The Gantt Report
In the words of the immortal Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along?”
The recent incident between the Black professor and the white policeman has reignited discussions in America about race and racial profiling.
Well, if you didn’t know, if you’re a Black person, every day is a day about race!
Not just in America, racial discrimination, racial motivation and racial profiling is worldwide.
I remember a trip to Africa not too long ago, a white friend of mine and I played golf at a course in Capetown, South Africa. After the round, we were just sitting in the clubhouse and a group of guys started badgering me.
“Hey boy,” they said, “get me a glass of tea.” I initially ignored them but when they insisted, I got pretty upset. Finally, the bartender in the clubhouse explained that I was an “American” and they left me alone.
Now I understand that not many Black South Africans could afford to play a $200 round of golf and it was unusual to see Blacks playing an expensive game in the middle of the day but the attitude was still unfortunate in my opinion.
I had a similar experience in New York in 1973 when I was one of the first full time Black sports writers for The Associated Press covering the Yankees and the Mets.
Point is the incorrect ideas that Blacks are criminals, Blacks are dangerous, Blacks are scandalous and Blacks are inferior has been around for a long time and we shouldn’t be surprised at what happened to the African American Harvard scholar.
Today, everybody wants to dialog, reconcile, gather in a circle at The White House and sing Kumbayah and We Shall Overcome!
All I want is peace. To get peace, the world must have equal rights and justice!
Most people don’t care if they are disliked by individuals or by races of individuals. We just don’t want to be mistreated, victimized, profiled, over charged or over prosecuted.
If the world’s diverse groups of people won’t or can’t learn to share space on this earth, terrible things are bound to happen.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are bad but a race war would be disastrous!
A race war would be worst than a Middle East war, a race war would be worst than a Civil War. A race war may even be worse than a Holy War!
In a race war, no holds will be barred. Anything goes! You know what happened during the American slave revolts, women children and babies were targeted by fighters on both sides. People were hung. People were shot. People were drowned and beheaded!
I think American and other laws against racist misconduct should merely be enforced. If you arrest someone just because they belong to a race or have skin color that is different from yours, you should be punished to the full extent of the law.
I may be really wrong but it seems to me that many of the police issues and profiling issues that appear in the news involve wrongful acts committed by others against people of color. I don’t recall Black lawmen profiling whites. I don’t know of any whites being thrown in jail for talking back to non-white police officers.
Bottom line is that we can only control ourselves. We can’t go to sleep and dream about a society where love abounds and we all just get along.
I don’t think any meetings, any panels or any group hugs will stop people who love to hate from continuing to hate.
What I do think we can do is educate ourselves, especially our youth about how much equal we are as opposed to how different human beings are.
To me, that’s a better alternative than a race war! There are more Black people on earth than there are people that love to arrest Black people!
