WHITE FRIGHT (The "Coloreds" are Coming)

    

"Them Ni**ers is lazy!"  My grandmother would yell at the television as we cheered her favorite football team, the University of Alabama, on a sunny, fall Alabama afternoon.  Puzzled, I would respond in my meek ten-year-old voice, "Grandma, the black guys are running circles around the fat white guys."  Oblivious to my keen observation she would continue, "They're animals. They ain't got normal sized human brains.  They’re dumb."  Undaunted I politely proclaimed, "But Grandma those black men are in college."  My grandmother, a fifth-grade graduate, leered at me as she spoke, "I liked football better before they allowed them Porch Monkeys to play with them good, Christian, white boys."  As I sat innocently on the worn, smoke-filled sofa of my grandmother's living room, under the watchful eyes of numerous Jesus renderings, it was obvious my grandmother was having difficulty adjusting to the integration of her beloved University of Alabama football team a mere four years earlier in the fall of ‘71.

     My father was military.  He had left he and my mother's hometown of Anniston, Alabama two years before my birth in 1965.  I was raised on military installations.  I began Kindergarten in Italy.  The only two racists I knew were my grandmother and Archie Bunker.  They both amused me.  They seemed to be cartoon characters.  My grandmother struck me as a racist Wil E. Coyote always chasing, but never capturing, the Roadrunner.  Of course, my grandmother would have reasoned the Roadrunner evaded capture because he had the extra thigh muscle Jimmy the Greek spoke about.  My family spent a couple of weeks a year with my grandparents.  I looked forward to these visits as it was the only time I could spend time with extended family.  It was also the only time I could stuff my face with Moon Pies and RC Cola.

     I loved spending time with my grandfather.  He spoke with you instead of at you.  He was kind-hearted and compassionate. He allowed me to sit in his lap and steer his '55 Chevy through the neighborhood streets.  My grandfather counteracted my grandmother's statements with a whisper outside her presence, "You got your good Ni**ers and your bad Ni**ers.  Just like white people."  My grandfather was a Garbage Truck Driver for the city.  He drove a taxi part-time.  He was suspended three days from his city job one exceptionally cold winter for allowing the black men to warm their self in the heat of the cab of the garbage truck. My grandmother cautioned me about my grandfather's views on race, "He barely finished the third grade."

     During summers my grandmother would sign me up for Vacation Bible School.  I presented the argument if I was forced to attend any kind of school then it could not be referred to as a vacation.  This ungrateful statement was met with prayers for my heathen soul.  My grandmother's Baptist church was traditional... in that it did not allow black people.  When I questioned this tradition my grandmother explained, with the help of Jesus' unconditional love, black people did not go to the same heaven as white people.  As my Grandmother so deftly explained, "Ni**ers go to Dog Heaven.  You know when your dog dies and it goes to Heaven?  That is the same Heaven Ni**ers go to."  When my facial expression tipped my grandmother as to my disbelief she reinforced her argument, "Sweetheart, how would it be Heaven for white folks if it’s full of Ni**ers?"

     My father's last military duty station was Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama.  I would attend Robert E. Lee High School (yes, there was a statue in front of the school).  This period would prove to be a pivotal time in my life as I was given an intensive education... in racism.  Within a few weeks it was clear this school would be vastly different from the schools I attended on the military installations.  At this point in my life I was infatuated with basketball.  To my surprise I discovered I was the only white person who ventured across the playground to play with the black kids.  I made the trip across the blacktop because the basketball skills of the black kids were vastly superior to the white kids.  I considered myself a pretty good basketball player so I wanted to play with the best.  I quickly discovered my skills were lacking.  I was always the last kid picked, “We’ll take the white boy.”  A few of the kids took the time to help me with my basketball skills.  By the end of the year I was no longer the last kid picked.  I was also fortunate to catch the eye of an exotic young lady.  She was half Hawaiian and half Black.  I quickly learned the racist kids considered this All Black.  They expressed their displeasure with our interracial relationship by bullying me every day at the bus stop.  I was unable to defend myself so I became accustomed to daily beatings.  Toward the end of the school year, I vividly remember my white tormentors deciding to expand my daily beatings to my physical education class.  They ambushed me on the way to the gym.  A few punches were thrown before my basketball playing friends turned the corner to find me bloodied and bruised.  They informed my tormentors I was one of “them” and subsequent beatings would result in retribution from all the basketball players.  The daily bus stop beatings ceased.  My sophomore year of high school was punctuated with an enlightening and sobering event.  A black friend and I were competing against one another on an English paper.  When the papers were returned I had received and “A” and he a “B.”  When I reviewed his paper, I found it was barely legible and bordered on illiteracy.  After class I approached my elderly English teacher and questioned how my friend could be awarded a “B” for such poor work.  She escorted me to a corner of the room with a smile on her face and kindly whispered, “If they graduate illiterate it keeps the Ni**ers in their place.” 

