They Call Me Mr. Tibbs

OK, here's the deal . . . I'm not racist by any means. My grandmother, though, she was prejudiced against others who were of a different color. She was brought up in the south-- where a lot of these racist views were promulgated from one generation to the next. A lot of Southerners still want to blame the Civil War on the black race.

Although I loved my grandmother dearly, I could never understand her racist views. Sorry grandma, but racism is ignorance. And those who practice and preach racism are ignorant slaves to some predetermined notion that stands unqualified and unwarranted.

Let me tell you . . .. When I was about thirteen years of age, I'd met Sammy Davis Jr. This was at the Hyatt O'Hare. After he exited from the elevator he stopped to sign his autograph for me. I was thrilled. Also, he handed me the wine glass he was clutching. A souvenir, man was I excited. Later that night, I told my grandma the good news. "You'd never guess who I met today."

"Who?"

"Sammy Davis Jr. I got his autograph and he gave me his wine glass."

Ricky," she said, "Don't you ever drink out of that glass."

"Why not."

"Because a Negro drank from it."

I, to say the least, was dumbfounded. I could not believe my own grandmother had just made that impossible remark. It was ignorance in the most egregious form. If I didn't love my grandmother, I would have disowned her right then and there.

Racism, I will never understand it. I am a man who has the capability to understand and appreciate a lot of things, but not that. Neither my mind nor heart has the capability to appreciate this type of ignorance. I'm not wired for that type of hypocrisy.

One of my favorite movies when I was a kid was "Guess who's coming to Dinner." Another, "In the Heat of the Night." Yes, and one of my favorite actors is Sidney Portier.

You can call me Tibbs, Mister Tibbs. . . . .

Oh, and "To Sir With Love." You want to know how many times I cried as a kid watching that movie? At least six times. Yeah, I'm a sentimentalist . . . . .

And no, I won't stoop down and bash, denigrate, ostracize, ridicule just to get fucking ratings. I don't care if you don't read my work. I'm not a Howard Stern wannabe, no siree. And surely not another Jerry Falwell.

I wish my grandmother were still alive. I think she may share my views on Barack Obama. I think if we were given the chance to sit down uninterrupted and she would listen to some of my own philosophies and viewpoints she just might consider judging a person not by color but by character... the very message that Dr. Martin Luther King espoused in seeking the rights and freedoms for all people.

"Our world is full of many tragedies but the biggest tragedy is the one that is bred from ignorance." Ricky J. Fico