Apartheid. USA 1988

January 1, 1988:

In an interview in the Times Father Lawrence E Lucas from Harlem elucidated on earlier remarks in which he said he was quoted out of context. He stressed everyone was being quoted out of context including Cardinal O'Connor himself following remarks the prelate made during a visit to Israel about Palestinians. ‘I don't see him (Cardinal O'Connor) shutting up his responsibilities to teach the moral responsibility of the church,’ said Father Lucas. All he had wanted to convey was that the New York School System was not educating its children, the majority of whom are Hispanic or black. He felt that ‘the power in the school system in training teachers and administrators and sometimes those who financially benefit from the educational dollars are Jews.’ Therefore, he said, Jews should be demonstrating with the blacks for reforms.

Father Lucas further stressed, that blacks in America had been suffering their own Holocaust since slavery. ‘That too

[p. 155]

is genocide, whether you do it in the gas chamber, or slowly and painfully. We don't have state-ordered liquidations, but the results are the same.’ He further acknowledged that he had a pistol permit and carried a. 38 in a holster under his sweater. He said he had received many threats over the years and as he spoke a police car was parked outside, in response to threatening calls. He said that 11 white priests also had gun permits and that he would give up his when Mayor Koch gives up his bodyguards.^195.

195. The New York Times, from a report by Ralph Blumenthal