     My junior year of high school I quit varsity sports to work full-time.  I took a fast food job at a McDonalds next to our school.  I, and a female manager, were the only white people employed at this location.  I never had a problem with anyone and they never seem to have a problem with me.  I made many good friends.  Following high school graduation (the first in my family), I attended Auburn University in Montgomery for a year before joining the Air Force.  Upon discharge from the Air Force I regrettably returned to Montgomery to complete my college studies as the state VA paid for college tuition and books only if I attended an Alabama state college.  This left me with no reasonable alternative but to return and attend Auburn University. 

     During this time my mother was substitute teaching and she relayed to me she had taught at an all-black public elementary school.  I informed her this was impossible as the state schools had to be integrated.  She insisted this was fact.  I decided to research her claim.  I found half of the elementary schools in Montgomery had one black kid enrolled.  The other half had one white kid enrolled.  Legally, the schools were integrated but this was a close to segregation as the schools could be.  At this time (1988), I was enrolled in a college speech class.  I decided the subject of my speech would be the de facto segregation of the Montgomery elementary schools.  This speech earned me an “A” and it also brought me some attention as I was referred, by my professor, to the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Shortly thereafter I was contracted to help research and write a book which chronicled those who had died in the Civil Rights struggle of the 1960’s.  I could not have been more enthusiastic as I had always admired Dr. Martin Luther King, his followers and their determination to change society.  The book, designed for school-aged children, was to accompany the unveiling of a monument to the courageous people who died in the Civil Rights struggle.  The monument, designed by Maya Lin of Vietnam Memorial notoriety, was to stand in front of the new Southern Poverty Law Center, as the original had been firebombed by the KKK. 

      During my research I learned the tragic stories of some very brave men and women.  I was able to interview, both in person and via telephone, many of the surviving relatives.  I decided to speak to my Anniston relatives regarding this period in American history.  I remember making a visit to my Uncle’s home.  His home shared a property line with my grandparents.  They had purchased the home for him.  My uncle was a lifelong drug addict.  For as long as I could remember I had never known him to hold a job.  He had two separate families on different sides of his small hometown.  It was assumed he had numerous other children about town. He spent little time and even less money on his offspring.  Early in his twenties he had killed a vehicle full of passengers in a drunk driving accident.  He was the sole survivor.  He had been cut up by the knife-wielding brother of one of his baby’s momma while he slept.  Miraculously, he had survived.

     When sober my Uncle was soft-spoken and avoided eye contact.  I caught him on his porch one afternoon and mentioned I was researching the Civil Rights era.  I asked if he had any memories of that time.  I specifically questioned him about the attack on the Freedom Riders in nearby Gadsden.  He raised his head and his eyes twinkled, “Yeah, I remember it.  We scared the sh*t out of them Ni**ers.  We’d a burned ‘em all up in the bus if we could have.”  This cool, southern afternoon I would learn my Uncle was one of the white people involved in the attack on the Freedom Riders.  He could barely contain his pride.  He spent nearly an hour regaling me about relatives and locals who had participated in the attack as if reminiscing about a high school championship football game.

     Despite providing money and housing for my Uncle, my grandmother was more than willing to discuss his shortcomings.  She could detail every failing including dates and times.  I vividly recall one night sitting on the porch with her when my Uncle became the subject of the discussion.  She detailed every character flaw one by one.  When she completed the extensive list, she punctuated her conclusion with a statement which I believe sums up racism in general.  She stated with certainty, “That boy has been no-count since the day he was born.  He has gone against the very laws of God and man.  He is as disgusting and a waste of a human being as a man could be.  His only saving grace… he’s not a Ni**er.”  I developed an understanding of racism that night which had eluded me previously.  It is not the black skin the racist hates.  The black skin only serves to make the group identifiable.  Had their skin been green or purple or they had an extra finger or an extra eye in the middle of the forehead that would suffice just as easily.  The racist needs a group of people which stand out from the crowd easily.  In a white world, black skin is easily identifiable. 

