me.  He didn't have to.  Not because I was white, but because I saw how he acted when in the presence of an officer.

Then we come to Ferguson, a town where an officer shot dead a black, unarmed youth by the name of Michael Brown.  Not mentioned in the initial reports was that Michael Brown was a hulking, six foot three thug who was seen on an in-store camera robbing a convenience store just before the event.  But, it wasn't robbing the store that got Mr. Brown killed.  Rather it was charging towards a police officer with his head lowered.  The officer had just gotten out of his squad car after Mr. Brown had reached into the car in an unsuccessful attempt to get the officer's pistol.  When he failed to get the gun, Mr. Brown slugged the officer through the open window of the car.  And, to think it was this scenario that led to the Black Lives Matter movement.

America racist?  We elected a black president.  We have had black jurists on the supreme court and we have black legislators in Congress.  We see more black newscasters on TV and more marriages between blacks and whites.  People should marry whomever they want, but mixed marriages can be used as one index of barriers coming down between blacks and whites.

What American has to guard itself against are the comments by race mongers like the Rev. Al Sharpton.  As for Obama, the less he says the better.