Don's Tuesday Column

         THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   2/08/2022

Some personal and historical stories

Readers might’ve noticed a local version of MSNBC/CNN/network panels: One side presumes a self-righteous monopoly on the truth of any controversy, while the other is vilified for its views.

Columnists needn’t criticize each other by name; from the time this column began in 2005, and through the current editor, it was to be eschewed, shall we say. Statements by one, however, may lead another to personal criticism; such should be avoided, the way I see it. Readers 1) can sort differing views out and 2) are free to lob literary bombs and bricks as they choose. Tough skin and all.

The first personal attack—or the “They drew first blood, sir” point made by the John Rambo character in “First Blood”—issued forth by Mr. Allan Stellar at me for stating that George Floyd was restrained, not by a knee on his neck but by a knee on his back below the neck. This was plain in the video that generated justifiable outrage and criminal conviction for the officer. However, the coroner found no damage to Mr. Floyd’s neck, proving my contention. Facts are facts, regardless of inconvenience.

Please indulge a story, a personal journey of a far-from-perfect young man moved by personal friendship and inner sense of activism for racial justice. Then, a nation’s struggle over a century against brazen efforts to deprive African-American citizens of the civil rights taken for granted by the majority White population, most of whom had no sympathy for racist oppressor groups.

So, a boy grows up in a family frequently moved by a father whose line of work, manufacturing management troubleshooting, often made him unnecessary once a company was “straightened out.” Friends being the “lost and found” commodity of the young—beyond the closeness of 2 brothers and a sister—the “you’ll make new friends” adage mostly applied.

During four elementary school years in the 1960s—in Canastota, New York, a mostly Italian-American village east of Syracuse—there were both friendly as well as very mean White kids, and a small, close community of Black (then commonly referred to as “Negro”) kids. Aside from the fact that they all lived about a mile from town in their own (self or forced) isolation, little evidence of racist animosity was noted.

Friends were made among both races, the mobility of bicycles allowing visits to homes of all. Had our tenure in Canastota been permanent, I have no doubt those friendships with my Black buddies would have endured well beyond grade school. We relocated.

While northwest Oklahoma City, and my junior high school, Putnam City Central, was overwhelmingly White (I learned later that the Black areas were quite far away), it didn’t occur to us that race was a regional issue of controversy. Bicycles remained the liberating mode of exploration. School and church youth group friends were, again, left behind as we moved to Chicago for high school.

Long story short, Chicago provided the good, the bad, and the ugly of youthful life; however, friends of both races helped me through urban high school gang nonsense. You couldn’t pay me to relive it.

Once we moved to Hobart, Indiana for senior year 1968-69, it was a mixed-up world. I still found ways to socialize through a church youth group, providing involvement in then-evident racial issues in nearby Gary, Indiana. It was a segregated city—Blacks to the north of the freeway, Whites to the south; I heard local rumors of something called the Ku Klux Klan.

Youthful idealism flowered as a campaign to elect Gary’s first African-American mayor, Richard Hatcher, took place amidst the rising awareness of segregation and racism. We went to small assemblies of other church folks and spoke of our inclusive ideals, urging Hatcher’s election.

Sometime in that period, probably during college, a group of us went south under the tutelage of a Jesuit priest to help with…honestly, at this point, I forget but it had to do with voting. I recall sleeping in a Black church, breaking bread in a Black family’s home, going to a nightspot with blues and dancing, singing acapella the Joan Baez folk song, “All my trials, Lord, soon be over,” in another Black church out in the country—and gaining an appreciation of the civil rights struggle.

Mind you, this all happened before some who would presume to criticize were even born. As a restaurant manager, I sometimes found there were no Black workers, and corrected that the minute an eager one applied. None of this is exemplary or heroic, just being sincere, decent and willing to give everyone a chance.

It is, I admit, curious to find that someone would object to my promotion of the principle of a color-blind society. It was Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (a Republican) who memorably dreamed “that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” There is no racial or ethnic group that cannot learn, aspire to, and practice honesty, integrity, respect and responsibility, and promote love and compassion.

A recap of America’s Democrat history: The Democratic Party, Democrats running the South and in Congress supported slavery, lynching, segregation, the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow laws; and opposed the civil, voting, economic and self-defense rights of Republican-voting African-Americans for a century. The Senate filibuster was their preferred method to legally obstruct said rights.

Finally, it is a dastardly, abominable lie that Republican “Voter Integrity” efforts, including voter ID, are, in any way, a form of voter suppression. People who’ve lied about Republicans, conservatives and Donald Trump for years are simply not credible on this issue.