     When you are uneducated, poor and unsuccessful you are the bottom of the barrel.  You need someone who is below you on the social ladder.  You need someone to occupy the bottom rung.  And you need that bottom rung to be inaccessible to you despite your immoral, contemptuous, sinful, unethical, harmful and despicable actions.  You know you will never occupy the top rung of the social order, but more importantly, you must guarantee yourself, and those like you, they will never occupy the bottom rung.  Racism allows the creation of the bottom rung.  In America, we use the color of a person’s skin to identify that rung but we could have used other physical attributes such as hair color, eye color, height, etc.  We chose something easily identifiable… skin color.  Racists don’t hate black people.  They simply hate the people who are black.  If you aren’t white you are a Ni**er.  A brown Ni**er, a sand Ni**er… but always a Ni**er.  There are only two choices… white or not white… true or false… simplicity at it’s best for the easily confused.  You are either with us or against us. 

     As the unveiling ceremony approached I could barely contain my excitement.  I was employed as Director of Industrial Rehabilitation at this time having earned my therapy license earlier in the military.  I had mentioned the upcoming unveiling ceremony to my patients.  One calm afternoon, a couple of weeks before the unveiling, I was approached by a friendly and hard-working patient. He entered my office and closed the door.  He seemed uneasy.  I asked how he was feeling assuming maybe his injury was acting up.  He eased my mind with his response.  I followed up, “What’s on your mind?”  He leaned forward in his chair so only we could hear his words, “You got something to do with that monument their building, right?”  I proudly responded, “Yes, I do.”  He then surveyed the room before offering up his heart-felt warning, “I wouldn’t go to the unveiling if I was you.  It could be dangerous.”  I promptly responded, “I ain’t afraid of no racist hillbillies.  They aren’t gonna push me around.”  He nodded his head knowingly, “I knew you would say that. Look I’m just trying to look out for you.  You been great to me.  You are good people.  But there are groups of people out there who ain’t as understanding as I am.  They wouldn’t think twice about causing harm.”  I responded defiantly, “I’m not gonna back down from the KKK or anybody else.  I’m don’t care what they do to me.  I’m going.”  He took a deep breath as he stared at the floor, “They ain’t gonna go after you.”  He then recited the names of both my parents.  He included their address and the makes of their vehicles.  He identified their employers.  I collapsed into my chair.  He continued, “They won’t come after you.  They will come after your family.”  Breathless I queried, “How do you know this information?”  He sheepishly looked up from the floor, “I go to the meetings.  I guess I’m one of them.  Been one as long as I can remember.  I could get in a lot of trouble telling you this but I have to.  You been great to me.  You been great to all of us.  You treat us all the same black or white.  You care for us all the same.. like family.  I consider you my friend and my brother.  I don’t want nothing to happen to you or your family.  I’m real sorry.”  He rose from his chair and extended his hand, “I just had to tell you.  I hope we are still friends?”  I rose from my desk, shook his hand and thanked him.  I did not attend the unveiling. 

     My parents, unlike my grandparents, never expressed an opinion on race.  I never heard them say the N-word or make a racist statement.  We watched All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Good Times and Sanford and Son in our household unlike one of my girlfriend’s father who could not watch the Cosby Show because, “Ni**ers aren’t doctors!”  My half Hawaiian/half Black girlfriend as well as all my black friends were welcome in our home.  The only statement ever made regarding my girlfriend was, “Be careful, some people aren’t going to like it.”  Over the years I have been chased home by racists.  I had the windshield of my car broken on an occasion or two.  I have almost come to blows on a couple of occasions with a few loud-mouthed racists.  I have had the N-word whispered to me more times than I can count because, regrettably, I look like their kind.  Racism never went away or diminished.  Racism simply became more politically correct.  We replaced the word "Ni**er" with the word "Thug."  We replaced the term "Colored People" with the term "People of Color."  We removed the "colored" vote by gerrymandering.  We painted the black man who peacefully protested by taking a knees as unpatriotic and removed him from his profession just like we did fifty years earlier with Muhammad Ali.  We claimed black men would not die at the hands of law enforcement if they simply cooperated like Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner who were killed at the hand of law enforcement fifty years earlier when they cooperated.    We claim all are treated equal under the law as we fill our prisons with black men doing decades of time for drugs and white men walked free for the same crimes.   We watched law enforcement walk free after killing one unarmed black man after another... just as they all, law enforcement and white citizen, walked free fifty years earlier.  We claim "I didn't own no slaves" as if those who encouraged and benefitted from slavery were not equally as guilty.  As if America didn't hold the Nazi SS guards who emptied the trains at the concentration camps as guilty as the SS guards who dispensed the gas.  We told the "coloreds" to get over their past as whites re-enact Civil War battles and proudly wave the Confederate flag.  White Americans are not any less racist than they were fifty years ago or a hundred years ago.  It's simply a kinder, gentler racism... if you're white.  One of the perks of White Privilege.  Priceless.

