Touchdown Jesus

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100615/NEWS01/306150004/Lightning-fire-destroy-Touchdown-Jesus-statue-on-I-75-in-front-of-Solid-Rock-Church

My niece posted this on Facebook, and it reminded me when I was a callow youth, my parents took me on a pilgramage to Notre Dame. For an Irish Catholic family, which we were because of my mother, driving to Notre Dame was like a Hadj. It was a three hour drive from home. My dad got lost, this was the sixties, no tomtom or gps. We ended up in the black ghetto of South Bend. There was a skeletal skinny extremely tall black man passed out across the entire sidewalk, and people were stepping over him, not looking twice. I think when a group picked up a shopping cart and lifted it over him, without rendering aid, this pushed my mothers nerves over the edge.

When we finally rolled into the campus, we were greeted by a very tall caucasian mosaic. Touch Down Jesus.  My mom was grateful and relieved.  It began to dawn on me, mom really did not like to be outnumbered by dark people, but that revelation wasn't really complete until I had children with a african american woman. Five boys.

There were hints. Like the day after MLK was shot, April 5th, 1968. I got home after being beaten up by a group of black kids, after school let out. We were mobbed, but my friend Jerryl from band did a human saw horse over me, and protected me, while my neighbor Herb got smacked pretty good.  When I got home, I called my mother at work, as I did every day. I asked if she'd heard about MLK getting killed. She said, "Yes its all over the news, but we can't really be surprised darling, he was asking for it." 

After digesting this snowball, I looked at the phone receiver. "Who is this?" I thought.

After that, I started listening to the conversations of the adults around me, and discovered they had some really noxious views of people who were different. My parents were not overtly racist. That would have been declasse. Showing your racism was tantemount to cursing in mixed company, or admitting you had a weakness.  All that started 10 years later in the seventies. So you had to listen between the lines. "Them", "those people", "typical of those people", etc.  I hadn't listened till mom told me MLK was "asking for it."  It definately expanded my awareness.

Touch Down Jesus indeed.