I realize now how much I don't miss on FB my Trumpist high school classmates, now retired in Florida, and living on union pensions or accumulated wealth owing to white privilege as much as any individual gumption, who were all in favor of George Zimmerman, while telling me how Treyvon Martin was a "thug." With this latest killing of an unarmed young African-American male, we see white supremacist, anti-African American racism rearing its head from behind the shadows again. The stupid looks on their faces in their mug shots, where they seem to wonder why anyone would think they have done wrong, is coupled now with the classic white racist lie about motivation, i.e. "African-Americans coming into our neighborhood to commit crimes--so all African-Americans are suspected 'thugs.'"
It may be interesting to compare how the Newark, NJ rebellion/riots started in 1967. An African-American taxi driver named John Smith was pulled over and beaten by white police officers serving the entire city of Newark. It seems someone in the white ethnic part of Newark had described an African-American as committing a robbery there, but had nothing else other than skin color to describe the person. The police, after beating the crap out of Smith, said, "Tell your (n-word) friends to stay out of our neighborhoods." I am going from memory here, as the wording was set forth in Tom Hayden's "Rebellion in Newark" (Hayden had been working in Newark and had an on-the-ground view of what was happening), so it is not an exact quote, but the circumstances are essentially correct. This beat down of John Smith, which was rather typical of the Newark police department (an audit after the rebellion/riot proved this), was enough for the African-American community in Newark. As spontaneous protests began, the police response was of course oppressive--and well, people familiar with the Newark riots know what happened next. I should say, too, I learned from an elderly neighbor of ours in Avenel, NJ, where I grew up, who owned a movie theater in Newark, which was unharmed in the rebellion/riots. He was an old Italian guy, who, ironically, knew my great-grandfather, who owned a nearby pizzeria in the 1930s. Tony Feo was the movie owner's name, and he told me, without knowing a thing about Tom Hayden or Hayden's book, that what happened was African-Americans fighting back against racist cops, largely Italian and Irish heritage, he admitted. I asked him why his movie theater was not hit with the property based violence, and he replied it was likely because he treated the little black kids the same as white kids, and if they were a little short in money, he would let them in to see the latest films. He said, during the near week of violence, there were black men with guns stationed outside his movie theater--he didn't ask for that, it was just done--and whenever he needed to go from his home or to the theater, there were armed black men to take him to and from the location. This was true for his daughter, who was still living with him at the time. This conversation I had with Tony Feo was around 1972, a year before we moved from Avenel to Colonia, NJ. It was not until a couple of years later I came across the Tom Hayden book, and was stunned at how much of what Hayden said had been confirmed by Tony Feo, who, trust me, was no big liberal. He just saw what he saw and reported it to a young man, me, willing to listen.
I bring up this example so we don't go completely "To Kill a Mockingbird" on the South per se, where we in the North and West get to go, "tut-tut" against white Southerners, as if "we" are the enlightened people. Yes, it remains true the American South is overall the most violent and virulent region in the United States History of racist violence against African-Americans. However, it is not as if the North or Western regions are so wonderfully enlightened, either. The truth we need to face and continually remind ourselves about is we live in a nation where there are embedded racist attitudes within institutions and in our culture. Our nation is not unique in this, of course. However, that racist culture and history remain a stain on any of our professed Fourth of July philosophical values.
