the white community's joke

so, we had a guest speaker today - a lawyer from the town where i work. he spoke about black history... read off a list of names of african americans who were beaten to death or hanged between 1890 - 1940 in mississippi. overall, a very good speech. UNTIL he says... "the white community has a joke about us - 'if you want to hide something from a black person, put it in a book.'"

now, see, i must have missed the white-people-only club's meeting where they told this joke, because it's never been a part of MY community, and i don't know anybody who says it. maybe he meant to say that the "ignorant, small-minded, racist, asshole community" has a joke... but i guess since he generalized like that about MY race, he would have had to put himself in that group... and he probably wouldn't have wanted to think of himself like that.

it was kind of funny to watch my children's reactions to that statement. i sit with the seniors during assemblies (up at the top of the bleachers, where i can keep an eye on them), and my "cousin" - who is a senior student - kind of froze up when he said it. coffee, who was sitting about 10 rows down, turned ALL the way around to check MY reaction and kind of watched me for a few minutes. was i pissed off? um... yes. not ALL white people are jerks - SOME of us have been involved in the civil-right struggle from its inception... as part of the underground railroad, working to introduce legislation, protesting with our african-american counterparts, registering people to vote during freedom summer, and moving hundreds of miles to teach in the delta and put our students in a better position. if he had truly studied his black history, he would have known that.

jackass.