A N G E R , D O R M A N T. Chronic racial inequality. Economical disparity. Police abuse in the name of “order.” Questionable marble heroes from the Civil War being toppled. Three words that resonate more than ever, now in a “yellow brick road” to the White House: BLACK LIVES MATTER.
I became a U.S. immigrant in 1982, a permanent resident in 1987, and a proud American citizen in 2009, swearing during Obama’s presidency. As a white Hispanic man, who happens to be gay, I felt discrimination at times, but nothing compared to what other minorities, visiting citizens of Muslim countries, and specially black Americans had to and still have to endure.
Racism has a long, painful history here. Take this scenario in Alabama, 1932, one year before Hitler became chancellor in Germany. The U.S. Public Health Service carried an experiment on 600 African-American males, half of them carrying syphilis. The 300 were intentionally left untreated to study the progress of the disease, but they were misinformed about the lack of treatment when they gave their consent. Even when penicillin became the drug of choice for syphilis in 1947, researchers did not offer it to any of the men. The study continued until 1972. In 1997, President Clinton offered a formal apology on behalf of the nation to the surviving widows and siblings of the victims. The study was “internally” called: “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.”
—Maplewood, NJ, 6/13/2020