Calling Out Racism ... Wherever We Find It

I had never seen racism firsthand before. Only read about it in books and newspapers. Only heard about it on the news.

But when I finally saw it, firsthand and in real life … “what racism actually is” became real to me. I finally understood it. And I vowed to “call it out” forevermore in my life, wherever I found it.

To the best of my knowledge, I have kept that promise.

Living in the mountains of Southern Highlands Appalachia as I most happily do, most of my friends are White. Some are of Asian ethnicity. Others, Latino. But a surprisingly large percentage of my friends are Black. Perhaps that fact can be traced back to my college days and my love of sports.

I was on the college golf team, but it seems I often hung out with football players. Perhaps it was because we shared the same wild streak. (Well, that’s not it because our golf team had quite a wild streak, too.) Anyway, my football friends and I were sitting around a table in the dorm playing cards one night. I had a Mountain Dew and offered a swig to my playing partner. He took one.

No need for us to worry about “spreading germs”. This was the ‘70s. We neither worried nor cared about spreading or catching germs (nor spreading or catching “anything under the sun” for that matter). Again, we were college kids in the ‘70s.

Another friend at the table, who went by the name of Billy, asked for a swig of my Mountain Dew. I teased Billy and told him I’d give the fellow beside him a drink instead. This friend happened to be Black.

My Black friend took a big swig, then offered Billy a drink. Billy (who, by the way, happened to be White like me) refused. He said nervously, “I’m not thirsty anymore.”

You could have heard a pin drop. Everybody there knew exactly why Billy didn’t want a swig from my Mountain Dew bottle anymore. And it wasn’t for the reason he stated. Billy was obviously plenty ready and eager to drink after me from a soda pop bottle, but not after a Black man.

Billy got up and left the table, but not before telling yet another lie. “I just remembered I’ve got to go study.”

Ever since that day, I’ve often noticed how people who commit racism always strive to make excuses for their blatant behavior, trying to cover up one lie with another. This is the standard modus operandi of racists - they blame others and make excuses, as a way of life. Who wants to be labeled a racist? Virtually no one.

So they deftly deflect.

They pass the buck.

They deny.

They blame someone else … therefore ever-so-cleverly managing to fool a lot of good people in the process.

If you know me personally, as do quite a large percentage of the people who read this column regularly, then you know the following two facts about me: 1 - I don’t like confrontation. 2 - I am not afraid of confronting someone when they are harming innocent people. Both of those facts are true at the same time.

If you are a good ol’ boy White hillbilly (like me) and you begin to tell a joke that even seems the wee tiniest bit racist (as if there is such a thing as a “tiny bit” of racism), then you will see this good ol’ boy White hillbilly bluntly tell you he doesn’t want to hear it. And if you continue anyway (as I’ve had some friends do over the years) I will simply leave.

By the way, I have found, from my many years of living in the Mountain South, that displaying a Confederate flag is not, in and of itself, to be deemed as racist behavior. I have many friends who display the Confederate flag. I can personally vouch that the majority of these friends are far from racist. They simply have a different view of Southern culture and heritage than do my Black friends.

I have yet to see any of my Black friends display a Confederate flag. I fully understand, and completely concur with, the reasoning behind why such friends do not. It is much the same reason I don’t ever display such a flag … although, again, I wholeheartedly respect my non-racist friends who do.

My friends who know me personally know that I am not in any way “political”. Like the majority of my fellow American citizens, I remain politically unaligned. Any reader who mistakes something I write as supporting any political party is either being unintentionally ignorant or willfully wrong, one of the two.

Once upon a time I was visiting a Sunday School class at the invitation of a friend. We had all just sat down and were small-talking with one another, when one fellow leaned toward me, grinned, and said (just out of the blue, for all I could tell), “Have you ever wondered why Black people look like apes?”

I learned long ago that there is no use in trying to reason with a racist. So I got up and left (yes, I later explained to my friend why … and he, thankfully, fully understood - and agreed that I had done the right thing).

I am proud and honored to be a member of the National Teachers Hall of Fame. I was inducted in 2015. As part of my induction, I was flown to our nation’s capitol meet the President in the Oval Office. (To give you an idea of how “special” the NTHF is, only five teachers are chosen from across the entire nation each year.)

I met President Obama. I shook his hand. I talked with him, face-to-face.

I can assure you this; President Obama did not look like an ape.

Indeed, ever since that late night card game back in the ‘70s, when I finally understood what racism was, I have kept my vow to call it out, wherever I find it.