For the old Fat Guy------
Let me tell you my credentials
I started as a child in the 50’s- the town (mid Michigan) I grew up in had Jim Crow laws. My cousin was dating a black boy. In this case a statement of age not color.
About 1966 or 1967 my parents gave me over to the custody of a Franciscan Priest. Fr. John took me that summer and showed me the world. WE spent the summer driving from Michigan to Milwaukie Wisconsin. Delivering clothes and food to the people fighting for open housing and equal rights. Some where there is a NBC photo of me bloodied by the cops riding in a convertible being protected by two Black Pea Stone Rangers. I was their white boy and nobody was gowning to fuck with me.
When I was in the Army when you were under fire-we learned all men were equal---we were then brothers.
About 1998 I started working for the Nashville Rescue Mission. One day I was called into the alley behind the courtyard. There was a young man (black) trying to kill one of our ministers (black) with a board from a pallet. He was swinging the end with the nails at the minister. I grabbed the man by the throat and put him up on the wall. I wanted to kill him. And I was trying. I was surrounded by blacks and some began to yell for my demise. One black man (Randy Whitfield a past Golden Glove Champion-then Homeless) Stood at my back. As he stayed the mob he told them to leave me alone because “I was just a Nigger like them.”
I have had white men call me Nigger.
When I had problems at the mission it was black men who walked in my wake to protect me. After all I was just a Nigger like them.
Once there was a crazy guy(black crack head) who assaulted a female cop(white) and tried to steal her gun. he was well on his way to killing her. When I came to her rescue there was one man (black) who followed me as we confronted and stopped a gun wielding black man.
I can show you the award and you know what I cannot get a ticket in this town.
While you were living and working for the government—I was in the trenches. I had men die in my arms. I was the one covered in blood when they had no one else-they came to me.
So feign ---you are allowed.
I was there-no feigning, for me it was real.