Editor’s Note – Police, Race, and Murder
Stephan: 
I read the media coverage of the murder of a young Black EMT by police and thought about it in the context of the White Supremacy movement Trump is stimulating, and the recurring stories of the murder of non-Whites by the police and decided I would devote today's SR to this trend.
When I was about nine years old I was obsessed with trains, real or model. In the summer, Marilyn, the Black woman who was my nanny would take me by streetcar down to the train station, and let me watch the trains come in and go out. On one of these trips, we waited in the full waiting room for a particular locomotive I wanted to see that was coming in from New York.
Sitting across the aisle from Marilyn and myself was a young Black boy about my age who was with what looked like his grandmother. One of what I thought of as church ladies, with a hat, who has colling her face with a paper fan. It was hot, and this was before air-conditioning was widespread. I heard the boy ask his grandmother something and she pointed towards the segregated water fountains across the room one with a cooler was marked "White" and the other, uncooled was marked "Colored." I watched as he got up and went across the Colored fountain which he could just reach. He fiddled with it but it did not seem to work, and he started for the White fountain when his grandmother quickly called out to him to come back, which he did. He sat there clearly unhappy as she talked to him. There was a kind of soda fountain in the waiting room, and I got up and went over to the counter boy, and asked him for a cold glass of water. He took a metal holder put a V-shaped paper cup put in an ice cube filled it with water and handed it to me.
I went over to the Black boy and handed it to him. Suddenly you could hear a murmur of comment in the room, Marilyn and the grandmother exchanged a look and both women stood up. The grandmother took the boy's hand as he finished the drink, and Marilyn took mine saying, "We have to go." I started to protest but she would not be denied. As we went down the aisle towards the exit, we walked by a White woman who looked at Marilyn and said in a tone of nastiness even a 9-year-old understood, "Teaching him to be a nigger lover are you?" Other Whites around her voiced their support. I had never heard the word before and asked Marilyn what it meant and why the woman and others seemed so angry. Marilyn said, "That's a hateful word some White people call Negroes like me."
That was the day I learned about racism, and I have worked against it ever since.
I read the media coverage of the murder of a young Black EMT by police and thought about it in the context of the White Supremacy movement Trump is stimulating, and the recurring stories of the murder of non-Whites by the police and decided I would devote today's SR to this trend.
When I was about nine years old I was obsessed with trains, real or model. In the summer, Marilyn, the Black woman who was my nanny would take me by streetcar down to the train station, and let me watch the trains come in and go out. On one of these trips, we waited in the full waiting room for a particular locomotive I wanted to see that was coming in from New York.
Sitting across the aisle from Marilyn and myself was a young Black boy about my age who was with what looked like his grandmother. One of what I thought of as church ladies, with a hat, who has colling her face with a paper fan. It was hot, and this was before air-conditioning was widespread. I heard the boy ask his grandmother something and she pointed towards the segregated water fountains across the room one with a cooler was marked "White" and the other, uncooled was marked "Colored." I watched as he got up and went across the Colored fountain which he could just reach. He fiddled with it but it did not seem to work, and he started for the White fountain when his grandmother quickly called out to him to come back, which he did. He sat there clearly unhappy as she talked to him. There was a kind of soda fountain in the waiting room, and I got up and went over to the counter boy, and asked him for a cold glass of water. He took a metal holder put a V-shaped paper cup put in an ice cube filled it with water and handed it to me.
I went over to the Black boy and handed it to him. Suddenly you could hear a murmur of comment in the room, Marilyn and the grandmother exchanged a look and both women stood up. The grandmother took the boy's hand as he finished the drink, and Marilyn took mine saying, "We have to go." I started to protest but she would not be denied. As we went down the aisle towards the exit, we walked by a White woman who looked at Marilyn and said in a tone of nastiness even a 9-year-old understood, "Teaching him to be a nigger lover are you?" Other Whites around her voiced their support. I had never heard the word before and asked Marilyn what it meant and why the woman and others seemed so angry. Marilyn said, "That's a hateful word some White people call Negroes like me."
That was the day I learned about racism, and I have worked against it ever since.
Thank you for posting. I remember those times too. I still can’t get my mind around this country having a “president” who thinks the Nazi party and the KKK have some “very fine people”.
I remember those “separate but unequal” water coolers and even gas stations with three restrooms: men, women and colored. It sucked.
In 2004 I moved to Nicaragua. I quickly learned that this “U.S. problem” was not a problem in a place such as Nicaragua. (Being gay was a problem but race/skin color was not.) If someone with Chinese features was called “El Chino”. No prejudice — just a logical way to identify them. My wife who was darker than many of her friends was called “La Negrita” by those friends. I was called “El Gringo” but, if I acted offended the label was quickly changed to “El Chele” — from leche (milk).
It was nice to see that Usano prejudices didn’t exist in Nicaragua.
This short piece brought tears to my eyes. You might enjoy my own learning experience. You can find it at https://kennethweene.com/2019/04/23/black-lives-and-my-white-privilege-lessons-from-childhood/
I take offence at any whites who use “that” word because I have a son-in-law who is black and two grandsons as well. I also have a daughter-in-law who is Native American and grandson who is also Native American. Native Americans are also under attack from some whites and have similar problems and I cannot fathom the mindset which allows these racists to make themselves believe they are better than anyone else. Actually, these racists are the most un-American people in our nation.