On July 4th, at least two NBA players – Chris Paul and Donovan Mitchell – posted a meme on their social media accounts. The meme said, “Free-ish, since 1865.” Predictably, many white fans were outraged by this sentiment. After all, these men are NBA stars, millionaires. Hasn’t America been exceptionally good to them? When have their rights been deprived?
But they have a point. The road to freedom has been especially rocky for black people in our nation. As I highlighted in the first part of this series, even after slavery, America treated blacks as sub-human, an inferior race and culture. We degraded them, despitefully used them, and persecuted them. Though I was never personally involved in the segregation that characterized the first half of the 20th century – and neither were my parents or grandparents – I can assure you that my attitudes as a teenager would undoubtedly have supported such a thing. Had I lived in the days of segregation, I believe I would have been a fan of it.
Out of the 150 years since the Civil War Continue reading “Healing Our Racial Hurt, Part 2”