Can't Turn Me Around

Another Friday in my small little life in the time of covid-19.  There is so much happening in the world outside that I would love to be participating in.   I'd like to join people in my town as they gather in front of City Hall standing up for justice and racial equality.  I'd like to be in the streets marching with Black Lives Matter.

Except for the virus.

I am, after all, a 63 year old (just this week) with Type 1 diabetes and a host of other things that make me high risk.  So I watch movies recommended to better understand the black experience in the U.S.A.  Many of them I have seen before but there are new ones (for me).  I had a birthday fundraiser that exceeded my goal (thanks, friends) to raise $200 for the Equal Justice Initiative.  Turns out, this wasn't the first year I raised money for them.  I have also been a contributor to the Southern Poverty Law Center since the early 1980s and the ACLU.

One of the most moving experiences I've had was a visit to the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro, NC.  I was visiting friends in Chapel Hill, Mount Airy and Asheville.  I don't remember how I found out about the center, but the fact that it was in the building where the Woolworth lunch counter sit-ins started, well, that was it for me!  The original lunch counter is still there on the ground floor, with the museum and center above.  Staffed mostly by young docents from the local colleges, it is an immersive experience.  My friend and I were the only white people there and we had some heartfelt conversations with the other visitors.

I believe change is going to come.  There is more momentum this time around.  NASCAR has banned the use of the Confederate flag, Confederate statutes are being pulled down by the people (not waiting for governments to take them down) and the military is hopefully changing the names of the numerous military basis that are named after Confederate generals.  I'm not naive enough to believe change will be all encompassing and come quickly, but I do feel a difference these days.  Of course it's up to us white people to change our behavior, which is after all, the problem.

I'm glad to see the many resources out there for white people to learn about the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, the Tulsa rioting of white people killing black people (including dropping bombs on the town from private airplanes).  It's a long a terrible history, and it is our duty as citizens to know it.  We've turned away from it much too long.  Our schools need to devote more than one month a year to study our nation's sin and shame.





Keep the faith, friends. Have a good weekend.