On April 4, 1968, I was not quite one year old when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. On June 6, 1968, I was just a little over one year old when Robert F. Kennedy was killed. My brother and sister were in high school in the early ‘70s, a time where there were fights about race at Madison East High School, but I was too young to remember the racial turmoil of the of the ‘60s and early ‘70s. In 1973 I entered kindergarten at Hawthorne School on Madison, Wisconsin’s east side. Some of the kids I do not remember, while some I am still in contact with today. One person stands out in my memory: Rita, the only African-American girl in the school.
We went through grade school together. When I was bullied, she and another girl would make sure I was not alone when I escaped to the far corner of the playground—away from the activity and noise. I don’t know if they remember, but I do. We had the shared experience of riding the bus to middle school and walking to high school. By this time the racial tensions at Madison East were a thing of the past. We had a black principal: Milt McPike, a man I still look up to today and who I still consider a role model. In high school we were all in different cliques, and after high school we all went our separate ways and lost touch with each other—that is just the way of the world.
Thanks to Facebook, we all found each other again. Rita still has the same big beautiful smile, even through the stresses of raising a very large family. She is still that sweet little girl that used to sit with me when I most needed a friend so many years ago. In some ways it was confusing to me: Right around the time we started school, a black family moved in around the corner from us. My mom thought they would be nothing but trouble because of the color of their skin. My young mind heard my mom saying “the blacks” were trouble, yet the only black person I knew was always nice to me.
(My mom’s stance on race evolved—within a year she was okay with them living around the corner as she had met them and they were, as she put it, nice. They may have been the very first black people my mom ever talked to.)
Even though we have the shared experiences of childhood, I will never know what it was like for Rita to be the only minority in our school. I will never know what it has been like for her, forced to feel the sting of racism by virtue of birth. I am a white male, and she is a black female.
Rita has three middle school-aged children at home, and while we don’t hang out together (I would post a photo of the two of us, but the only one I have is from our class reunion, it is out of focus, and adult beverages may have been involved), we do keep up through social media. She is a proud mother, and she has every right to be, as she has some great kids.
This was a week where I saw a (former) friend post a photo of a loved one in blackface—and people were defending it as a costume. This was also a week that saw a black church in Mississippi set afire with the slogan “Vote Trump” spray painted on the brick exterior. Rita posted a rant on her wall about how it seems like we are going backward instead of forward in regard to racial issues and racism.
This prompted an IM discussion with her, and we swapped some stories. Then, she said this:
My son [redacted]. asked me a couple of weeks ago if it makes me sad when people say bad things about black people. I told him that it makes me very sad because I don't understand how people could be so mean. He said he wants to be like me when he gets older and not have it bother him, because he said he couldn't tell that I was upset
I don't want him to be like me because I don't want him to have to experience it, but the way the society is going we are always going to have it and it's getting worse. Like I said going backwards in time. Here I am at almost fifty years old and I still try not to see it. I hate that society throws that in my face I just want to be me I don't want to be judged because of the color of my skin, and I want my kids not to be judged that way. It's a very simple request — something that will never happen and it's sick.
It was my turn to sit with her and talk while the bullies were off in the distance. I will never know what it is like to deal with people hating her and her children because of the color of their skin. I will never feel the weight of racism, and I will never have to worry about my son having to deal with racism. I hate that my friend does have to deal with it. I hate that we have a presidential candidate who is openly racist, and has the support of white supremacist groups. For fuck’s sake! This is 2016—this is the future I grew up looking forward to. We were supposed to have flying cars, be living on Mars, and racism, sexism, other “isms” and phobias were supposed to be a thing of the past.
Instead, a major political party has nominated a man who feeds off hate, who spreads hate, and makes it okay to hate my friend Rita and her family. That is not okay with me. Even though I have never felt the pain that is inflicted by racists, I can empathize with those who have. Enough of this bullshit.
Donald Trump must lose on Tuesday. He must not be allowed in the White House—not even for a cup of coffee. Because if he becomes our president, then racism and racist attacks will happen more frequently, and more of these vile trolls will crawl out from under their rocks.
And a whole new generation of racists will be upon us.