When I say that I am now a racist old white man, I must also say in the strongest possible terms that is not where my heart is, nor has it ever been. My parents did not have a racist bone in their bodies; and I was raised to reject bigotry in all forms. My parents graduated from the Teachers College at Indiana Central University, now the University of Indianapolis after WWII. My father left the university to fight in WWII and returned after the war where he left his future wife at the university to study. According to their website, Indiana Central University” opened its doors in 1905. From its beginning, the University has been coeducational and open to all races. One of my mother’s best friends was a black woman, born and raised in Indianapolis. Years later, I listened to my mother and her friend reminisce and laugh during a phone call about their university days together. My father was a student trainer in the athletic program where George Crowe, a black athlete, played basketball and baseball for the university. He was the only black player in the conference and started his major league baseball career with the Boston Braves in April of 1952. He retired as a St. Louis Cardinal in 1961. He was named to the National League All-Star team in 1958. He hit the 11th pinch-hit home run of his career in 1960, which at the time set a major league record. I recall watching a Cardinal game on TV when my father said that he was proud to have known George Crowe in college.
I was raised in the north east part of Albuquerque, New Mexico. There were no black students in my elementary or middle schools, and my high school had only one black student. Since seniors attended classes in the morning and underclassmen attended in the afternoon, I never saw him. I did learn that he was courageous and funny from his B Team football coach, a family friend. The team used alternating half backs to send plays into the team. When it was time to send in the first play of the first game, coach called the name of the back he wanted to carry the play into the game, he said Kuhn, asking for Ray Kuhn (pronounced coon). When he turned to give the call to the player, he saw a black half back with a huge grin on his face waiting for the play call. Coach started laughing uncontrollably and had to call time out so he could stop laughing, regain his composure, and call the play. He said, The kid had a plan, and he was going to carry the first play into the game regardless of whose name I called. He had guts. I agreed. At the University of New Mexico, the University of Montana, and Oregon State University, I had little interaction with black students because of the curricula I was pursuing. As a married student with a part time job and active church life, my campus life was limited. Nothing to this point in my life indicated that I would become a “racist old white man.”
Nothing in my experience to that point moved me toward bigotry or racist attitudes; but unrest and racial rioting started to make me have concerns about the black community. During my three years of active duty as an Army Officer, all my interactions with black soldiers but one, with understandable circumstances, were positive; and the one did not change my attitude. Enumerable black trainees passed through our training programs, and several black Non-Commissioned Officers served in my company and battalion. I had a great working relationship with all of them. On the last day of a Drug Education and Race Relations Counselor training class, the instructor asked each of us to describe our honest feelings about race relations. I shared that I was reluctantly becoming a racist. The shocked instructor stated his surprise at my brutal honesty and asked what I meant. I indicated that I could not understand why blacks considered that riots, arson, looting, assaults, murder, and lawlessness in general were justified under any circumstances. I referred to the 1967 Detroit Riots and the riots that followed the assignation of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I observed that national leaders of the black community like Rev. Jesse Jackson claimed the lawlessness and mayhem was understandable considering centuries of racial injustice in the United States and Dr. King’s assassination. I noted that one sin does not justify a multitude of sins. The riots of 1967 and 1968 were the starting points of my evolution into a “racist old white man.”
A history.com article on the 1967 Detroit Riots stated the following:
In the aftermath of the Newark and Detroit riots, President Johnson appointed a National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, often known as the Kerner Commission. In February, 1968 seven months after the Detroit Riots had ended, [and less than two months before the assignation of Dr. King], the commission released its 426-page report.
The Kerner Commission identified more than 150 riots or major disorders between 1965 and 1968. In 1967 alone, 83 people were killed and 1,800 were injured”the majority of them African Americans”and property valued at more than $100 million was damaged, looted or destroyed.
Ominously, the report declared that Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white”separate and unequal. Reaction to last summer’s disorders has quickened the movement and deepened the division. Discrimination and segregation have long permeated much of American life; they now threaten the future of every American.
However, the authors also found cause for hope: This deepening racial division is not inevitable. The movement apart can be reversed. Additionally, the report stated that What the rioters appeared to be seeking was fuller participation in the social order and the material benefits enjoyed by the majority of American citizens. Rather than rejecting the American system, they were anxious to obtain a place for themselves in it.
Sadly, nothing has changed.
