street I would be concerned for my own safety and the safety of others.
Of course, as I have said before, where I live they would have been
arrested for being black long before they got here. When I was in
practice I spent many a morning in the courthouse in South Central L. A.
I kept my briefcase on the passenger seat where it was obvious to anyone
outside the car, and carried it with me like a badge because the gang
members didn't bother defense attorneys. As long as I had it with me,
and dressed like a lawyer I could, without any fear at all, ride an
elevator with a dozen Crips (being inside the courthouse could have
something to do with it), and they helped me get out of the hood before
the riots started.
At the same time I represented a group of black homeowners who had been
completely ripped off and defrauded by the "black" bank in their own
neighborhood and successfully negotiated refi loans for them with a
"white" bank they would never have dreamed of going to on their own.
They were shocked in their turn to discover that the loan officers did
not expect "commissions". This was all 20-30 years ago. According to
the stories lately about the foreclosure crunch its still going on.
Some of my nicest neighbors when my kids were growing up was the black
family across the street. I was in their home and they were in mine.
My daughter attended a predominantly black high school because it was
the magnet school, and I got to know a lot of her friends of all colors
and ethic backgrounds.
I walked through the sit-ins in North Carolina in the 60s to get to work
and wondered why anybody would mind if a black person sat at the counter
at Woolworth's. At that time the "Black Only" signs were still on
drinking fountains.
I don't think my experiences are particularly atypical - neither are
they completely typical. I was shocked at first when I heard some of
Rev. Wright's comments, until I remembered that those sit-ins and the
Freedom Riders were only 45-50 years ago. That's not a long time. We
expect, from our tv watching, that all problems will be solved within
the hour, but that's not real life.
I have no solutions for the racial divide that still exists. The only
thing I can do is to be honest about my feelings and experiences and
hope that enough other people will honestly record and remember theirs
so we can get past all the political correctness and start talking to
each other.
Carol
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