
          The Cold Hard Truth
          By 
            Chestnut, J.L., Jr.J.L. Chestnut, Jr.
          Vol. 10, No. 6, 1988, pp. 24, 23
          
          I do not expect George Bush to pursue the "kinder, gentler nation"
announced in his campaign rhetoric. The mysterious "thousand points of
light" about which he also spoke are more likely to turn out to be
points of darkness. I was not born yesterday.
          The Ku Klux Klan is as supportive of the budding Bush
Administration as it has been of the old Reagan gang. And, for the
same obvious reasons.
          In happy anticipation, two local Republicans recently said to me,
"It might come down to all the white people joining the Republican
Party and black people staying with the Democratic Party. I really
hope that doesn't happen."
          But, the eyes and crooked smile of the two Republicans made their
true opinion clear. They really wished that exact racist result on
this nation. A nation, already in deep trouble at home and abroad,
residing in a world where three-fifths of the population is
non-white. Makes one wonder about some Americans.
          A total racial realignment of the two parties won't happen. Many
thoughtful and decent white Americans would never buy such an
arrangement. Many Americans understand and see through both the
Republican and Democratic Party crap. They are unlikely to line up
with either party. I don't blame them.
          Most white people, as conservatives, accept society as they find
it. Few white Americans have been agitators for change in a
philosophical sense. Those who have agitated were regarded, at best,
as quixotic, odd, different and not quite normal. Some were suspected
of being Communists.
          National head shaking was joined by the numbers of white,
respectable young people who joined radical groups in the 1960s and
even identified with the Black Panthers. There wee consternation when
Patricia Hearst was revealed as an armed member of the Symbionese
Liberation Army, which was not only rebellious but criminal.
          Black radicals or agitators, on the other hand, feel they
understood the white mind set and what whites really think of
them. These blacks have written off white society as impossible in
regards to changing its attitude toward color. For many of these
blacks, burglary, robbery and even worse have become the legitimate
purpose of survival.
          They are wrong, of course, but do not believe so and are not
interested in such arguments. Some say that anything they can get away
with is justified.
          In the opposite direction and just as extreme, are blacks who think
they have it made. Blacks who are secure in their token roles in their
establishment, do not really regard themselves as tokens. They are
well behaved and well rewarded.
          These people might participate in the kind of march on Washington
that is a non-violent picnic, to which they actually fly, or go to by
train or chartered bus. They would, however, never dream of picketing
a business for its failure to hire blacks or women. This is the group
from which we get our black lawyers and judges.
          Now to turn the coin just slightly. As I said, it is a most rare
white person who will revolt against anything. After all, their color
permits them to be the beneficiary of the American way of life. There
has never been an example in America of the oppressed, when liberated,
becoming the oppressor.
          It is even more rare for a white person to consider his fellow man
as just another person as opposed to a "colored" person, a "Negro
friend" or a "black" one. This classification is an immediate
indication that a "colored person" is not 

simply another citizen, but something less.
          There have been genuine relationships of affection and mutual
esteem between blacks and whites. Relationships in which each regarded
the other as simply a good decent human being and not as "my black
friend" or my "white friend." But, that is rare.
          All too often, white people of commendable sensitivity give up
their zeal for a "kinder, gentler nation," move to the white suburbs,
and become occasional "moderates" or "liberals" with a black visitor
now and then.
          I understand.
          Peace.
          
            J. L Chestnut is an Alabama trial lawyer and
writer.
          
        