We live, in the center of the country, in a world that is very different from the world of the coasts, most particularly of the big cities found there — Los Angeles, Seattle, New York. Even Chicago is a world so removed from downstate Illinois that many downstaters would like to see it separated into its own world, its own state, so different is it from what we experience each day.
We watch on television the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in Baltimore, Maryland, and we watch angry Black Lives Matter protestors marching in the streets, closing down bridges, and shouting slogans like “What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want them? Now!”, and we worry about where life in America is headed. Then some talking head on television solemnly intones that perhaps we are headed towards a race war. A race war?!
And what would be the basis of such a war? The oppression of people of color in America by white America? Just how oppressed are people of color in this country? Do they live in mud huts with no electricity or running water? Are their women covered from head to toe in black garments that hide their hair and even their faces? Are they forbidden to drive? To go to school? To hold a job? To go anywhere without a male family member to escort them? Of course not! They all, male and female, hold jobs, attend schools, are admitted to colleges, live in buildings with running water, electricity, and heat, and can rise to any level of importance in the country, including to the office of President of the United States. That is not oppression!
Do a few misguided bigots scattered around the country try to diminish their worth as human beings? Unfortunately, yes. But the number of those racists, as discovered by a study by World Value Survey, is only around 3.8% of all Americans (Great Britain and its former colonies all scored low, while France was at 22% intolerant and Jordan and socialist/ communist countries came in at 30% or above). 3.8% of 325,083,066 Americans does not seem like a lot, but still at over 12,000,000 individuals, it is more than enough to provide the occasional march like with Charlottesville’s 250 protestors and the scattered Neo-Nazi and KKK groups. But by and large, tolerance of those with different skin colors is the accepted norm in the United States, not the anomaly, as more than 312,000,000 Americans are accepting of others.
So why do groups like Black Lives Matter and many liberals like Representative Maxine Waters and (Rev?) Al Sharpton continue to stir the waters, whipping up waves of black resentment against so-called “white supremacy?” Because it makes good politics, of course. Black Lives Matter organizers suddenly became the focus of myriads of television reports and even got themselves invited to the White House. Quite an accomplishment for ordinary Americans! Waters and Sharpton, who have both gotten rich over their race baiting, also like the limelight, and for Waters, a Democrat, the constant mantra of “it’s us against them!” brings in votes, pure and simple.
I have been concerned about what I have seen on television, about the sudden return of some blacks to demands of segregation that would have appalled Martin Luther King Jr., and about the incorrect claims of Black Lives Matter that police (of all colors) are specifically targeting and murdering innocent blacks. As I have researched and presented in other blogs, several studies, including one at Harvard University, and statistics provided by the FBI of police shootings, prove that their claims are wrong. And I have been concerned that so many liberals and blacks of both political persuasions believe these lies to be true, despite those few black voices who try to convince them otherwise. I wondered how the ordinary black person that I might meet on the street would react to me, a blond-haired white woman. And so I have conducted my own little, totally unscientific research into the interaction between people of color and me.
In Marshall, Illinois, a small town on Interstate 70, Russ and I stopped for lunch at the Pizza Hut a couple of weeks ago. Just as we pulled in to the parking lot, so did two pick-up trucks pulling very large, very expensive RVs. The two drivers, black men, followed us into the restaurant. Because we had the buffet and they ordered special pizzas to go, we ended up paying at about the same time, and Russ struck up a conversation with them about the RVs. We learned they were out of Indianapolis and delivering the RVs to Texas. Russ chatted pleasantly with them as they got their pizzas, gathered napkins, added grated cheese, collected their drinks and headed for the door. The Pizza Hut employees, residents of a mostly white community, treated them with no less courtesy than they treated us. As we reached the door just ahead of them, while Russ held the second door for me, I told the two to go ahead since they were both loaded down with drinks, napkins, and large pizza boxes, but they politely refused to proceed me. We all said a cordial good-bye in the parking lot and went our separate ways. No animosity there.
Last week, Russ and I went to Indianapolis to Riley Children’s Hospital and to University Hospital where he was being evaluated for a cochlear implant. Indianapolis, as a big city and state capital, has a much larger black population that we find even in neighboring Terre Haute. We encountered myriads of black nurses, interns, receptionists, technicians, gift shop and cafeteria employees, and not a single one was anything but all smiling helpfulness. In the waiting areas where we spent way too many hours between appointments during the two days, we interacted with a number of young couples with children (it was a children’s hospital, after all). A remarkable number of them were inter-racial couples and all were as friendly and as nice as could be as we smiled and spoke with one another. Where I wonder, is the hatred between the races? Where the animosity? The white workers in the hospital treated the black workers no differently than their white compatriots. In fact, the administrative assistant in the cochlear implant department is a black woman named Francia. She was absolutely wonderful over the phone in her careful explanations to me of all we needed to do before going to Indianapolis. When we met her in person, she was bubbly and welcoming, just as she had been over the phone. When I remarked upon how much I liked and appreciated her to the cochlear specialist that we talked to as Russ chose his new device, she, a white woman, could not say enough about how wonderful Francia was. In fact, she said she had told Francia that if she ever chose to retire before she, Kim, did, Francia would probably find Kim holding onto her leg, trying to prevent her from leaving. No animosity there, either.
I find that Americans are Americans. If you are kind and friendly, you will most likely get a kind and friendly response from almost everyone, no matter their color. A thug of any color is still a thug, but a young family of any color is just a young family. A child is just a child. A man or woman is just a man or woman. This is not a country of racists, no matter how much some on the left want to accuse us of being just that. Perhaps they, the left, are simply ascribing to us the feelings that they themselves feel. They accuse us of “white supremacy” and “white privilege” because they themselves feel “east/west coast supremacy” and “east/west coast privilege.” Certainly, like President Obama, they look down upon us as rubes who “cling to our guns and religion.” If that is not intolerance, I don’t know what is. What they don’t realize is that their intolerance for the vast majority of the country is far greater than any intolerance that a few Americans might feel for people of color.
So, a race war? Between whom? Blacks in cities like Chicago and Baltimore have much to complain about, but it is to the Democratic governments that have controlled those cities for decades that they should complain. They need better schools. They need better policing in their neighborhoods to keep the drug dealers off the corners and the guns out of the hands of gang members. They need to be shown that education can buy them a ticket to a better, productive life. But it is their own city governments that are keeping them in the “ghetto,” not the rest of America. If Democrats really feel that blacks are equal to them and deserve equal opportunities, then let them clean up those cities and provide better lives for those voters who have faithfully pulled the Democratic lever in the voting booth year after year after year. Accusing the rest of us of racism or warning of an impending race war is both unrealistic and unhelpful!