In what has turned into an illuminating series of posts and comments on Public Enemy, Elvis (P and C), race (naturally), and other related topics, I brought up the issue of black anger as reflected in the music of PE (see comment #6 on this post). I said such anger is probably not helpful on a personal or political level, but is certainly a legitimate topic for art, and is justified - even now - by our sorry racial history.
As if the Fates were listening in on the discussion, I picked up today's Aurora Advocate, our local weekly, shortly after making the comment, turned to page 13 and read a story by reporter Dave O'Brien (it isn't online):
- Two Streetsboro [brothers], who are white, have been sentenced to a maximum of six months in jail for their role in an alleged racially-charged road rage incident .... found guilty .. of chasing a car driven by 19-year-old Auroran [I'm leaving out all names] who is black, with their trucks through Shalersville.
...[Auroran] and a friend were visiting a mutual friend in Shalersville ... [Brother 1] drove past them and used a racial epithet directed at [Auroran].
....As [Auroran] drove away and approached Bartlett Road ... [brother 1] then cut off [Auroran], pulled in front of him and stopped.
As [Auroran] attempted to back up and pull around, he saw another truck, driven by [brother 2], approaching...
[Auroran] made a right turn onto Bartlett Road, with the trucks driving alongside him, switching lanes and trying to get in front of his car.
[Auroran] pulled into a driveway, where [the brothers] cornered him, got out of their trucks, began kicking and banging on his car and shouted racial slurs.
[Auroran] managed to drive away with the [brothers] in pursuit...
Imagine the horror of a black kid from upper-middle class Aurora running for his life away from two white goons who hated him and wished him harm (at best) SIMPLY BECAUSE HE WAS BLACK, just a few miles from his "safe" home, in the enlightened year of 2002. Thank God he got away.
Now picture this: this incident, of which I was unaware before today, began right in front of our old house WHILE WE STILL LIVED THERE, and the brothers were our next door neighbors. Racism doesn't hit much closer to home than that.
Article comments
1 - Dawn
And to think, you thought I was overreacting when I said that I was afraid for my life living next to these two redneck, lowlife, white trash (and now apparently racist) mothereffers.
I guess we are lucky it was only our cat that was killed.
2 - Al Barger
Brothers should be armed. Malcolm X made such a point. I concur. It would have been a great public service if this black man had taken out these two anti-social jerks.
3 - Michael
As KRS-ONE said in his song Uh Oh:
White kids! You living in the whitest part of town
You are a white kid but you know you hang around
So you and your friends thinking that you are all of that
When you see a youth walk by and yes the youth is black
One kid say "Hey, what you doing on the block
We don't want no niggers here unless he is a cop"
So the kid pull out a big baseball bat
And them him slap with the bat becasue the kid is black
Now then the kid fell down but still alive
So he reach in his pants and pull out a four-five
Pop! One friend drop and everyone run
Out of all the white kids now you the only one
You start cry, cause now you gonna die
And it's all because what your friends did to this guy
Uh oh! What you gonna do now?
Uh oh! He gonna blame you somehow
Uh oh! What you think you gonna say?
Uh oh! Now them carting you away
4 - Pythagosaurus
Racists? In Ohio?? In Portage County?? Perish the thought!!
Sorry... I don't mean to be sarcastic. I've seen this kind of thing too many times, and it's one reason I left.
I grew up not far from Aurora, and I distinctly remember a near-riot in the parking lot of my high school when some enterprising students went into Ravenna one Friday night to holler stupidities any black students they could find. They were followed back, and the post-football game HS parking lot almost got very, very ugly as a group of black students from Ravenna faced off against some Good Young Boys. Lucky the cops doing game security hadn't left yet...
My classmates were soooo proud. For their next trick they drove into Akron looking for black people to beat up.
Morons.
This would have been around 1991, and subsequent visits back home suggest that things haven't changed too much.
5 - Natalie
It's particularly hard to fathom for humans who don't buy into the concept of "race" or in society's categorizations of human beings. All we see is hate and violence perpetrated and it makes waking up each day a trial.
Quoting Bob Marley/Haile Selassie:
Until the philosophy
Which holds one race superior
And another
Inferior
Is finally
And permanently
Discredited
And abandoned -
Everywhere is war.
Being a pacifist, I, of course, mean nonviolent war.
6 - Tom Johnson
Unless I'm misreading you (and forgive me if I am,) I think you missed the point there, Natalie. Marley's not saying he wants or advocates war, he's saying that if races cannot get along then we are perpetually in a state of war - violent or not.
I have a friend who is racist against Hispanics. She's Jewish. I never understand how someone whose own race/religion has been so tortured can possible harbor any negative feelings toward any other fellow minority. It makes me sad, in fact, that this otherwise intelligent person sullies herself so with the unwarranted comments she occasionally makes.
To erase racism from the world, we have to rid it of stupidity. Unfortunately, I see no shortage of stupidity in the world, so racism will likely continue unfettered. Do what you yourself can, I suppose, in hopes it rubs off on someone you know who is racist.
7 - natalie
Yes, Tom, you are misreading my words. S'ok.