People my age and older from the south shore of Staten Island probably remember reading or knowing about a family named the Charles family. They bought a house in the Oakwood Heights neighborhood in early 1972. I was 14 years old.
At that time the part of Staten Island I was from was white. It was almost exclusively populated by white people, mostly of Irish and Italian ancestry. I'm half Italian, half Irish, so I was the same as everyone else. The only black family I knew of near where I lived were the Williams'. I knew them because one of the Williams, Charlie, used to come around looking to get into ballgames, stuff like that. I didn't know Charlie Williams real well. He knew who I was, and I knew who he was, and we never had any problems that I remember. He was better friends with a few other boys from Richmondtown who were a year or two older than me.
I remember my dad was friendly with a black man with whom he used to umpire ballgames, a man named "Reese". I don't remember if Reese was his first name or his last name, but I still remember him and how he looked. He had kind of grey, kinky hair, and light brown skin. He was real nice and I remember him smiling a lot. One time dad invited him over, I think for a cookout or maybe just to have a couple of beers or drinks or something. And even though I didn't visit much with them when he was over, I remember him saying his walk up McKinley Ave. from the bus stop down on Richmond Rd., three blocks, the same three blocks I walked to and from the St. Patrick's School for 7 years, that he felt like "everybody he saw was looking at him", made him feel like he didn't belong I guess. I don't remember what year that was, but I think it was probably before 1972. To me he was my dad's friend, so he was not really different from any other guy dad might have had over for a hot dog and a beer or something, but I surely was cognizant that he was a black guy. I think maybe then, in the late 60's. early 70's nobody said "colored" anymore, but I don't think anyone said African-American much, either. So I think I was thinking, "Wow, a black guy. I never really been around a black guy." I also remember thinking that it must have sucked walking up from the bus stop knowing everybody was looking at him like that.
And even though I was old enough in 1968, I was eleven, to understand the significance of the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Newark riots, even though Staten Island isn't far from Newark, to an eleven year old, it might as well have been on the moon or in California, or someplace else really far away, not really a part of my world at all.
But when the Charles family had the audacity to endeavor to move to Oakwood Heights, it was the first time in my life that I am sure that I understood that racism wasn't just some far away thing in the deep south, it was something really bad and it was really close to home. I don't remember if they ever solved the Charles family home arson, but I don't think so. Knowing Staten Island, it was probably some mob guys or some blue collar guys who were petrified of what it would do to home values, stuff like that. That kind of racism, even at fourteen years old, seemed irrational to me and still does. I know that because of our own biases we tend to gravitate toward people like ourselves, and lacking any better information or understanding we might shy away from people who are different from us. I'm not talking about for some evil racist deep seeded hatred, but just from looking to surround ourselves with people we can relate to. All that being said, I KNEW, absolutely knew in my mind and in my heart that what was done to the Charles family was wrong. And I'd like to think stuff like that doesn't happen anymore, but I know that while things have gotten better, sometimes it still does.
For me personally, I was lucky in both my Marine Corps years, and especially in my UPS years, to know and befriend all kinds of people, that includes Hispanic/Mexican guys, Native-Americans, African-Americans, Asians, and even some Pacific Islanders. I consider myself blessed to know them, to have known them, and to call many of them "friend". I know that most of them have had to deal with prejudice and racism at various times. If they were my age, then they were fourteen, too, when the Charles family arson happened. Maybe stuff like that happened to some of them. I don't know of any specifically, but if it happened on Staten Island, it happened where they were. too. What I do know is, especially my UPS friends of color were some really classy, hard working, great people who I came to respect and be proud of knowing and to being able to call them a friend.
To any and all of those friends tonight I say this: whatever that shit was that you personally, or that your parents or families dealt with, I hope you never felt like it was coming from me. Because certainly intentionally it never was. And if you called me a friend then, then I'm still your friend now. And I also want you to know that I think it sucks that sometimes you might still get pulled over for driving while black, or have someone make prejudiced assumptions about you, or whatever. And I know some of you, well really all of you, you're either a mom or a dad, a brother or a sister, a son or a daughter, or a husband or a wife to someone else who is black. And when you see what happened to George Floyd it pissed you off, or maybe brought back some really bad memories, or maybe it just scared you for your own son or brother or husband or father. And that is a shame in 2020 that that's still where we're at. I am sorry that we are. All that I can do is promise that I'll never behave that way to people, no matter what color they are, and if I see someone else doing so, I'll speak up and ask, "Hey, what the fuck are you doing to him? That shit ain't right. Stop it!" And then I'll call 911.
Life, from knowing you, has taught me we're all the same. There are smart people and there are some who are maybe not as smart. There are some really nice people in this world, and there are some real assholes. There are fully law-abiding people and there are criminal people, too. None of those attributes is a function of race. Yeah, there are good and bad and they come in big, small, young, old, white, black, yellow, brown, and red. It's not 1968 or 1972 anymore, at least not here are my house. You're my friends, and you're most welcome here at my house.
Why can't we all just get along?
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