COMBATTING RACISM
Racism is like a volcano waiting to erupt By Reginald Grant
On May 18, 1980 Mount St Helens erupted, it initiated as a series of phreatic blasts from the summit then escalated as a major explosive eruption. Within hours, the ash covered more than a dozen states and volcanic ash could later be found around the world. The eruption triggered the largest landslide in the United States, killed 57 people immediately, and caused $1 billion in damages. (Here is a short video by the Smithsonian Museum, On May 17, 1980 I had just returned to Seattle from Miami, where I attended the Miami Dolphins preseason minicamp for free-agents and rookies. I was with the Ottawa Rough Riders of the Canadian Football League for the remainder of the 1979 season after I was released from the New York Jets. The following morning, I was awakened by the violent shaking of my bed. None of my family knew a volcano, some 125 miles away, had erupted.
Reginald Grant (MS Ed.) is a member of the General Commission on UM Men. He is a business strategist, author, and speaker.
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Eruption in Miami To aid to our disorientation and discomfort, the same morning I heard about the riots in the Miami community of Brownsville which started in Lincoln City, home of the Dolphins training facilities, where I had been the previous day. The Miami riots were sparked by the acquittal of four white police officers who had brutally beaten a black, handcuffed insurance agent to death with their flashlights. The 75,000 square-foot Norton Tire Warehouse was lit by people so enraged by the failure of the justice system they destroyed their own neighborhoods. The consequences of the damage lasted decades, and in Brownsville, after Arthur McDuffie’s killers walked free, the scar of the Norton tire fire remains. The race riots claimed 18 lives and destroyed $100 million in property. Racism is like the Mount St Helens volcano; it simmers out of sight for decades and unexpectedly erupts.
