Subject: Isaiah Washington column

Hey Leonard……you want some cheese with that whine?

I have no clue as to why I even bother to read your stuff……I pity your poor miserable life…how can you stand to even exist in this country when you see racism in everything you do every second of everyday? God, it must be tough living in America where some of us are different colors than black. I’m amazed you even get out of your house in any given day.

You see racism by the police …well so do we….and I’m white and an ex-cop…..we get stopped during the day time as well for reasons unknown…we get stopped by black and Hispanic officers…one of my best friends daughters was just assaulted by 2 Hispanic officers in Houston who stopped her and called her a ‘dirty rich white b****……

You see racism in the medical industry…so do we…we have to wait in the doctors offices just like everyone else while the doctor decides what he wants to do and when he wants to do it…obviously the doctors time is worth more than ours, so a wait of 1 or 2 hours is not out of line. Just learn to deal with it… We dread having an emergency in our family…no sense going to the ER room…..you can’t get in there anyway due to all of the non-white segments of our society being dealt with….Not their fault they got shot at 2 in the morning while dealing drugs, not their fault someone’s husband cut them in two because they caught them sleeping with their wives…not their fault they have OD’d on something or another. …not their fault they had to get drunk and drive and had ran into some innocent person….no, not their fault….it’s my fault for stepping on their necks and keeping pressed down. It’s my fault for wanting to make their lives miserable…..it’s my fault for what happened to your ancestors 200 years ago…..Tell me Leonard, were you ever a slave? I’d guess not, nor was any of my folks slave owners…did that make slavery right? Of course not…were we there, nope….could we do anything about it? Nope…can we do anything about what exists between you and Me….not until we get past the past and deal with issues in this world we live in, not something years and years ago.

Tell you what, you want to see racism? Try going to the post office in our neighborhood which is staffed by an all black cast….now I realize that the post office is a non-profit organization, but you’d think someone would think to treat it differently…not at our station….our wonderful postal workers are rude, curt and condescending to any and all whites but Johnnie on the spot to any black (especially female) who gets in the line….. oh, you got a certified letter ? wait your turn…..you’re black and have a certified letter? Come to the head of the line…with the explanation that ‘they’ have to get back to work…well so do we…what are we chopped liver? I drive miles away to another station where at least we get treated fairly.

You ever employed anyone? I mean hired anyone in your life? I have…thousands…the majority of which were not white…..the majority of which were good, decent people trying to make a place in this world and provide for their families…the same as I do for mine…..but I can’t tell you how many times I have been spit on, yelled at, threatened, cursed at by employees because we had to terminate them because they went to jail or didn’t come to work for days on end or drive a $25,000 truck into a pole and thought nothing of it or had an accident and hit someone but ‘forgot’ to tell us about it until the police came calling? You ever been sued by a woman whose life was saved by one of my employees when she was being held down and raped and was about to be murdered when my guy shows up and saves the day? The victim sues us (and gets a settlement from our insurance company) because ‘those poor guys who did it (the crime) didn’t have any money. You ever been sued by a mother whose 15 year old daughter sleeps with one of my employees, gets pregnant and ends up married (after the settlement) to the ex-employee…but we get sued due to our employee having sex with the young girl and paid out over $450,000? You ever had to fire someone because they came to work drunk or high and then they keyed the cars in the parking lot on their way out? Probably not.

The point of all of this? I’d still hire people…the bad apples are in every barrel of society, white, black, brown…..we have to live with them no matter what…but how about this Leonard…..next time you drift out of your cave…look around  and try seeing some good in the world instead of all that bad…you might be surprised…there’s more out here than what you think ……