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Editor, Asbury Park Sun,

“President Trump is rarely reluctant to express his opinion, but he is often seized by caution when addressing the violence and vitriol of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and alt-right activists…” [New York Sunday Times 8/13/17]

President Trump’s reluctance and caution regarding racism is shared by many Americans and it seems to be rooted deeply in the DNA of America.

This week, Asbury Park has the opportunity to discuss the “Why.”

On Tuesday, we view the film “I Am Not Your Negro” and on Thursday, we have the opportunity to be in conversation with three young clergy persons when they speak of their visits to Israel and South Africa [click here for details]. 

We hopefully will recognize that the words of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr describe all of us – Most of the evil of racism is not perpetrated by evil people, but by good people who do not realize that on race and racism, they are not good.

What are the questions that Asbury Park, Monmouth County and beyond, might discuss?

Why has the enslavement of blacks in America, not served to challenge the magnificent ideas, ideals, and language of our founding fathers and their founding documents? We live as though there is no contradiction between our talk and our walk.

If there had been a challenge, would the institution of the segregation of blacks following slavery taken place?

Why after Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr, Jackie Robinson, Barbara Jordan, Michael Jordan, Hank Aaron, Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, Venus and Serena Williams, Muhammad Ali, Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson, Colin Powell, Michelle and Barack Obama, and other acclaimed blacks, would what happened in Charlottesville, happen in 2017?

Is there the fear among white nationalists, the alt-right, the KKK, and their supporters that if the above named and many more could achieve what they achieved, there will be many more if they do not assert their assumptions of white supremacy?

Why cannot my native south erect monuments to acknowledge its journey from slavery to segregation, and then racial integration? Germany does not glorify its anti-Semitic history, why should the south and the rest of the US glorify its anti-black history?

We speak of homophobia as being a fear of homosexuals. I remember when some spoke of Negrophobia. Is this fear present as blacks have been/are sentenced unfairly to jail terms? Is it present as a small number of police claim “fear” as rationale for shooting black persons? And is this “fear” legitimized as those police are not charged but acquitted?

We respond to persons who are the victims of cancer with sensitivity and offer them medical care to treat and heal. Each day efforts are being made to correct the cause of cancer. Any person who treats persons with cancer without being concerned and involved in responding to the causes has accepted cancer as an irreversible illness.

The cancer of racism, particularly its anti-black component, has been with us since European newcomers settled in what is now Virginia and other places. The indigenous people were, in time, defeated and displaced. And while now some take pride in the fact that a fraction of them is Native American, seldom do they express pride in the fact that a fraction of them is African.

This week, because of calendar coincidence, we can become a racial laboratory for America as we, with civility and candor as a racially diverse Asbury Park, ask questions about race and racism and seek to find answers.

Rev. Gil Caldwell

Ocean Avenue, Civil Rights Movement, “Foot Soldier”

[These letters represents the opinion of its writer and is not representative of any opinion of the Asbury Park Sun staff. All readers are welcome to submit Letters to the Editor to news@asburyparksun.com for our consideration. For guidelines on letter-writing and submission, click here.]

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