You were wondering when I would make my way back to this issue, weren’t you? It is the hottest of hot-button issues, where you can make an enemy of somebody in a single post or expression of feelings that doesn’t set well with the reader. I have blogged on this topic before, but I checked and it’s been over a year, so maybe it’s time to revisit it.

Donald Trump became president on the backs of black and brown people, with his demagoguery of everything to do with black and brown immigrants. And he hasn’t been particularly kind to the black people who were born here, either. Witness his attacks on professional football players who kneel during the national anthem, most of them being black, showing their feelings regarding the shootings of young black men by police officers. Yeah, he has some black supporters. Kanye West, whom I detest, is one. Boxing promoter Don King, a convicted killer, is another. Not the least of them is that dude who has been showing up at Trump rallies, sitting behind the podium in view of the cameras, holding up a sign saying “Blacks for Trump”. He looks kind of lonesome, making me wonder where the other one is. Maybe it’s his mother, who knows? Eccentrics, all three of them, and I am sure there are more. One thing that any black person would have to have to support Trump would be an ability to ignore racial broadsides delivered through a megaphone by Trump. Really strange, if you ask me.

Now that is the public face of racism. Stuff that makes the news. But there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes, which is often not as much of a black-and-white situation, so to speak. There are shades of gray.

I lived in an apartment on Grafton Hill for about fifteen years, moving away in 2009. The rent was reasonable, the place was perfect for me, not tiny, but not too big either. I got along well with the property manager, and I always paid my rent on time. But I had a persistent problem with my downstairs neighbors. The first one who caused me major headaches moved in about a year after I moved in. I’ll call him Johnny. Johnny, an African-American man in his early thirties, lived there with his Hispanic girlfriend. Johnny had a very loud stereo, which he believed he had the right to blast as loud as he wanted to until 10:00 p.m. That’s what a lot of people think, but it is incorrect. Disturbing somebody’s quiet enjoyment of their premises is always actionable, no matter what time it is. Johnny had no interest in getting along with me. He knew I didn’t like him playing his music so loud that it vibrated my floor, with the drumbeat of the rap music causing my furniture to rattle. He didn’t care. And he was a good con artist, being unfailingly polite to the property manager, so if there was any problem, he might be given the benefit of the doubt. I called the landlord, and I wrote him a letter as well. He didn’t do anything. As long as the apartment was occupied and the rent was getting paid, he was cool with it. As well as keeping himself on the right side of the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination in housing. Johnny eventually got his brother in there too, in another apartment, on the same floor as mine, kind of on the other side of the corner of the adjoining building. This guy was even nicer than Johnny. I’ll call him Ronny. The two of them were angelic towards the apartment house management, but they loved their rap and if we didn’t like it too bad. What happened eventually was that the manager got complaints from other tenants, as well as some leaving their apartments due to the loud music, so he evicted Johnny. Ronny left shortly afterward, and I was glad. My five-year nightmare was over.

But my happiness was short-lived. The next tenants of that downstairs apartment were a thirtysomething African-American man and his teenage son. They were okay at first. The father worked, and the son worked too, at first. But the son, who I’ll call Denny, lost his job. His dad worked long hours and essentially left Denny alone much of the time. I don’t know if Denny was in a gang or not, but he had a bunch of wild friends. They would smoke pot in public areas of the apartment building. They would play their rap music all night long. I called the police, and they turned down the music as soon as they saw the headlights of the cruiser pulling into the parking lot. They were so damn polite to the cops. Yes sir this, no sir that, you have yourself a wonderful night now. What happened was four police officers came up to my apartment, knocked on my door, and basically told me to calm down. It was four of them and one of me, so I said yes sir as well. No point in fighting an unwinnable battle. What eventually ended up happening was that one night, the kids got really out of control. They had an all-night party, not only loud music but screaming and yelling at the top of their lungs. I had the police come over at 5 a.m. Two cruisers pulled into the lot. There was a young woman sitting on the front steps vomiting. One of the officers spoke with her, while the other one went inside to talk with Denny and his friends. See, they couldn’t get out of it this time, because when I called the police, the dispatcher stayed on the line, and she could hear the yelling and music coming through the floor on the phone. So the landlord found out, and he told the man and the boy, one more problem and you’re gone. So, about a week later, the hallway was filled with smoke. I looked in the front window of the downstairs apartment, and I saw Denny sitting on the couch passed out, and a frying pan smoking on the stove. So I called the police again, and they were evicted. I felt sorry for the father. He was trying to do the right thing, but he was overwhelmed. I saw him in the hallway days later. He knew that I had gotten him thrown out, but he didn’t say a word. I didn’t see Denny again until much later. He made some indirect threats against me, saying that he knew where I lived and worked. But nothing ever happened. I saw his name in the court actions some time later. He was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (knife). He was found not guilty of that, and that is the last I ever heard of either one of them.

This is where the rubber meets the road, and this is where a lot of people take the wrong road. They think that there is something inherently wrong with people of color, something in their makeup that can’t be changed. I don’t agree. I think that we are all human, we all bleed red, and we will act similarly under similar circumstances. Years of discrimination have created a ghetto class. It is a self-perpetuating situation. If you look down on somebody long enough, eventually they are going to act the way you expect them to. Which reinforces the perception the looker had in the first place. And round and round it goes.

Now, with the opioid crisis in rural white America, we are seeing some of the same pathologies that were previously mostly confined to the inner cities. Humans are human. It doesn’t matter if you are red, green, purple, orange, or black or white. We are the same inside, and we are changed by our circumstances in similar ways.

What I have done with this blog is show how it is possible to become prejudiced against some class or group. It happens when you think that the actions of a few represent all of them. I don’t think that. I never have thought that. But this is how it happens, and the cycle of resentment perpetuates itself. It is like a self-charging electrical vehicle that needs no fuel. It is charged by its forward motion. In order to break the cycle, somebody has to change their way of thinking and step forward. I like to think that I have done that, in a small way, with this blog.