rainy day

“No per­son has the right to rain on your dreams.”
—Mar­tin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968)
 

My morn­ing be­gan with Black Pa­tri­ots: Buf­fa­lo Sol­diers and con­tin­ues with Tuskegee Air­men: Lega­cy of Courage.

When I watch these amaz­ing sto­ries I think about the de­ter­mi­na­tion, will, and de­sire just to be on an equal ba­sis. I’m struck by the hero­ism to pro­tect their white com­rades while be­ing shunned by those same individuals.

I tru­ly wish that who­ev­er came up with the phrase “Crit­i­cal Race The­o­ry” had just used the phrase “U.S. His­to­ry, the Facts” be­cause those three words of CRT im­me­di­ate­ly make cer­tain peo­ple de­fen­sive and they re­ject even con­sid­er­ing it, much less be­come aware of their his­to­ry, or al­low it to be taught.

The word “crit­i­cal” im­me­di­ate­ly makes any­one defensive.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the word “race” will shut peo­ple down.

The word “the­o­ry” im­plies that it’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly factual.

Both sides of my fam­i­ly ben­e­fit­ed from be­ing slave own­ers. Their off­springs be­came doc­tors, lawyers, stock­bro­kers, and politi­cians of and were af­ford­ed the lux­u­ry of the best schools and the best jobs due to the ben­e­fits of slav­ery. That’s a pure and sim­ple fact. 

The in­ter­est­ing thing is the chil­dren of those same slave own­ers fought for the rights of Na­tive Amer­i­cans, equal jus­tice for Amer­i­can cit­i­zens, and vot­ing rights for women.

I was raised by a woman born in Geor­gia and who grew up in Al­aba­ma, who hat­ed racism and al­lowed me to have any friend I want­ed no mat­ter what race, cul­ture, or color.

We lived just out­side of De­troit when the ri­ots hap­pened in 1967.

The news por­trayed the ri­ots in a hor­ri­fy­ing way, I was ter­ri­fied that I was go­ing to be killed by “an­gry ri­ot­ing Ne­groes.” I re­mem­ber my moth­er, who was dy­ing of can­cer at the time, try­ing to ex­plain to me what they were an­gry about and to calm my fears. 

While watch­ing a pro­gram about racial in­equal­i­ty years ago I was struck by a young black man talk­ing about walk­ing down a side­walk and see­ing three white young men his age walk­ing to­wards him and hav­ing a sense of fear of them. 

I was shocked be­cause it nev­er oc­curred to me that a black man my age might fear me. My per­spec­tive changed af­ter that.

On this rainy Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Day, may we all pass each oth­er with an aware­ness that that in­di­vid­ual might fear us, and give them a smile, a nod, and tru­ly ask how they are and mean it.

 

—Louis Warfield

Flom­mist Louis Warfield is a fab­ri­ca­tion spe­cial­ist who runs the award-win­ning Rhi­no De­sign Stu­dio, “You dream it, we’ll build it.” Copy­right © 2023 Louis Warfield. Sacra­men­to pho­to by mehallo.

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