FROM WHOM SHALL I BE AFRAID

In the summer of 1966, my dad and I stood on the front porch of our home at 3947 W. Gladys Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. Our home was near the corner of Gladys Avenue and Pulaski Road. On this summer evening, there were civil rights marchers protesting and marching along Pulaski Road. I remember my father and I standing on our front porch watching Chicago police officers climbing on the rooftops of the buildings that faced Pulaski Road, and they were armed with riot gear and rifles. I asked my father what all the commotion was about. He said, “Some White people don’t like Colored people.” So, I asked, “Which one are we?” At the time, I was about six years old and still was not fully aware of the demographic categorizations used in America: especially terms noted for Black Americans such as Negroes and Colored People. He said, “We’re colored.” I remember getting this sick feeling in my stomach because at that moment I was just informed that I was a Black person living in America and that there were some people who I have never seen or met before in my life that, did not like me because I was “Colored.” The most disturbing part of this revelation was that I had no choice in that fact that I was so called “Colored” and the people who hated me because I was “Colored” did not care that I had no choice in the matter. The Bible provides interesting insight into people that adopt this way of thinking. “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness (1 John 2:9 New International Version). Although as a child and throughout my adult life, I have always been incredibly happy with the color of my skin. However, this incident had a profound effect on my life. The main question I pondered was not why was I born a Black person in America, but what was so wrong with being a Black American and what was the logic behind hating someone based on the color pigmentation of their skin? This incident created a question that would continually resurface with me throughout my life each time I see a White person: “Are they one of the ones that hate me because I’m Black? Is this a friend or foe?” I would go to school and wonder if my White teachers were some of those “White people that did not like black people because of the color of their skin.” During the early 1960s to 1973, America was one of the participating countries in the Vietnam War supporting the South Vietnamese initiative. One of the challenging issues noted by the soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War was distinguishing North Vietnamese enemy from the South Vietnamese allies. “Viet Cong (VC), in full Viet Nam Cong San, English Vietnamese Communists, the guerrilla force that, with the support of the North Vietnamese Army, fought against South Vietnam (late 1950s–1975) and the United States (early 1960s–1973).”