Like many my age, I know exactly where and when (EST) I was on Nov. 22, 1963. The television set in the bar and grill was turned up. CBS-TV newscaster Walter Cronkite appeared on television during my lunch hour in New York, to let the nation know that President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas.
I was still in the same bar and grill with advertising genius Jack Godler, when the newscaster informed us the president was dead. But we no longer were talking about a television variety/drama/comedy anthology series we were trying to market to a network. By the following November, I was a soldier in the civil rights movement in my first year of education at New York University School of Law.
Now I also will remember the events as they unfold of the Longest Weekend I have ever experienced since then—this weekend, when nine people were murdered in Charleston, S.C., on the eve of the 150th celebration by African American of Juneteenth.
Of course, now I generally am confined to one place, the two-story condo apartment unit where I and my life partner have lived since September 1992 in Gainesville, FL.
I looked forward to coming to Gainesville, from Orlando, Florida. But to indicate how deceptive appearances can be, in search of meaning for today’s sinister slaughter, I came across this item. On Sept. 14, 1992, The grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan’s Invisible Empire of Florida announced that he was moving the group’s headquarters from Orlando to Gainesville. He said, it’s “a progressive community, and we think we can fit in.”
(www.washtimes.com/upi-
But place is less important to me these days The weekend I am describing for me will be taking place on television again, as it did in 1963, but more significantly now–on the internet.
Thursday—June 18—After a night once again irritated by the media hype about the supposed lies about racial identity told by a local State of Washington NAACP officer, I came downstairs to find a note, from my mate, to turn on the television, the news. Nine people had been killed at a church in South Carolina. They were black. The suspect was white. They reported that he was found several hours later in North Carolina.
Later, that day, the United States Supreme Court in a 5-4 vote, including Justice Clarence Thomas in the majority, ruled that the State of Texas did not have to issue a license plate with a confederate flag issued at the request of the Sons of the Confederacy. The four white Republicans argued that free speech was involved, and the State did not have to be seen as supporting the Confederate flag by issuance of such a license plate.
In Columbia, South Carolina, however, the Confederate flag continued to fly high, even when the other flags to half-mast, including the Stars and Stripes were lowered out of respect for the dead. A local columnist noted that the alleged killer—the killer—had expressed positive views about the Confederacy on the internet.
Friday, June 19—the daily paper’s Guardian weekly which is freely distributed to the local black community was aroused by two events, one Friday, the other Saturday. The usual local African-American spokeswomen were reportedly excited about events to acknowledge the 150th anniversary of Juneteenth, a date chosen in remembrance of slaves learning after the fact in Texas that they had been emancipated. They were free. I have been conscious of that day ever since Ralph Ellison’s published novel with that title appeared in 1999. Also, it is the birthday of a dear childhood friend. He is 80 years old. If he is reading this, Happy Birthday, Les.
Saturday, June 20—I have played golf—one hole—only once, except for the miniature variety. But a local friend of mine is a golfer. With the support of retired chair/president of a local public charter school, he often tells the story about how they integrated the golf club where he had a membership in the 1980s
So I will be watching the U.S. Open. Ironically, it is being held in the State where the wire services have been working overtime to “out” a white woman who claimed to be black. More modestly, Tiger Woods has made no such claim. When asked to support black causes, his usual response seems to be that he is not political.
But I will watch, because of his presence. Still, I usually would prefer to watch almost any other sport on television. But this month, the mythic victories by Pharoah, winner of the Triple Crown on the race track, the Chicago Blackhawks on the ice, and the Golden State Warriors on the basketball court, have come and gone. But my interest has peaked in the Open, because a sports columnist has written off Tiger Woods, after an intense description of how and perhaps why that golfer has gotten so bad, without even realizing it. Was the writer being racist? Perish the thought.
Tiger of course was once the great Black Hope, just as the Williams sisters, the younger Serena and Venus, provided promise for African-Americans who might become interested in playing tennis. That is, the other sport which seemed to be the exclusive province of the rich at their country clubs. I have no trouble envisioning my Republican friend on the course, but with Jeb Bush? Really?
By the way, where will Jeb Bush be on this long weekend? Hillary Clinton? The President has spoken, primarily it would appear to let the public know that events like this mass shooting do not take place in the United States without guns.
Sunday, June 21–Unless Tiger did not make the cut, I likely will be watching on Sunday, too. But regardless what I do, the day is dedicated commercially to Fathers Day as it has been ever since it was made a federal holiday in 1972, by former President Richard Nixon.
That day will be about Pastor/State Senator Clementa Pinckney, 41, and his two daughters. The other eight who were killed included one older pastor, 87, and a youth of 21, as well as six women. Pastor Pinckney is the most obvious father to acknowledge.
As for the suspect, his father is said to have provided him with a pistol, which may or may not have been the gun used in the mass murder. No one but the most perverse is likely to ask what he will give his father on that federal holiday.
Will the four days be peaceful? The media already has announced through Bernice King, one of the squabbling children of Dr. Martin Luther King, that the only approach to the killings must be non-violent. Whites I know love that advice for blacks, every time one or more of them is killed with seeming impunity, especially in this instance when Pastor Pinckney’s last memorable speech as a politician advocated a comparable response to the shooting of a young black man, Walter Scott, by a white police officer. The officer will stand trial for murder. Videos seem to clearly implicate him, but then a jury dominated by whites just might see it differently, as six including an African American did, in Sanford, FL after George Zimmerman “stood his ground” in 2012, and killed Trayvon Martin with a gun.
I shudder at the photos I expect to see in my local newspaper of distraught hysterical black women, the interior of a 200-year old church with its rich history–including Denmark Vesey, who was hanged for trying to lead a revolt against slavery– and endless photos of this young killer with a distinctive haircut.
Much will be made of one of the dead locally, because she studied speech pathology at Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale, and any of the remainder who had some tie to Florida, no matter how tenuous. There of course will be photos and endless streaming of white police officers—grim faced, jowly—all business, certainly, and perhaps a candid view of black troopers doing their duty–African-Americans who really are “blue bloods,” that is the color of the uniform.
I do hope the reports of racial identity have disappeared. By now it should be clear, that a person may be black, if he or she thinks she is black, or if someone else thinks he or she is black. A shooting survivor reported that the gunman reloaded five times and said “I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over the country.” Witnesses told investigators the gunman stood up and said he was there “to shoot black people,” a law enforcement official said.
That concept of people being who they say they are OR who others consider themselves to be must be credited to Rabbi Max Ticktin, who I last saw in Washington, D.C. In response to my question as a student for a paper, “what is a Jew?,” Rabbi Ticktin replied, “A Jew is someone who thinks he (or she) is Jewish, or who someone else thinks is Jewish.” In the Holocaust, you were Jewish and likely died as such if the Nazis thought you were Jewish, regardless of who you claim to be.
So, in the United States, today, you are African-American, or black, or Latin, if you think you are—or someone else thinks you are.
What do white people answer, in their own homes, among friends, if the issue comes up–Do black lives matter?
Gabe Hillel can be reached at: [email protected].
