I wish I could give you something really substantial and solve this problem of how different sides see this issue of racism. But in order to solve this problem you've got to see clearly. And everybody thinks they see clearly and the other person doesn't. I'm not going to tell you that I see everything clearly. On these issues I sometimes can't be entirely confident that I can separate truth from fiction and my perceptions from reality. How can I say that I know what the answer is? I can't.

I'm only going to do two things. First, I'm going to talk to you about my own feelings. Then I'm going to give you some thoughts. I'm going to look at some of the facts that pertain to the sentencing of Stacy Koon and Lawrence Powell. Then I'm going to look at things people have said about this issue and ask a question. The question has to do with an idea, not the details of this case. It has to do with a question that I think underlies this issue and animates much of the conflict on this issue. And the question is: Is race the issue or is justice the issue?

I'm going to start with the presumption that both sides want to see an end to whatever tension there is between the races. They want to see this issue resolved. They don't like the conflict. I'm presuming that everybody is coming from that point of view, so what I'm going to tell you as a person--I almost said a white person and I hate that I even have to qualify it, that's part of my frustration because I don't speak for white people and I don't speak as a white person. I want to tell you what a lot of what I'm hearing is doing to me with regards to this issue of bigotry and racism and prejudice.

I am not a racist--that is, I don't believe there are fundamental differences between races making some inferior and others superior, but I will confess this--and this is hard for me to say this--but I find myself becoming more prejudiced as time goes on. Especially of late. It is frightening because I have heard this same statement from many other white people that I know. People that in all other ways have high character, have high moral convictions, are gracious to human beings across the board regardless of their race or their religion or their creed or their circumstances. But I'm becoming more prejudiced. What I mean by that is that more and more frequently I get tense at my initial contact with a black person. I have to struggle with prejudging their opinions, or attitudes, or character. I'm happy to say that after I've spent a little time with them the issue of color dissipates rather quickly, and I either like them or dislike them based on, as Martin Luther King said, their character and not the color of their skin. I don't care then what color their skin is. If I like them I like them. If I don't, I don't and it has nothing to do with the color of their skin. But I'm aware of this other feeling creeping in. I don't like this feeling. It's not like me. But the reason it's getting harder is that skin color keeps being thrown back in my face as the significant and determining factor of how one ought to respond.

I don't want to be prejudiced. I don't want to struggle with that feeling, but more and more often hammering at me from every direction it seems people are saying that skin color is what makes the difference.

I can hardly remember the last time I heard a contemptuous remark about another race. The people I come into contact with simply are not racists by any standard definition of the term. I don't know what's in their hearts, but their actions--which is the critical issue here--their actions show that they like people, like them all irrespective of their race; and people that I know that dislike people are equally hostile to them all. Race isn't an issue. In other words, the way I perceive my world is not with a bunch of white racists. I don't see people who have a prejudicial hatred for blacks, who are looking for opportunities to make blacks second class citizens.

Now either I'm living in a strange little bubble of human goodness or some people's perception of their environment is mistaken. And I don't think I'm living in a bubble of human goodness.

I am increasingly developing the conviction that racism is animating most of this conflict, not racism coming from whites--we're trying to get past this--racism coming from blacks. Not all blacks, but certainly the majority of the most vocal ones. And this thing in my face is in turn making me more racist.

Those are my feelings. You can argue with them if you want. You can tell me they're invalid. You can call me names. All I'm saying is this is the way I'm responding. I am struggling with things that I didn't used to have to struggle with because my perception is that race is the significant issue with many that are among a racial minority. Race is the deciding factor and I am held guilty simply because of my skin color.

Now here are my thoughts. And my thoughts are part of what causes me to draw the conclusion that there are some wrong perceptions of reality here.

I think racial prejudice is dishonoring to God. It's offense to God and it ought to be offensive to anybody who has anything to do with Him. But if that's the case, then from here on out we should accept no arguments based on racism or racial prejudice regardless of who they come from. Any argument that generalizes based merely on skin color is racist, and if you hate racism you won't use those kinds of arguments. If you use them then you are not against racism and injustice. What you are is for yourself and your "side."

