The following is Blog number thirty-nine and is part of the ongoing Racial Reconciliation in America Series. It is entitled: Race in America – White Men, Why Do You Do That?

RACIAL RECONCILIATION

RACE IN AMERICA

WHITE MEN, WHY DO YOU DO THAT?

As we consider what the Lord has brought us through, the amazing amount of information that we have been able to absorb; so much in the area of interracial interaction: we come to the conclusion that we possess knowledge meant for this time. As a fact of our life we have experienced acts of betrayal by White folk and by Black folk. The betrayal from Black folk has always come with complete shock and disbelief; producing both emotional and financial consequences only conquered by time.

All betrayal is painful. If you are a business person betrayal is costly and long-term in outcome. The experience of betrayal from White folk though it may come with a certain expectation it has the potential for a real challenge. You gotta fight that challenge with relentless resolve! Here is why.

If you are blessed to be Black: if you have suffered a loss, then the access to opportunity presents even greater barriers; the costs to enter into opportunity are more expensive. Together this means that the claw-back to success is more strenuous and precarious.

We suspect that we have spent about an equal amount of time interacting with both the Black and White race. We have learned that when there is a betrayal involving the collusion of both, well that is a real mind binder.

We experienced that some years ago with our largest business acquisition, BG Aerostructures. At the time it was the largest company of its kind in the world that was owned by Black folk, two Black men. We orchestrated the entire transaction as it was our idea. The White banker was a personal friend. The Black participant was not a friend, just an acquaintance who cheated at golf, which was our first clue! But it was he who worked at the firm and who was sent there to shut it down and fire the 225 people employed there. We convinced him that we should buy this amazing asset instead and keep the workforce.

Now, I don’t know the current life of the banker but the Black fella died of a massive heart attack within a year of his betrayal. The banker friend put the firm into the hands of his other friends who just happened to be White. We could never get an answer to the why question. We did not get the  old meaningless statement: “It’s not personal it’s just business!” So we just accepted that there was a lack of confidence in us.

Unlike his father a truly great man would not have done, the banker missed a tremendous and historical Black business opportunity. The financial loss may have been covered but the historic and long-term business potential was priceless and a once in a lifetime loss. The betrayal by the Black fella was a failure to stick with the business plan and totally a function of greed and a lack of vision. Even possessing the answer one still asks the question: why?

We ask the same question when we inquire into the historical engagement between White folk and Black folk more broadly. Why? What we have found most interesting in our assessments of life experiences, is how genuinely vile some White folk have been, in their treatment of Black folk. How they have been able to institutionalize their decisions by putting them into law is really quite something.

White folk today implement what is devastating public policy with a centuries old philosophy as the policy underpinning. The question is why? Now, we can not ask such a question of the White folk that we know because we can not imagine their conduct being so vile towards other folk. Our White friends are not these folk!

But who are these other folk? Where do these other White folk come from? Our White friends agree with us about these other White folk. As an example where did Paul Ryan come from? Somebody is eight degrees of separation from Paul Ryan. Our friends and we are of the opinion that for Black folk, Paul Ryan is a representative of what is really wrong in America today. In our next Blog post we will tell you what we are really talking about and why. So come on back!