I attended segregated schools in Galveston, TX until graduation in 1955. Two African-American families lived on my block. We were courteous, friendly and called each other by name, but they never entered my house nor I theirs. This was near where Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champ, grew up. I have my prejudices; but moving into a majority black block 15 years ago (in California) becoming friendly with many neighbors, and going into one another’s homes improved me. Unless you are happy with so many police killings today, you must have some thoughts about BLM.
Suppose that your house is on fire and your calls for help were met with statements that you caused the fire or that the fire department is short of money, staff, etc. Would you be calm? Black lives are being lost to police mistreatment (not only shooting) at a much higher rate than that of others, although shooting of the mentally ill has also skyrocketed. Nonwhites were treated roughly by police in segregated Galveston in the 40s and 50s, but very few were shot. We had a few “town crazies” who roamed the streets such as crazy Frank (white) and easy Eddie (Mexican) but nobody feared them. They would not have understood police instructions but the police left them alone.
Galveston is an island off the coast of Texas; it had a reputation for being hospitable to freedmen and a black city councilor (Norris Wright Cuney), elected mostly by white voters in the 1880s. Cuney became Republican national committeeman in 1886. Galveston had many Catholics and was somewhat less susceptible to the anti black and anti Catholic vitriol of the Ku Klux Klan than other parts of our violent state. However, by the 1890s, the schools had become rigidly segregated and no black or brown people held city offices. The Rosenberg Library was built in 1904, a colored branch opened in 1905. African-Americans were expected to use only a small portion of the beach, we had the segregated restrooms and water fountains. Texas had more than its share of lynchings- in East Texas, African-Americans were most likely to be lynched, and in West and South Texas it was Mexicans. Caucasians were sometimes lynched, including 42 suspected Union sympathizers who were hung in Gainesville, TX in 1862. I’m not aware of any lynchings in Galveston. Mexicans went to school with Anglos in the 1940s and 1950s and outnumbered African-Americans.
We knew that Jack Johnson had been a famous heavyweight champion and celebrity athlete from Galveston’s East End. However, he was not officially celebrated, there was no Jack Johnson Boulevard or Park. All students had to take a year of Texas history. Our textbook said nothing about lynching or racial hatred (Mirabeau B. Lamar, 2nd president of the Republic of Texas, famously said in 1842 that there was no place for the red man in Texas). Although most Mexican kids did poorly in school, and some adults called them dog meat, two Mexican friends worked their way through the University of Texas in Austin (costs were small compared to today’s costs). While UT was theoretically open to blacks by the late 50s, dormitories were segregated. I never heard of a black Galvestonian attending UT until the mid 60s. In the 50s, we heard go to UT if you want Mexican friends, go to A & M if you want to be a real Texan, and forget about college for blacks. There is still surprising racist bile from UT students and alumni in the Obama era. The Daily Texan published a racist cartoon about Trayvon Martin.
Drafted in late 1964, I learned that promotion for career military men required telling the DOD what they wanted to hear, obviously no way to detect and remedy problems. I don’t think that those in power, Trump, the Kochs, Romney, Schumer and the war loving Democrats ever learned the lessons of Vietnam. We would not have invaded Iraq if they had. We would not have wasted trillions of dollars.
Recently I help my local public elementary school, which is 97% nonwhite, and has about 70% of the kids living with one parent. The teachers and principal are heroes in my book, but they have almost no supporting staff. Disruptive children are fairly common, and many of them come around if they get individual attention. Our educational system bypasses many kids, who later drop out. Pasadena has more Latino than African American kids; nearly all white and most Asian kids go to private schools. This seems to guarantee increasing crime and inequality in the future. Whites may say, “those people shouldn’t have children if they can’t care for them”, they won’t see how our system makes things hard for poor families of all races. Most American families are stressed, worse than in the 50s. Some want many disadvantaged kids certified as having PTSD. I don’t think that would be a favor. I think that 60-70% of all school age children have significant stresses today and need some extra help, but not special schools or the handicapped label.
Now, about Sanders, Clinton and BLM. Sanders was unprepared, Clinton is seen rearing backwards, trying to deal quickly with some young protesters, lecturing them. All serious candidates of all parties should have sit down meetings with BLM representatives. Police killings must stop. Candidates could then say, I would like to finish my talk, I have scheduled a meeting, if protesters break into a speech. I don’t ask BLM protesters to be polite. I ask them them to consider our harsh culture and Donald Trump, the id of white power (Not all old whites support him, but Southern white power people certainly love him). I hope that policemen can be required to call in for an authorization to shoot unless being shot at. A citizen running off at the mouth is no reason for arrest, tasers, guns, etc. Such policy can’t come from Washington. No president can make it stick. Cracks are becoming evident in white culture; many white Americans now admit that there are far too many police shootings. However, juries rarely convict a policeman who has shot someone claiming that he feared for his life. Yet civil suits claiming wrongful death often produce amazing sums of money.
Why do we Americans have so little empathy for the mentally ill? The dividing line between them and us is shaky; most of us have been severely depressed or out of control at some point in our lives. Humans are fragile and fallible, we want to be associated with winners and despise ‘losers’. Polls say that 30-40% never talk to their neighbors and often don’t even know their names. Such a society is unsustainable. Neighborhoods being more segregated, talking to your neighbors isn’t enough to clear up most racial issues. Did Jesus despise losers?
These are not simple issues. Before saying that the 2016 election isn’t that important (it will leave many disappointments) think about a supreme court with another Scalia, ruling that the police “have a constitutional right to use their discretion”. It could bring civil war. How can we bring our harsh police - justice system and our military –financial system under control?