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The book of Genesis begins with a description of God creating the world and all life that is on it, including mankind. Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” It doesn’t say that they were people of color or of no color, it just says, male and female he created them. I am getting to be a man of age, 70 years ago I was born, 1945, the end of World War II. In my time I have seen much in the way of death and destruction. Korea, Vietnam, and a number of other conflicts, I even served 12 years in the US Army. Last year I buried my brother, Agent orange in Vietnam ended his life too early. I grew up in New York City, I remember the riots in the early 60’s, I remember the killing of JFK and of his brother Bobby, I also remember the killing of Martin Luther King Jr.

This was a dark time in our nation’s history, yet I also know that we have come a great distance from the time. Is there racism, sure, there are always going to be people who will want to foment hatred for one group or another. Witness the hatred against Jewish people, my own ancestry includes Irish ancestors, they experienced hatred. One of the ancestors of my wife was an indentured servant. Not slavery, but he sure suffered whipping and other deprivations while an indenture. I also remember going to Ft. Knox Kentucky in 1963 as a private in the army. A friend of mine at the time, a man of color, and I went to Louisville on a pass, we stopped at a place for lunch. As we entered the cafe, we were stopped and my buddy was told he needed to go to the back (colored) entrance. After some back and forth with the man who stopped us, we both left and found another place, I was the only white face in the place. I wasn’t told to go elsewhere, we were both welcome in that place. Had a great lunch and a good time while we were there. What a difference from the inhospitable cafe we originally went to.

Today that will not happen, we can go where we wish to go, and enjoy a meal in any place we want to enter. I live now in Texas, there is no problem where we live, we celebrate Cinco de Mayo, and Juneteenth as well as the 4th of July. Much has changed, and yet, we hear people claiming that racism is rampant in our country. These people who claim to be Pastors, (Rev. Al Sharpton) and others, the invective sure seems somewhat short of what the Lord Jesus would be saying, and what I remember from Martin Luther King Jr. as well. It also pains me to hear our President speak in derogatory terms about people, I note that he has not done what I really hoped he would, and that is to improve on race relations even more than they were. Instead we have been forced to listen to a racist Attorney General, and many others in this administration, claiming that racism has been rampant in our society. Yet without the millions of us racist white folks voting for this President, he would not have been President. We had hoped that the progress that had been made in race relations would continue under Barack Hussein Obama. Unfortunately that hope has been dashed.

Now we hear the Democratic candidates invoking racism as well, talking as if we were still in the dark ages of our nation. I studied history, and find that hundreds of thousands of white people died to end slavery during the most horrific war of our history, a Republican President was the issuer of the Emancipation proclamation, not a Democrat. A Republican man of Color, Frederick Douglass, a freed slave and a pastor was instrumental in the writing of that proclamation. Yet that history has been buried, and the name of Douglass has been hidden, in order to foster, hatred between the races.

We all live in this nation, and whether you are black, white, yellow or brown, we all matter, our lives all matter. The problems we face are of our own making, and it is high time we stopped hating each other and begin again to treat one another with respect. We need to regain that which we have lost in the last 10 years or so, we need to stop this constant beat of race baiting and begin to heal these wounds that have been caused by those who are making their living on hatred. It is high time to change the rhetoric, and the path we are on, and once again move forward as a United People, as people who want to live in peace with our neighbors, as people who look at the heart and the work of each other and not at the color of our skin.

It is time to see ourselves as neighbors and friends, instead of enemies. Are you ready to move forward instead of backward? Let us start a new conversation, one that hears as well as speaks, one that respects each other, one that moves us toward being the great country we can be. Will you join me?

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