July, '96, black-white dialog hot and heavy. Harangue or not to harangue 26 years ago. Back and forth in the newspaper. Those were the days. . . .

. . . when you could talk and talk and talk . . .

Racism as usual, Part 2 . . . You may recall the reaction of the Wednesday Kernel editor to the guest columnist who objected to blaming all blacks' problems on white racism. The editor called it a "harangue."

Dean R., the writer, had objected to one-sided treatment of the issue, but Editor had him saying, "Black kids are criminals. Black adults are irresponsible." [Not quite what Dean R. said] To resolve the issue, edtor offered what he called "the big distinction: all black people don't commit crimes."

That unassailable statement belongs with the truest of truisms.

There was more. Letter writer Stan W. wrote to say Dean R. "needs help," being "a fool, a bigot or both." Not only that, he is "culturally deprived and functionally illiterate," or seemed to be. (Ah.) As a white person, rather than say what he did, Dean R. should help atone for "the rape and theft of a whole hemisphere," said Stan W.

Stan is black and angry. Dean is white and angry. The editor is white and apologetic and irritating.

Yet more racism, Part 2 . . . Two weeks later, letter writer Kathleen C., reacting to Stan W., ventured that she detected a problem "in Oak Park's racial dialogue." In Stan's response she saw a tendency to "hostility and sweeping charges of injustice." Thus Dean R. got called "a whining white man" and the other things mentioned above.

Stan had also said that he and other blacks would "no more take abuse from anyone, white or black, without striking back."

But being questioned "does not constitute abuse," Kathleen wrote. Better to "respond politely instead of insulting the questioner" and tossing in that hemispheric "rape and theft" business.

Charles F.D. chimed in, criticizing Dean R. for shedding crocodile tears with a "my heart went out"-to-black-fathers shtick. (Charles felt Dean's heart did not go out.)

On the other hand, Charles felt Dean was correct in saying it's self-defeating for blacks to see themselves as victims, "which they too often do," but illogical to justify whites' seeing themselves as victim of blacks. Along the way Charles exonerated Dean's "elderly Jewish women," whose level of criminal activity Charles imagined "at about that of elderly black women."

Charles conceded that Dean is "probably right" about how we "tiptoe around issues" but rejected "stomping on them with jackboots." Victimization can get out of hand, he added.

Yet more . . . A week later, the Kernel ran a guest column by the locally well known Rev. Randolph T., who demonstrated Olympian disdain for Dean R. and the crying need of an editor.

Using roughly twice the space required, Rev. T. said Dean R. "gave us an insight into the feelings of not only him[self] but . . . others in this community [about] African Americans and our inability to take advantage of . . . programs . . . offered us as a nation of people." (Dean R. had said "most blacks" have failed to take advantage etc. "after 30 years and trillions [spent] on social programs" -- a failure "always blamed on white racism.")

Dean's problem, however, is his "inability to acknowledge that we are not a society of one superior race of whites which governs all other races . . . here in America," said Rev. T.

He delivered a litany of complaints, interspersed with "he seems" to do this or that, as if Rev. T. in Christian fashion were giving Dean R. an out -- Dean can always retract or say he was misunderstood.

Dean R. sees African Americans "as pawns . . . some inhumane [sic] group which belongs as property of the 'Old South.'" But "we are only 30 years away from civil rights . . . an oppressed nation of people . . . still recovering from forced migration and intentional destruction of our families . . . [but] well on our way to recovery," as "proven by the improvement of conditions for a minority of blacks in this country."

He took shots along the way at "genocide, generational cycles of poverty," and obstacles placed by "gatekeepers who will do all they can to not allow us as people to pass, regardless of our credentials, by virtue of the color of our skin."

This account could go on. Rev. T. did, arguing from a series of recent events that white males are as capable of burning churches, killing and raping children, and stealing jewelry "as the African American, Asian [not mentioned by Dean R.], and Latino [also not mentioned]."

Finally, youth will out . . . That's it. No more. Rev. T. got two-thirds of the page, 24 column inches, vs. Dean R.'s 16. The rest of Rev. T.'s page -- another 16 inches -- was given to another guest column, by Grant S., a new graduate of OPRF High, around which have swirled some of the hottest racial feelings in the past year.

"Shocked," he began, describing his reaction to Dean R.'s column, "not at its cold, clear message and apparent racism, but that Oak Park's decidedly liberal [“progressive”?] press would print something so compelling . . . [maybe] even more enthralling than the [dog] leash law," much discussed in recent weeks.

He would have expected such response to another article, published months earlier and written by Stan W., "Is Oak Park Really Integrated?" in which "the blame [for lack of interracial mingling] was placed solely on the shoulders of whitey."

At the high school, "racial melting pot" as it is, there is little mingling for two reasons, one that black and white "life experiences" are so different, the other -- "not so harmless" reason -- that anti-white behavior by "a small group" of black students poisons the atmosphere, he wrote. "Almost all of my non-black friends have stories of confrontation, rudeness, and open violence" at the hands of blacks, he wrote.

Blacks aren't the only rude people in the halls, he said, but they are "the worst," and "anger towards the few builds up and develops into fear and loathing [of] the many." It works two ways: "I'm sure some whites are racists, and maybe this leads to the impression that all whites are racist."

Such "misconceptions" are "made worse by whining about oppression . . . People cry 'racism, racism' all the time, but when asked how they are oppressed use generalities like 'the system' or make up wild fantasies such as that the honors program was developed by the white patriarchy so that their children could be segregated from blacks. This claim -- not challenged -- was in the [above-mentioned] feature story" by Stan W.

He ends with the declaration that he and his fellow graduates "must take responsibility . . . and try to live together . . . [must have] basic respect for one another . . . [must] stop hatred before it gets out of control."

Hard. To. Argue. With. That.