Not Racism?
To some people outside of the Black community, the notion that the authorities could unfairly target an entire demographic seems ludicrous.
To some, the Black Lives Matter movement is nonsense because they think it means that the lives of other races do not matter.
However, the release of the 911 call involving Seattle Seahawks star Kam Chancellor proves that some target Black Americans even if White Americans are involved in the alleged incident as well.
When Kam Chancellor approached a closed Redmond, Wash. area health club trying to find information on the club, workers called 911 unsure of what was going on.
While that employee would have been better served to see what they wanted before calling 911, the real issue is with the 911 dispatcher.
When the health club employee explained that there were several Black Americans and a couple of White Americans outside of the club for 10 minutes taking pictures, knocking on the window and trying to open the door, the 911 dispatcher asked for a description of the Black subjects only, not the White subjects in their company.
While the dispatcher will probably have an excuse as to why her remarks were not racist, let us not forget that during slavery and the Civil Rights Movement, very few people or any at all, described themselves as racist.
Separate schools for the races were not racist. They were necessary to keep the races from intermingling because of the fear of race mixing.
Separate pools were necessary, not because of racism, but because Blacks were unclean and had diseases that some White people were afraid to contract.
Interracial marriages were illegal, not because of racism, but to maintain the purity of the White race and prevent one mongrel race.
And those who fought against racism were the real racists.
Montgomery, Ala. Police Chief Eugene “Bull” Connor was not a racist. It was Martin Luther King, Jr. who was a race baiter and a troublemaker.
When James Meredith integrated Ole Miss, the White rioters were not the problem. The problem was that Meredith did not know his place in society by trying to integrate the all-White University of Mississippi.
And Alabama Governor George Wallace was not a racist for allowing marchers to be attacked on Bloody Sunday in Selma, Ala. He only had cops respond in a violent way because the march was performed despite the fact that Wallace issued a ban on the march.
Slave masters did not feel they were racist either. Some believed that Blacks were just inferior and God’s purpose for their lives was to serve the White man. They even had the audacity to think the slaves were happy with their enslavement.
So while we live in a society where many outside of the Black community do not believe racism exists or that they themselves harbor any bigoted feelings, those people should know that many people who history views as racist did not see themselves as racist either.
Nevertheless, their actions and their words make it obvious in hindsight.
Likewise, many revered Black leaders like King were viewed as race baiters and troublemakers back in the day.
Now, people are saying the same things about Black Lives Matter protestors.
A popular cliché states that the more things change the more things stay the same.
It is just unfortunate that some people’s views on race are the same as bigots from decades ago.