And, of course, this is the problem with "sides." Once you've taken a side then your side is always right, and whatever helps your side is good. The other side is always wrong, and whatever helps the other side is bad. That's why when sides is the issue things like racism and prejudice and injustice become tools to use against the other side rather than dealing with our moral goals. They become things people use to get more credit for their sides.

I guess what it gets down to is that many of the people I hear deploring injustice and racism--politicians, civic leaders, even some of my callers--are not really against injustice and racism at all. They're only against injustice and racism used against them . But when they can be used as tools against the "other side"--as they perceive it--that's fine. But when they use it they refuse to call it what it is. When racism and injustice are employed by their side then it can't be called racism and injustice. Instead it's rage, or rebellion, or it's an uprising, or (amazingly) fairness--evening the score. Listen to the language: Reginald Denny for Rodney King; two white officers for two black gang members; one burned down city for decades of abuse; "no justice no peace."

But "a rose by any other name will smell as sweet...," ladies and gentlemen. And racism and injustice by any other name still stinks.

I think it's merely a defense of a side, an ideology which uses both of those things as weapons and tools when they see fit.

Let me give you some concrete examples.

The first example is the sentencing of the police officers. I think that two-and-a-half years is reasonable. I think the judge made a good decision. If he would have given them five I would have figured it was reasonable. If he'd have given them one-and-a-half I think that would have been reasonable. The judge has his reasons, he explained them and they sound sensible to me. But I listen carefully to the reasons that people are upset about the sentencing.

Let me make a few of my own observations.

First of all, Koon never even struck a blow. There were only nineteen seconds of illegal activity according to the judge, with most of the harm done to King coming before that time when King was resisting arrest and they were legitimately applying force. King got the majority and worst of his injuries when they were using legitimate and legal force. Powell struck six illegal blows in the process of restraining an intoxicated 250 lb. felon who was resisting arrest after a high speed pursuit. Does that justify the illegal blows? No, but come on. It's not as if they jumped out of the squad care and started pummeling him because they didn't like the color of his skin.

Now, for those who think this was a lenient sentence, the average rapist gets two years; the average murder gets five years. Yes, Rodney King said he thought the penalty wasn't stiff enough, but even he had to admit that both Koon and Powell will do more hard time than he did for armed robbery. In 1990 King pleaded guilty to armed robbery, a felony for holding up a suburban Monterey Park grocer with a tire iron. He was sentenced to two years in a state prison and ordered to pay restitution. He served less than a year in prison and then he was placed in a work furlough program and paroled on December 27 of that year.

I'm not complaining that King got out early. That happens all the time. Part of the problem with the justice system is that everyone seems to get "relatively light sentences." My point is that the officer's sentence doesn't seem out of the ordinary when you consider the crimes involved and you consider the one the crime was against. He was a felon who didn't even have to serve that much time for armed robbery.

I marvel when someone like Maxine Waters calls two-and-a-half years of hard time in a federal pen a "kiss on the wrist." I'd like her serve that time and then see if she responds with that kind of assessment.

Why is this under attack? Paybacks. A lot of people said this was an opportunity for the justice department to make up for years of wrongs done against the black community. I've heard that comment frequently. This is the opportunity to make up for past wrongs. I get it, we aren't really interested in punishing Koon and Powell for the particular crimes they committed. We want Koon and Powell to be punished as symbols of crimes committed against blacks from time before. Why should we punish these two men for crimes committed by whites against blacks? Because their skin is white. That is why. In other words, all of this falderall about the sentencing isn't based on the merits of the case because rapists and murderers get basically the same thing. It is because their skin is white, which tells me that people are not concerned about justice. They are willing to have an unjust sentence levied against two white men to payback for crimes committed against blacks.

That's racism. But it's racism with a golden edge because in taking the high moral ground there's an attempt to payback past crimes with the punishment of these two men based on their skin color.

