I enjoyed the story, glad his life is back in order. One step at a time John Hawrylak Woodstown NJ
On Monday, July 4, 2022 at 6:32:21 PM UTC-4 Patrick Moore wrote: > In his blahgs Grant has dwelt on racial injustice against blacks, and > rectification of this injustice. I disagree profoundly with Grant on very > many things, but I perceive and value Grant's fundamental desire for > justice -- I think Grant's heart is wiser than his head. > > Whatever, I think this anecdote is close enough to Grant's interests to > merit posting here. You can always create a filter for my posts. > > A good 8-9 years ago a young man began attending liturgy at our church -- > All Saints of North America, of the Orthodox Church in America jurisdiction > (note: not American Orthodox Church" but "Orthodox Church in America"). > > He's huge; 6'2 or 3" and wide; no fat, just 250 lb of bone and muscle. > He's pure white; even whiter than my father, who was pure WASP. He's now in > his 40s; 20+ years ago he was a White supremacist and one of ABQ's most > violent and wanted criminals. He did time and came out the other end. > > He used to ride to liturgy on a huge, rat-rod Yamaha, and told me he > delighted in tearing up the roads and scaring other drivers on it. I could > sense the violence and conflict in him. > > He trained through a state program as a HVAC technician, went through a > painful divorce, but managed to maintain his equilibrium. > > Eventually, in ~2017-2018, he married a Black woman, moved to KS City MO. > I helped him with the move, and he named me best man at his wedding. As > preliminary and somewhat tongue in cheek wedding present I gave him several > CDs of origin reggae: Peter Tosh, Toots and the Maytals, Bob Marley, as I > was converting my collection to MP3. The real wedding gift was a > hand-painted Orthodox triptych of the Theotokos and Child from Ethiopia. > > I didn't hear from him for several years, but on Sunday 7/3 he showed up > on a visit, and we talked. > > He's in KS City, MO, thriving, working for a HVAC company he respects and > likes, and volunteering for the KS City, MO NAACP (which he described as > largely idle) and for another, smaller Black rights organization, which is > more active. > > From what he told me, KS City, MO is a lingering bastion of > white-versus-black racism. This surprised me, even as one whose father (in > but not of his place and time; hell, he married a Filipina) grew up in > 1930s Jim Crow Atlanta, and one old enough to remember "Colored" gas > station bathrooms and drinking fountains, and pickups with signs > advertising KKK rallies on Stone Mountain, in the Decatur, GA town square. > > Partly due to his efforts, the racist KS City, MO police chief was finally > removed from office after many years. > > And this is the kicker and warms my heart: he told me that when he shows > up in situations where white KS City, MO cops are hassling black citizens, > "The cops just melt away." > > I don't know if this is because they know he'll cause legal, social, and > political trouble, or because he instills a sense of guilt, but I expect it > is at least in part because (1) he has street cred from his criminal past > and jail time, (2) because no one is whiter than he, and (3) because he's > just big and solid enough that you just don't mess with him. > > I wholly scorn the ideology that "white" people are intrinsically racist > and that the growth of this country was driven by nothing more than > white-on-black racism; racism or discrimination generally has existed > across all history and cultures and ethnic groups; like the residents of > Irish seacoasts sold into slavery by North African pirates, or the periodic > resentment and violence against ethnic Chinese by the Malay majority in > Malaysia and Indonesia; or the decades-long ethnic strife and massacres > between Tamils and indigenes in Sri Lanka, or the tribal conflicts in > modern black Africa. > > But there's no serious question that White versus Black hatred was more > poisonous and corrosive in the US than elsewhere, helped largely by > neo-Darwinist "survival of fittest" racial superiority ideologies oddly > combined with perverted Old Testament "chosen people" ideologies. So my > friend's success in life and society is good news amongst the general > confusion and chaos and darkness one reads in the mass media. > > > > -- > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > Patrick Moore > Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/be3a152e-05dd-43af-b5f3-0bc41b1ca39dn%40googlegroups.com.
