Apartheid. USA 1988

[p. 92]

June 19, 1987:

BLACKS ARE FAIR GAME is the title of an essay on the Op-Ed page of the Times written by Congressman Floyd H Flake, Democrat from Queens, Long Island. Mr Floyd retells an experience how not long ago he entered an ice cream parlor on Long Island with a few aides and was confronted by a bewildered looking waitress: The woman was terrified by the entrance of the group of black men, who tried to convince her that Mr Flake was her own Congressman. Mr Flake even drew his Congressional identification card to soothe her. Later in the car, he realized that he just had had a shocking experience having to show an identification ‘in an attempt to eradicate the fear and the suspicion this (white) woman felt because blacks entered her ice-cream shop.’

Following the Goetz trial, Mr Flake wondered what would have happened to his group of black men, if the woman in the ice-cream parlor had allowed her suspicions and fears to take control of her emotions and had picked up a gun and had begun to fire at them. The Congressman Flake wrote, ‘I am a product of the de facto (in reality) segregation environment that pervaded American society up until the passing of the civil rights legislation in the 1960s. During my youth in the South, I lived through the degrading experience of having to drink from a water fountain with a ‘colored’ sign above my head, of having to enter restaurants through the back door, of sitting in the back of the bus and of using bathrooms designated ‘colored’.

‘Perhaps our greatest tragedy as a nation is that we are witnessing the fulfillment of the findings of the Kerner Commission Report which indicated that this nation was moving toward two distinct and separate societies. I believe that the Goetz decision sends the wrong signals to white Americans. It says blacks are fair game. If a white person suspects, rightly or wrongly, that a black man may commit a criminal act, then a white person is able to take any action he sees fit. The message this decision sends to black Ameri-

[p. 93]

cans is that the life of a black person has very little value ... Bernhard Goetz is considered a hero. I am a black man and an American citizen with shiny eyes and a ready smile. And although I have a good education and hold one of the highest elected offices in America, I am deeply troubled.’^122.

Jamaica Square is a small, black neighborhood in the midst of the mainly white, suburban Sewanhaka school district in Elmont, Long Island. In its 25 years, the Jamaica Square Homeowners' Association has never had a visit from a Sewanhaka school superintendent. But this week one evening a little before 8 pm, the first arrived. Dr George Goldstein needs black children. The state has ordered the district to correct racial imbalance in its 5 high schools (3 are virtually all-white; one is 20 percent minority, and another one is 50 percent minority). On this night, Dr Goldstein was trying to persuade black parents to send their children voluntarily to ‘white’ Floral Park High School. They weren't interested. For years, boundary lines were drawn so that black children had to walk past their neighborhood school, Floral Park High, to get to a school farther away that would take them, namely Sewanhaka High. In the black households of Jamaica Square there is a tremendous loyalty to the school that would always take them. Dr Goldstein warned that if this voluntary plan failed, the state could order busing. At 7 a.m. everyone will have to get on a bus.^123.

122. The New York Times, Op-Ed page, from an essay by Floyd H Flake

123. The New York Times, from a report by Michael Winerip