Next is the Williams/Watson trial on the beating of Reginald Denny. The LA Times headline (Friday August 6, 1993) read "Stakes in Denny Case Raised, Say Black Leaders."

This is a good example of what I mean: those who, in a very shallow way, equate the beating of Rodney King with the beating of Reginald Denny; it's the same crime. Why do they equate them? Because in each case it was color assaulting opposite color and there was a videotape involved. So as far as some people are concerned--those who either are incapable or unwilling to make the proper and appropriate types of discrimination and distinctions here; that is, being able to discern the differences between these two cases other than color differences--according to those people the cases are equivalent. The irony is that many are not asking for equivalent treatment. They want the policemen prosecuted and the gang members released. What happened to justice? They are asking for the harshest penalties for the white policemen and for the exoneration of the black thugs who, with no provocation or justification, pounced on Reginald Denny and beat him up with no other rationale than that he was a white man and they were mad at whites. Go figure. What matters to them is skin color--"us against them"--not justice. This attitude is racist and anyone who defends this attitude is a racist.

What's incredibly ironic to me is how some are actually rallying around gang members. These are men that everyone watched do precisely what gang members do. This wasn't out of character for them; this is what they do . It's not what policemen do to beat up people. They enforce the law and the fact that Koon and Powell were tried demonstrates that they were outside of what policemen do. But this is what gang members do. This is their reason for existence. These are the ones terrifying your neighborhoods; not the police. These are the ones killing your children; not the police. These are the ones that victimize you a thousand incidents to one compared with the police or "the system." It is not the system that's preying on your families. It's the Damian Monroe Williamses and the Henry Keith Watsons who make conscious, adult decisions to prowl your streets and devour. Yet these men are portrayed alternately as victims and, believe it or not, patriots !

Why? Why are these men heroes to some? Why the complete disinterest in justice in their case? There's only one answer I can see: in the minds of those that support them--not everyone does but the ones that do and you read about them every day in the paper--they're on "our" side because their skin is black. This is racism; this is injustice.

These are the kind of people who are incapable of seeing anything in a circumstance except the color of the skin

People say, "You're responsible for me because of what your ancestors did to my ancestors." Of course, they're not my ancestors at all; mine were still in Europe. And sometimes it's not even their ancestors; not all blacks were slaves. So what is the determining factor here? Why am I guilty? For one simple reason: because I'm white. That's it.

Men and women, this is not about racism and injustice; it's about sides. Things like racism, prejudice, bigotry, bias, discrimination, injustice in this battle are not evils. They are merely tactics to be vilified when used against you and weapons to be employed by you when they help your team. Both sides are guilty of this and whenever it happens it's despicable.

At least that's the way I see it.

I made a comment yesterday about my concern about racism. Part of my concern is that people are conditioned to see racism, for whatever reasons, where there isn't racism. I look around me, for example, and I listen to my friends and I watch how they act and I mentioned yesterday that I can't remember the last time that I heard a racially denigrating remark. In other words, a hostile remark coming from someone who was motivated by disgust with another member of race. I have heard frustration, especially in the last year. But I've shared in that frustration myself as I've tried to maintain an attitude of color blindness as much as possible, and deal with people as individuals, and be concerned about justice and human rights and not groups and my side, which in this case would be my color.

I hope that part of the substance of my comments was that many people who feel slighted by the system, and to be honest I'm speaking of people of color right now, would maybe take another look and ask themselves whether maybe they're seeing white racism, white prejudice in places where it doesn't really exist, if in fact they might be imagining it. I'm not suggesting that there isn't any prejudice or racism at all. Clearly that happens. But I do question thoroughly the notion that it is somehow pervasive in our culture, that this is a racist culture, that racism is institutionalized. I don't think people who make those kinds of comments have ever been to a country where racism was genuinely and truly institutionalized.

