Yes It is, It’s True: Let’s regard racism as a disease

Our most persistent disease, one that just won’t go away, is not influenza, a cold, cancer, diabetes or so many other popular maladies. It is racism.

It also is perhaps the disease with an existence most often denied, most often attempted to be explained away, and most often marginalized.

America hasn’t dealt with racism in a rational, effective and honest way ever since our ancestors brought slaves here from Africa against their will several centuries ago. We too often in the past have been guilty of making the comment, “Go back to Africa!” to people of color who have rebelled against how they are treated, ignoring the fact they were brought here against their will.

Our national disease of racism has been thrust into the spotlight again — this time with a different twist. The discovery of Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam appearing in blackface in a yearbook from 1984 has prompted many colleagues and observers to call for his resignation as a result. Pure “Gotcha” politics.

Allow me to quote the most revered figure in America, who reportedly once told judgmental multitudes, “Let he who without sin cast the first stone.”

I submit that virtually all American white people have in the past told racial jokes, unfairly judged people of color or took part in some kind of racial discrimination. And I ought to know, I share Ralph Northam’s shame.

I have posted several times in Townbroadcast columns that I wore blackface in 1966 as part of the cast of a “Showboat” variety show in high school. My only defense, a weak one at that, is that I was young and didn’t know any better, I had little if any experience with black people because they were as scarce as hen’s teeth in Wayland in the 1960s.

And that’s not my only personal encounter with overt and covert racism. My experience taught me it was omnipresent and accepted.

I remember a white lad trying out for a Little League baseball team in 1971, along with his two brothers who were black. Many of the adult men conducting and taking part in the tryouts were visibly guffawing.

I remember the general manager of one of the newspapers where I worked, in 1985, refusing to hire a young black man I and the editor recommended, lamely explaining that the racism of local officials would keep him from being able to gather news effectively.

I remember citizens in the City of Albion attempting to have the city manager fired, mostly because he was the first black man to serve in that job. I remember a city councilman who was caught redlining as a real estate agent.

Closer to home again, I remember a city official in 1976 making a crude racial remark and then begging me not to print it. I was a coward and did not.

I heard a famous motivational speaker tell a crowd that 98% of black people were good folks, but the other 2% were “niggers” who ruined things for everybody else.

I could bring up other instances, but there’s too many. My point is that we are all guilty of being racist at some point in our lives, much as we choose to deny it or sweep the uncomfortable issue under the rug. I’ve known too many people personally tell me they believe our racial past is behind us and racism no longer exists. I believe it not.

I put a lot more trust in white people who stand up like a new member of Alcoholics Anonymous and acknowledge their disease and pledge to make changes and choices to turn it all around. I trust these people’s honesty a lot more than somebody who tells me he or she is not a racist, simply because they say so.

The first step in dealing properly with our national disease of racism is to admit to having it and then pledging to do something about it. We need to be a lot like an AA member.

But insisting those who have transgressed in bygone days be cast aside does not solve the problem. I am prepared, as a recovering racist myself, to forgive someone who shows heartfelt remorse for past sins and promises to do his or her best to do the right thing in the future.

We as a society certainly have been backpedaling on this very serious question in the past several years. I have absolutely no use for anyone who refuses to recognize his or her disease, or who does not express remorse for his or her wrongdoing.

That said, I don’t see the point in discharging Gov. Northam if he truly is sorry for what he did in his stupid youth. What’s a lot more important is what he does from now on. And if he shows disregard for people of color, give him the boot.