Communicate we must, he and others say, or the city risks more violence. We have no choice but to take what has happened and turn it into an opportunity. And I believe we can do that. Scars of a lynch rope When Ken Wilson talks about race, he remembers the rope scars on his grandfather's neck where the Ku Klux Klan tried to hang him. He remembers walking home from basketball practice at Princeton Junior High School in the 1970s while drivers in passing cars would call him the n-word.
Blacks think about race every day.
Like Mr. Wilson, many blacks enter discussions on race and related topics with personal experiences of racial slights. They've heard stories passed down from generation to generation, and perhaps faced racism at work, at school or on the streets. Those experiences influence what they hear and say. If the topic is employment, blacks may enter the conversation recalling jobs lost or promotions missed because bosses looked more at the color of their skin than the quality of their work. And if you're not succeeding, you're not working hard enough.