I was just a kid on the way to an adventure with my dad, when we stopped by his office, where he left me for a few minutes in the care of his co-workers. Three or four men lounging in office chairs, haunches on desks, shooting the breeze, sharing an ash tray. Just then two people came from around the corner — a man and a woman – pushing custodial carts. They were remarkable in two ways: they were old, weary, stooped in posture — and they were black.
As they passed this island of desks, my dad’s colleagues talked about them, but not to them. These men were joking and laughing about this couple as if they were not even there. I did not get the all the jokes, but I was not too young to recognize the mockery.
My dad came to fetch me. As we walked away, I repeated one of the jokes I had heard. What happened next is akin to what a dog experiences when, full steam ahead, he suddenly gets to the end of his leash. My dad jerked me by the collar.
Without a word he led me on a search through the building until we came upon those custodial carts and their owners. My dad reached out and shook hands with the man, and tipped his hat to the woman, calling them by name. They responded, “Good morning, Mr. Ted.”
“I would like you to meet my son, Tim. He is eight years old. Tim, please say ‘hello’ to Mr. and Mrs. Johnson.” Well, that was my cue. I stuck out my right hand and said, “How do you do? Nice to meet you.”
Without hesitation they both grabbed my hand, four hands on one, pumping furiously, patting me on the head and saying to my dad how handsome I was. The backs of their hands were like coffee, but the palms of their hands were like mine. To the best of my memory I had never touched, nor ever been in the same room as a black person, except for the train station. Desperate not to say something stupid, I blurted out, “My granddad’s name is Johnson” — my mom’s maiden name. They looked at each other and said amid gales of laughter, “Maybe we are related.” More patting and pumping!
As we left my dad put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Son, listen to me. Whatever anyone else says, those people are Mr. and Mrs. Johnson to you. You got that?”
Over the years I would reflect on that morning and my dad’s comment, as I learned about “Plessy v Ferguson” and “Brown v Board of Education.” As I sat at a segregated lunch counter in a bus station in Texas. As dozens of well-dressed men and women of color quietly protested on the steps to the high school auditorium where a “Minstrel Show” was being held. As I saw on the news a governor standing on the front steps of the state university building with a baseball bat in his hands. As I heard, and sometimes shamefully repeated, jokes of the kind I heard in my dad’s office so many years before.
It was four hundred years ago when the first men, women and children were dragged off slaver ships in chains and put on the auction block in the colonies of America. It has been more than two hundred years since the Three-Fifths Compromise. It has been more than one hundred-fifty years since the Emancipation Proclamation and the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. In 1953 Thurgood Marshall successfully argued before the Supreme Court that black school children in Topeka, Kansas – and everywhere else — should be allowed to attend school with white children. Two years later, Emmitt Till, a young black man from Chicago, was visiting relatives in Mississippi. He purportedly spoke to or whistled at the daughter of the white proprietor of a market. Three days later they found his mutilated body. Lynching was still alive and well in some corners of the country, and I was twelve years old.
Today in cities all across the land, there are protests in the street, proclaiming that Black Lives Matter. To me it is a perfectly understandable expression of outrage for those people whose ancestors’ lives, and whose loved ones’ lives, did not matter.
You may be asking why an average white guy like me has something to say about race in America. It is patently arrogant to think I could know the depth of horror that has resulted from our heinous national sin, going back to 1619.
Yet my own anger came to the surface about five years ago, when Donald Sterling, the longtime owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, was caught on tape with a remark that was beyond a slur. Do you remember? Sterling had said that he did not want so many black people to attend Clippers games; and he singled out Magic Johnson, wanting him also to stay away.
The Magic Man? Stay away?
The all world collegian with crazy skills and jubilant manner? The heart and soul and face of the Showtime Lakers? The hugely successful businessman who used his name, acumen, and influence to bring commerce and jobs to previously under-served communities? The athlete who was stricken with HIV, and who helped to bring it out of the shadows, who championed research, and who embraced the idea that no one should be shamed?
That Magic Johnson?
Mr. Sterling did get his comeuppance from the NBA, the media, and the court of public opinion — stripped of his ownership, forced to sell the team, banned from the league, and fined a bundle. Have you learned your lesson, Donald? If not, here is a piece of advice from a quiet man to his young son. When and if you run into the Magic Man, just remember this. He is Mister Johnson to you. You got that?
It has been almost seventy years since I met Mr. and Mrs. Johnson and witnessed their egregious treatment. When I began to write this piece five years ago, my purpose was to talk about my dad and his open heartedness. I saw him as a hero. He did the right thing at the time; he demonstrated respect, decency and dignity to the “others” in his life. But did I naively believe that common courtesy, a handshake, and a tip of the hat, would be enough?
So much has changed … and has not changed. Four hundred years of struggle, and people of color are dying in their homes and in the streets, by gunfire in the back and by a knee on the neck. Mothers have become afraid to send their sons to the corner market. Is it any wonder that there is so much fury?
The Scriptures are clear: every person from every tribe, tongue, race, or nation is made in the image of God, is loved by God, and is therefore deserving of the same promises of life and liberty. The Scriptures also say that we are to love our neighbors — regardless of their appearance or where they worship or how they vote or where they come from.
Tidings from Tim 