Kane Watch: Digging Deeper

It seems some writers in this city can't seem to figure out when they're dead wrong, so they keep digging that hole deeper. It seems some writers in this city don't like to talk about racism when it pertains to hate from blacks towards whites. It seems some writers in this city live in a fairy land where all black folks are nice to white folks, and white folks who live or travel through rough parts of town never, ever experience discrimination or racism.

Give me a break.

In case you haven't figured it out, the writer in question is Mr. Kane because Mr. Kane likes to say things like, "This bus attack story was unusual in many ways, mainly because you don't hear about whites being attacked on Milwaukee County buses by blacks. It usually doesn't happen."

It's not that these events are uncommon, it's that they are not reported or are not to a degree which requires police involvement. This however, does not mean that they don't happen. Mr. Kane thinks that racism only counts if the victim is put in the hospital. Sorry, Gene, but that's just not the case.

In my five years in Milwaukee I have been on the receiving end of racist behavior numerous times. The worst was an incident on Lincoln Memorial Drive before Sheriff David Clark took over. I was stuck with all the cruisers, and there were a few points where I honestly feared for my life. People were beating on my car and screaming racial slurs at me.

Here's my question for Kane: Because they did not drag me out of my car and beat me, does that make the incident any less racist?

Here's another question for Kane, why is it that when I go to Mayfair mall, for example, and as a white woman who is shopping, I sometimes can't walk past a large group of some young black kids without being the target for some intimidation tactic or racial slur? Is that also not racist behavior because I did not end up in the hospital?

I am certain that as a single, white woman Mr. Kane knows everything there is to know about black racism towards whites...oh wait. Kane isn't a single, white woman. Oh yeah, he also lives in the burbs. I wonder, when was the last time he took the bus down North Ave? Kane says, "You don't hear about whites being attacked...." No, Gene you don't hear about whites being attacked. Most likely because you've never asked, and/or when you've been told you just make excuses for the kids who did it.

I work with a fellow who has, in the last week, spent over $100 on cab rides because he has grown tired of riding that North Ave. bus home. He says it's not worth it to endanger himself. This is not because he read of the beating that recently occurred. This is because he has personally been assaulted on the bus before while being called racial slurs. Oh yeah...he's white. The aggressors were teenage black males. When I heard about the "Great Bus Hate Crime," I actually thought that it was him, because he has told me how many times he's been assaulted on that bus.

But really, these things don't usually happen, right Gene?

It's unfortunate that it's so easy for Gene to classify "some" whites as racists so easily, but when the facts are starting him right in the face, to defend the racist actions of blacks as being "unusual" or not very serious.

Racism is racism is racism. It's that simple. Until all sides confront just how bad the situation is in this city, it's going to be awhile before we can overcome some of these issues.