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Don't let community be defined by racists

By ERNEST HOOPER
Published December 9, 2005

The home of a single black mother in Riverview is vandalized, with racial epithets carved into her furniture and painted on her walls.

A black executive purchasing $13,600 worth of gift cards for his billion-dollar business is delayed for two hours at the Wal-Mart Supercenter on Causeway Boulevard. The delay ends only after Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies take a few minutes to determine the accusations of forgery are off-base.

You hear about such racism in your own back yard, and you check the calendar to see if this is really 2005. Then you wonder if you will be checking the calendar again in 2006 or 2015.

For decades, my grandparents and parents fought to make this country a better place. On many levels, they succeeded in ways they probably found unimaginable in 1950.

I'm not sure if my parents envisioned my family living in a neighborhood so integrated that it's comprised of people of all kinds of hues and nationalities.

I'm not sure if they dreamed of a world where my kids would attend a school so diverse that their fears of racism would be largely nonexistent.

I'm not sure if they thought their baby boy could become a columnist for Florida's largest newspaper.

But I know they didn't want me living in a world where hatred would prompt people to destroy property and deny service. And I know I don't want my kids to relive horrors endured by past generations.

On New Year's Day in 1993, an African-American tourist from New York was abducted at gunpoint from the Royal Oak Shopping Center on the corner of Lithia-Pinecrest and Bloomingdale. He was driven to a remote area near Fort Lonesome, set on fire and left to die.

Despite having 40 percent of his body burned, the man survived. Eventually his white assailants were sentenced to life in prison because their act was deemed a hate crime.

For some, the Christopher Wilson case stained this area's image. For others, it reinforced the notion that East Hillsborough has never been a welcoming place for minorities.

At the time, like now, there was outrage. A "We Care" campaign was launched to show that this was a loving community, and a trust fund was set up for Wilson. On one Sunday, every minister was asked to preach about compassion, and every church was asked to donate to the trust fund.

It was a magnanimous gesture, but it wasn't sustained.

This time, the response needs to be permanent.

Come on, aren't you tired of people asking, "How come you live out in the sticks with a bunch of racists?"

I don't think these incidents, as despicable as they are, are emblematic of life in the Brandon area, and I don't think they show racism is worse here than in other parts of the county. After all, five white people were arrested last January for attacking black neighbors - in South Tampa.

Yet we always look broadly at such acts of hatred because they taint a community's soul and make us question whether we should continue living here. Some would just as well move than fight. But you can't run away from racism, and that's not the lesson we should pass on to the next generation.

It may not be possible to sway the minds of the people who carved "KKK" into a vanity. It may not be possible to get those Wal-Mart managers to judge men by the content of their character.

But as a community, we can't shrug our shoulders and be dismissive. We need our leaders to speak out from the pulpit and the County Commission chamber. We need neighbors to rally around the victims, as has happened with the Riverview homeowner.

We owe it to our kids to do more.

In a place where a neo-Nazi hate group meets every month, can't we meet once a year to tout diversity in a spectacular way? Couldn't we choose the most ideal day, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, to show that people in Seffner, Sun City Center and Valrico embrace all the great tenets King cherished?

The city of Tampa commemorates the MLK holiday with a number of events, but I don't know of any major recognition that occurs in our area.

We need to ensure tolerance is woven into the school curriculum, taught at church, fashioned by adults, and heralded by our leaders.

The next time a racist incident occurs in the community, we could point to this annual event as a sign of what the true Brandon area is all about.

Most importantly, an MLK holiday celebration would be a teachable moment for our kids: a chance to build a bridge between yesterday's civil rights struggles and tomorrow's promise. To paraphrase Lift Ev'ry Voice And Sing, our children can't embrace the hope the present has brought us, unless they understand the faith our dark past has taught us.

That's all I'm saying.

Ernest Hooper can be reached at 813 226-3406 or Hooper@sptimes.com

[Last modified December 8, 2005, 07:50:08]