My greatest sorrow and shame, after 5+ decades lived as an adult American citizen
Or, to be more specific, as a white American citizen in his 70's, is the enduring persistence of of institutional racism in our country. I was 18 when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Prior to that horrific day I never fully faced the scourge of racism, or understood it beyond a surface revulsion to white supremacists. I opposed racism, sure, from a white informally segregated middle class distance. A lot changed for me that day, and I became involved in the Civil Rights movement as a direct consequence of it. I've actively opposed racism, off and on ever since, but I have to acknowledge far more frequently off than on. I underestimated racism, because of the color of my skin.
When I was 18 there were many things I expected to see happen during my lifetime. I thought we would have a colony on Mars well before now, and I fully expected cars to fly. I thought we would have a female President decades ago, and I felt pretty confident it would be my generation, the ones who coined the phrase "don't trust anyone over thirty" who would drive a stake through the heart of institutionalized racism in America. I expected us tp be radical agents of change. Maybe at times we were, those young whites like me back then who openly embraced multi-culturism, but we sorely underestimated what we were up against, and the degree to which most of our eyes remained closed. I suppose I have done more than most whites have to combat racism, but far far less than some, and ultimately no where near enough.
And now I hear the eerily familiar refrain, rising up from some many decades younger than I, who hold out hope that with the passing of my generation, the path toward a post racist America might finally be cleared. I don't take it personally, I hope that they are right. There is less racism, overall, in whites under thirty today than there was when I was young. I don't feel unappreciated for the efforts I have made in my life to combat racism, I simply acknowledge that we fell woefully short of my youthful expectations, that I didn't do enough. I am deeply chastened, and can only pass on this warning. Racism is a foe far more tenacious than I once believed that it could be. If we manage to beat back the current resurgence of white nationalism that was emboldened by Donald Trump, it will not mean the end of it. I watch anti-racist white teens of a new generation take up banners like "Black Lives Matter"and I simply say, more power to them. I will help wherever I can, but I pray that half a century hence they won't have to look back on their lives with the same remorse that I feel now. It can not continue this way. Ultimately only whites can uproot the institutional racism that oppresses so many millions of our fellow Americans tody.
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