     I was sitting at the comedy club with a fellow comedian a few nights ago.  He is a black comedian from New York.  He is a highly intelligent, compassionate man of my age.  We were discussing the racial divide.  He stated, “White people have no reason to feel threatened.”  I quickly responded, “Yes, yes they do.”  White people see the writing on the wall.  Their White Dynasty is ending.  Over the next few decades whites will become a minority in this country.  It is why they are fighting back so fiercely.  Donald Trump is Custer’s Last White Stand.  We all knew Bill Clinton was friendly with the Blacks.  Luckily, white people got a break from that mess by killing a bunch of Brown people (Sand Ni**ers) in the Middle East.  But Lord have mercy that was followed up by an actual Black man as President.  If that wasn’t bad enough he had a terrorist name given him in his Kenyan homeland.  White people were not prepared for a smooth transition.  What happened to the Race War?  In response, white people amassed and organized disguised as political groups and concerned citizens and stopped the scary, Black, Muslim President from turning America into Wakanda.  In 2016, they gathered up all their fears and hatred and swept one of the most privileged white men in American history into the office of President.  This man had nothing in common with them with the exceptions he is white and obese.  This man blew the racist dog whistle and they howled as if they had been held in cages, awaiting euthanasia, by the “coloreds.”  It did not matter this man had avoided military service.  It did not matter he violated their sacred commandments.  It did not matter he had never done an honest day’s work in his life.  It did not matter he had failed in business repeatedly.  It did not matter he was friends, both personally and professionally, with America’s enemy of more than half a century.  He was white and he was racist and that was all that mattered.  He was the second coming of George Wallace.  Sure, he may have an uneducated, foreigner wife but at least she was white.  And we knew she wasn’t a man because we had all seen her naked pictures with her coochie in full view.  Trump is the male version of Paris Hilton and white racist America was willing to ignore this because he would get rid of the Muslims and the “coloreds.”   Make American Great Again!  Take us back to Mayberry where we could sit a spell with Andy and Opie and dine on Aunt Bea’s homemade apple pie under the security of a trigger-happy Deputy Fife who reserved his one bullet for any of the “coloreds” who might mistakenly wander into town.  Who do you think killed Opie’s mom?  An illegal, of course, probably MS-13.  White people longed for a better time.  A day when things were black and white…. photographs, televisions…. water fountains, lunch counters.  Back when America was great again…. for white men.

     Truth is white people feel threatened like the white baseball players of the forties/fifties, the white basketball players of the fifties/sixties and the white football players of the sixties/seventies.  White people lost all those good games to the “coloreds.”  I remember when Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, George Mikan, Bob Cousy, John Unitas and Joe Namath dominated their respective sports.  They were the best that ever played the game… if you excluded the “coloreds.”  Turns out the Babe, the Mick, the Coos, Johnny U and Broadway Joe may have all been benchwarmers if every American had been given equal opportunity.  But we can turn back the clock under Trump.  Look, the New England Patriots have a white coach, white quarterback, white running back and white receivers.  See… we can still do it.  We can Make America Great Again.  We can all be Patriots. 

     So please do not tell me the white man should not feel threatened.  They see the numbers game is coming to an end.  Of course, it may be quite awhile until they lose the power game but that end will come also.  Do not tell me the white man should not feel threatened.  He sees the obvious.  The White Dynasty is ending.  Which brings us to the last question.  Why are the white people frightened?  This is a simple answer also.  The white man fears minority status in America because the white man is well aware what they did to the “colored” minorities.  The white man gave the “colored” minorities blankets with small pox.  They bought and traded Black folks like baseball cards while working them to the bone, raping their wives and separating their families.  White people made Black people property.  The white man is frightened when the “coloreds” get a majority and seize power, along with the race traitors, the “coloreds” will respond in kind.  This is the unbridled fear which has white people blowing their racist dog whistles and flashing their White Power signs.  This is the White Man’s Little Big Horn.   

     I wish my relatives and my fellow white people could put aside their fears.  What do most of them have to lose?  They don’t have an education.  They don’t have money.  They don't have power.  They don’t have peace or happiness.  All they have is fear.  I wish they could see we all, black and white and brown, our in the same boat and the boat is sinking as the wealthy watch from the lighthouse. What they will find if they let go of their racist grip on fear is…. Freedom…. and the Dream we all heard about…. but never realized.  We will all be free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we will be free at last.  It will be just what the Doctor ordered.