Linda Rochester - A Love Affair with Place: An excerpt from her Novel Running Naked
Black people have always been more generous with their understanding of us than we deserved. Maybe that was because they knew that the whole mess could turn around on you quick, and suddenly, you would be the one who needed compassion and understanding. Black people of the pre-civil rights era knew things that their white contemporaries didn't. Like the nature of people. It's not that people don't do terrible things, but it is that everyone does bad things. If you hate a pedophile, for example, you probably won't have to look very far in your family to find one. Or rape, or incest, or pornography, or child abuse, or alcoholism, or drug abuse: a thief, shoplifter, or murderer. Someone who beats their wife, or someone who fails to support their children. If you want to know the truth, probably someone close to you has done one or more of them. Or your children. What are they going to do?
It happens like this: you say you hate people who do X; your son or daughter does X; you panic because you said someone who did X should be locked up or electrocuted; you begin to find reasons why your child who did X shouldn't get what you said someone who did X should get; you go to the altar and get forgiven for all your sins; you pull out all stops to get your child out of trouble; you have cussed the trial lawyers until this incident; you now love the trial lawyer who got your son or daughter out of X; you then pretend that your son or daughter never did X; you sit quietly though when anyone else says that people who did X should go to the pen; you are less likely to want everyone to pay for everything they ever did since X happened to your child; you are a kinder and gentler person, but not so kind and gentle that you won't cast a stone; you're just not that vocal anymore.
From Running Naked 2005