Instantaneous rioting and carnage still follow real or perceived law enforcement abuses. All law enforcement officers, involved in lethal or injurious Use of force incidents involving black suspects, are guilty until proven innocent rather than innocent until proven guilty in the eyes of the greater black community, black leaders, and the majority of the Democrat Party. The broadcast verdicts are pronounced before investigations even begin. Although peaceful protests usually follow these guilty verdict pronouncements, the protest juries all too often become black rioters supported by their progressive allies and other anarchists. The punishment pronounced by these riot juries may result in arson, looting, assaults, or murders. Those punished by the riot juries are rarely the perpetrators of the original law enforcement sin. Riots are still justified by the greater black community, their leaders and Democrats because the rioters are simply seeking [equal justice and] fuller participation in the social order and the material benefits enjoyed by the majority of American citizens as stated by the 1968 Kerner Commission. With each riot and its justification, the heart of this “racist old white man” becomes more hardened.
Again, I say, Sadly, nothing has changed. The riot list grows over the last 60 years including Detroit 1967 and 1968 with at least 33 black and 10 white deaths, 1200 and more injured, 2,000 buildings burned, and well over $100 million in damages; Miami 1980 with 18 dead, 370 injured, and $100 million in damages and destruction; Los Angeles 1992 with 2 Asian, 28 black, 19 Latino, and 15 white deaths, 2300 injured, 1100 buildings destroyed, and $1 billion in property damage; Baltimore 2015 where information on deaths and injuries was too time consuming to retrieve, $9 million in damage and destruction to 350 businesses and two homes, and $20 million in government expenses related to riot control and personnel injury claims etc.; Portland, Seattle, Washington DC, Chicago, New York, Minneapolis, Kenosha, and Denver to name the worst in 2020 with a yet to be determined death toll, injury total, damage, looting, and governmental costs. The unfortunate deaths of more black people in these riots is one example of what I refer to as “black self-genocide.” When national black leaders justify each riot as understandable for the centuries of unequal justice at the hands of people afflicted by “white privilege,” the mind of this “racist old white man” remains unchanged.
The justification and excuses provided by the general black community as well as black and Democrat leaders remains the same. Additionally, the tactic devised by Mao Tso Tung for the Chinese Communist Revolution, the fish in a school of fish tactic in which activist fighters are embedded within large groups of peaceful protesters, was acknowledged by the Baltimore mayor during the 2015 riots. A Wikipedia article wrote the following:
Baltimore [Democrat] mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said, “most protesters were respectful but a small group of agitators intervened”. She also stated that “It’s a very delicate balancing act. Because while we try to make sure that they were protected from the cars and other things that were going on, we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well. And we worked very hard to keep that balance and to put ourselves in the best position to de-escalate. “The phrase “we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well” was interpreted by some conservative-leaning news sources as an indication that the mayor was giving permission to protesters to destroy property.
Two days later, the mayor’s Director of Strategic Planning and Policy, Howard Libit, released a statement clarifying the mayor’s remarks:
What she is saying within this statement was that there was an effort to give the peaceful demonstrators room to conduct their peaceful protests on Saturday. Unfortunately, as a result of providing the peaceful demonstrators with the space to share their message, that also meant that those seeking to incite violence also had the space to operate. The police sought to balance the rights of the peaceful demonstrators against the need to step in against those who were seeking to create violence. The mayor is not saying that she asked police to give space to people who sought to create violence. Any suggestion otherwise would be a misinterpretation of her statement.
It defies logic to say that we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that or those seeking to incite violence also had the space to operate does not mean that providing space to destroy or incite violence does not require permission to participate in destruction and violence. If I tell a group of boys that they can use the space in my front yard to play football, I give them permission to play football in my yard.
With each riot, my “racist old white man” heart becomes more hardened! I hate what you are doing to me. I hate the anger that you are provoking in me. I lose respect for the black community when I hear chants directed at law enforcement officers like Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon, or who do we want to kill, Cops; when do we want to kill them, now, or No justice, no peace. No peace does not equate to peaceful protests. That statement means that if whites do not submit to black demands there will be no peace. Cities will burn down; and they are.
I know one cure. My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ shed his red blood as a sacrifice for the sins of every human being. He offers salvation and peace. Every life matters to Jesus Christ. We all have red blood like the blood Jesus shed for us.
Finally, one critical question remains. How many “racist old white men,” like me, are being made by the race riots devastating the United States today? Similarly, How many racists in general are being made by these endless nights of rioting? The response of this “racist old white man” is this blog article. Others may choose a more active and violent response.
MY PRAYER IS FOR PEACE AND RECONCILIATION!
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