Reply #98: The lynchings are a horrible legacy. [View All]

[JDPriestly]

But very few Americans living today have or had anything to do with those lynchings. White people of today are not to blame for those horrible lynchings.

Rather than divide people, guilty, not guilty according to race, people, all people should be judged "not by the color of the race," but by the quality of their own character.

I worked for an African-American woman at a non-profit for many years. It shocked me that any time some African-American, almost anywhere in the world, did anything wrong, she seemed to take responsibility for condemning it loudly and pointing out clearly that she did not approve of it. She seemed to need to disassociate herself from any bad act done by any African-American. I could never understand that.

She was a very good person. I certainly did not think she was responsible or had anything to with the bad acts of other people just because they happened to be the same race that she was. And I certainly don't feel responsible for every bad act done by every person who happened to be white.

The lynchings were abominations. Lynchings should not be torn from our national memory, but then neither should the courage of the abolitionists. My personal family was abolitionist way, way back. At the age of 12, my white great-grandfather accompanied his father, a Union soldier, to fight against slavery in the Civil War. My great-grandfather was shot while accompanying the Union Army. His courage and sacrifice also should not be erased from memory. The lynchings are not my responsibility. I am responsible for speaking out against the injustices in our society today -- including the lack of equal justice for African-Americans in our courts right now, today. That is our responsibility. Not the lynchings of yesterday.

Racism is bad, whether it leads white people to stereotype African-Americans as criminals or leads African-Americans to stereotype whites as lynchers. Racism is bad. Each of us is responsible for his or her own behavior. It is up to each of us, regardless of race, to do what is right, to speak out for what is just.