Racism

When I was a kid I thought racism was normal. So normal that I didn't even know there was such a thing. It's very odd considering I grew up in a town that had one of the worst racial massacres in U.S. history. I'm talking about the 1921 race riot of Tulsa Oklahoma. On June 1st of that year almost the entire Greenwood area was razed and hundreds of blacks were massacred all because a black man stepped on the toe of a white woman. The story soon turned to attempted rape.

40 years later no one talked about it. I never knew it happened. In the 60's I use to walk down Greenwood in the middle of the night and nothing ever happened to me. I had no fear of blacks

Everyone I knew used the "N" word. I can still hear myself reciting "Eenie meenie mynee mo. Catch a ______ by the toe." I now find that word so repulsive that I can't even write it, much less SAY it. Even putting the initial in quotes gives me shivers. It should never be used, BY ANYONE, for ANY REASON! I DON’T CARE WHAT COLOR YOUR SKIN IS OR YOUR ETHNIC BACKGROUND. It’s just plain WRONG!

It wasn't until the mid 60's that I came to my senses and realized that racism was (and is) wrong. I actually started meeting black people for the first time and all of a sudden I had lots of black friends. Ike, Clarence and Samba were regular visitors to my home and I to theirs. I began to realize we are all the same. I was poor because my dad didn't have enough education to get a really decent job. My black friends were poor because their parents weren't allowed to have decent jobs.

To judge someone because of their skin color is the trappings of an irrational mind.