I was born in 1947.
My memories include separate bathrooms and water fountains. They include the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and they include all of the changes that have occurred since in the slow advance of actual equality against the deeply ingrained catechism of separation.
The gospel of separation has changed some, though, now encompassing casteism at large to allow broader exclusion and give shelter against more specific labels.
I am a white, fourth-generation American, son of a government civil servant and grandson of a farmer and a Presbyterian minister. I am a Vietnam veteran and was even briefly an adolescent member of the NRA.
So what?
My neighbors are my fellow citizens, and their rights and opportunities are as precious to me as my own. They define the country I live in and love. But I say to those neighbors, to all of them, is there a “they” that is coming for you? Oh yeah. But you’d better wake up to just who “they” are.
Yes, I am woke. Yes, it is racism. And yes, it is fascism!
