ANALYSIS/OPINION:
The fear factor.
Not the game show, or the unnerving grip from being around uncaged lions, tigers or bears. And certainly not bona fide fears of flying, claustrophobia or even being unable to fathom envisioning yourself in the shallow end of a swimming pool.
I’m talking about racial fear, the kind of stereotype that leads to racial profiling and raw uncut discourse like that displayed Tuesday evening at the D.C. Armory.
Fear was front and center, where an all-black panel of the D.C. Commission on Black Men and Boys drew a mostly black audience for its forum titled “Lessons from the Life and Death of Trayvon Martin.”
The rhetoric of lessons offered at the forum were as potent as the raw uncut insights into America, where the jagged edges of our individual fears about race continue to rip at our nation’s ragged wounds:
Ignorance of the law.
White folks are the problem.
Black-on-black crime.
The unending pain of a father who lost his son at the hands of a gun-wielding off-duty police officer.
Mass incarceration of blacks.
Self-victimization.
Too few government services.
Too few family values.
Faith-based initiatives that are not exploited.
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Award-winning opinion writer Deborah Simmons is a senior correspondent who reports on City Hall and writes about education, culture, sports and family-related topics. Mrs. Simmons has worked at several newspapers, and since joining The Washington Times in 1985, has served as editorial-page editor and features editor and on the metro desk. She has taught copy editing at the University of ...
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