Working Towards Ending Racism

  Racism and Our Personal Safety I remember when racism first intersected with our personal safety, though at the time I didn’t realize that it was racism.     My partner B, a Black female, and I, a white male, were relaxing for brunch in Venice, by Santa Monica, California.   B spoke of how she felt uncomfortable with me.   Her words really bothered me then.    B spoke of how she would want to feel that I would physically protect her, if she was attacked.   She felt that I would try to protect myself, but not her.   At the time, her words both surprised, and bothered me.    I applied for conscientious objector status at age 18, in 1969.    As a child, we were not allowed squirt guns, because they were guns.    I do not recall ever holding or possessing a weapon or something used for self-defense;   a gun, knife, pepper spray or anything remotely similar. With B, we had already talked about sexism.   We both rejected various gender roles and similar.    At the time, I thought t

  WHITE FLIGHT: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism , Kevin M Kruse’s 2005 book seems very timely today.     We often see racism,   after the reign of Donald Trump and the George Floyd killing, without a historical framework.   Kruse explains post- World War II Atlanta with multiple examples of its complex path.    Atlanta seemingly became a “poster child” for a Southern city desegregating, while working class and lower middle-class white people resisted the coalition effort seeking “reasonable” change.    Kruse carefully explains how the Republican Party of Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon began the mainstream “conservative” movement which continues through today.    Racism is central, of course, but there is much more to the story. Atlanta had a relatively united middle-class core of Black leadership in the late 1940’s and the 1950’s.   Leading ministers, lawyers, (“realtists” – not allowed to be called) real estate brokers, and others of influence, regularly worked and