An Op-Ed by Halford H. Fairchild, Ph.D.

The horrific killing of George Floyd has sparked international outrage and protests for police reform and dismantling the symbols of racism.  From statues of confederate generals to those of slave traders in the United Kingdom, the symbols of our racist history are finally coming under attack.  And rightfully so.

Racism is the belief that the so-called “races” – Whites, Blacks, Browns, Reds, and Yellows – may be ranked on a hierarchy from superior to inferior.  That hierarchy ranges from light to dark (with Whites deeming themselves superior to all others).  The hundreds of years of trading in human flesh – by most of Europe and the U.S. – required an ideological (if not theological) justification.  To kidnap and enslave another human being requires the dehumanization of the victim and the deification of oneself.

An Essay By Maurice Antoine Caldwell

I never thought that I would have to grow up fearing for my life. I never thought I’d lose my freedom throughout my life. Yet, as a child—a kid no less—I had first-hand experience with direct bias and prejudice. I experienced reprisal, unlawful beatings, unlawful arrests, had my life threatened, was set up, and then—and then sent to prison for 21 years for a crime that I did not commit.

The knee on my neck was orchestrated by the San Francisco Puppeteers, with the ongoing approval of the Department of Official Police Corruption. Simply for the fact that I have been, throughout my life, a young black man growing up in the housing projects. I know the feeling of losing a close family member or friend. I lost so many, and saw so many people killed in front of me, even as a child and as a teenager. Now, my frame of mind has been colored by hate, especially since the perpetrator has never been found, and the system didn't go the distance to convict someone for the senseless killing of another human being.

A True Story By Paul R. Abramson

When I was 18 years old I hitchhiked from Miami, Florida to Los Angeles, California.  It was spring break, April 4th 1968, to be exact. I was a freshman at the University of Miami.

Two friends joined me. The very first person who gave us a ride brought us to Memphis, Tennessee. It was not a direct route to Los Angeles, but it was progress, or so we thought, and we took it anyway. Little did we know, at 6pm that evening, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis. When we arrived at 10pm, the city was under siege. William Blake’s Parlor of Horror, or so it seemed to me. 

How can any of this be true, I wondered? The poisoned fruit of slavery, and its centuries of anguish, still evident in bloodletting and brutality. How many heroes have to be sacrificed on the altar of liberty before we guarantee equality for all?