File #2879: "MFM_UA_The-Reflector_1972-05-02_One-Category_001.pdf"
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Black Viewpoint
By Rae Dillon
One category should be used for all: Hunian
Why is it that, when a black man excells 1n sports
or the entertainment world, many whites hastily
generalize: "Gee, Negroes are great athletes,"
or "Boy, colored folks sure can sing and dance!"?
And if his intellect is as keen as his other talent,
then he becomes a "credit to his race."
Along the same lines, when a black man breaks
the law, his crimes are not entirely his. They
belong to the entire black race, as a few whites
rationalize. Until very recently, drug addiction
was associated almost entirely with the black race.
Knifing assaults were automatically attributed to
blacks.
This line of reasoning is about as faulty as
reasoning that whites are lousy athletes or whites
are bigots, as some blacks contend.
Clearly, there is no one category into which
blacks or whites can be more accurately placed than
the one: Human. We all are. Even when it doesn't
always show. Even when others sometimes forget
that we are all one big happy ( or unhappy) family.
"We've come a long way," some blacks say.
"Things are getting better for you," some whites
echo.
But is that enough? Does the fact that 'things are
getting better' make them any less intolerable?
Does looking back on the road of the past make it
easier to trod the paths of the future?
I think not. The time is never past due for accepting
a man as a man, whoever he be. But now is as good
a time as any.
By Rae Dillon
One category should be used for all: Hunian
Why is it that, when a black man excells 1n sports
or the entertainment world, many whites hastily
generalize: "Gee, Negroes are great athletes,"
or "Boy, colored folks sure can sing and dance!"?
And if his intellect is as keen as his other talent,
then he becomes a "credit to his race."
Along the same lines, when a black man breaks
the law, his crimes are not entirely his. They
belong to the entire black race, as a few whites
rationalize. Until very recently, drug addiction
was associated almost entirely with the black race.
Knifing assaults were automatically attributed to
blacks.
This line of reasoning is about as faulty as
reasoning that whites are lousy athletes or whites
are bigots, as some blacks contend.
Clearly, there is no one category into which
blacks or whites can be more accurately placed than
the one: Human. We all are. Even when it doesn't
always show. Even when others sometimes forget
that we are all one big happy ( or unhappy) family.
"We've come a long way," some blacks say.
"Things are getting better for you," some whites
echo.
But is that enough? Does the fact that 'things are
getting better' make them any less intolerable?
Does looking back on the road of the past make it
easier to trod the paths of the future?
I think not. The time is never past due for accepting
a man as a man, whoever he be. But now is as good
a time as any.