I've listened to Dennis Prager and it's very refreshing to hear him talk because I think he's got some insight into these issues and I think he expresses his thoughts in a very straightforward way. But his observation, and I have to agree with him, is that most of the people that he comes into contact with are people who genuinely care about other human beings. Not that they're perfect. Not that they don't have shortcomings. But they are not interested in being racist or prejudiced or bigoted on racial lines; in fact they would like to live in harmony with others and they try to do that. His concern, and I echo it, is that so much of the rhetoric today is drawing the lines more precisely between race so that race and skin color become the predominant issue, setting the cause for true, genuine civil rights back decades. I feel it happening in my own heart.

A policeman from San Diego called yesterday and said that in their police department they have a Latino policemen's club and they have a black policemen's association. I asked him if they have a white policemen's association. He said no, but the chief of police said that they can do that if they want to. But it strikes me as a bit bizarre that it would be legitimate to have a Latino or black policemen's association but not a white policemen's association, and now it's some kind of concession. The whole idea of breaking up the community along what amounts to tribal lines seems to be counter productive to me. So now we have our black and Latino associations, our Korean associations and our Vietnamese associations. Maybe before too long we'll have our Bohemian associations and I'll find someplace where I belong. But it strikes me as excessively counterproductive to pursue that course of actions. If a person is genuinely interested in reducing racism and increasing justice then they would not continue to rally to their side in a divisive way, but they would do the particular things that would really make a difference and draw people together.

Listen, if we're really interested in erasing these racial lines and getting rid of prejudice and bigotry then doesn't it seem more sensible to drop what seems to me to be ridiculous terms like African-American or Korean-American or Vietnamese-American or Bohemian-American? What's the point of that? It draws more distinctly the very lines that we're trying to erase. Now I understand that to some people those are valuable terms, that for me to say that it's ridiculous is offensive. Well, I genuinely apologize if I offend but keep in mind the context in which I speak. The context is this: if our deep concern is to deal with this divisive issue of race then it seems ridiculous to continue to identify ourselves in that way. Wouldn't it seem offensive to you if I said to you, "Yeah, I'm interested in being color blind and drawing all the races together. And I as a white American, born a white American and will die a white American, I will do my part to make any more division than necessary. It's counter-productive. It's self-destructive to say that. It's ridiculous in light of the goal.

Well, with all that in mind there's a comment that Dennis Prager made in his most recent edition of Ultimate Issues , a quarterly journal that he writes. He has a section of an article here that's called "When Memory Paralyzes." The title of the article is "The Battles for the American and Jewish Souls." Let me read you a couple of paragraphs here.

"Suggestion number one is a direct lead in from the last idea. We Jews have a very long memory. I will never forget the woman who once called my shows and said, 'You know, isn't it time for you Jews to forgive and forget the Holocaust. It's fifty years now.' I said, 'Ma'am, I'll tell you something. You probably don't know this but every July or August the Jews still fast for an event that took place 2500 years ago. So why don't you give me a call in about 2400 years and maybe we'll consider it.'

"Having said that, and being a deep believer that memory is necessary, especially in the age of television and instant recall, I say that memory can paralyze just as it can invigorate. I believe that two groups in America are now paralyzed by their memories. Jews and blacks.

"Jews are paralyzed by memories of Christian anti-semitism. And blacks are paralyzed by memories of white racism. What neither group has matured enough to recognize is that their erstwhile enemies are now their best friends."

Let me read that last sentence again.

"What neither group has matured enough to recognize is that their erstwhile enemies are now their best friends."

That is a profound statement, ladies and gentlemen. And I echo that from my heart. As a, pardon the term, white American, my genuine and deep desire as a human being and as a Christian person is to be able to link up personally with people of all races and not have any racial distinctions get in the way of what that person is before God and before me. My observation is that there are a lot of people that are reaching out and their hands are not seen because there is a memory that obscures the genuine desire to heal wounds. The memory expresses itself in angry statements and in angry demands. It expresses itself in wrath and rage and rebellion. Those feelings are understandable given the past.

My point is that we are no longer in the past. We are in the present. And it is the very expression of an anger that was legitimate under other circumstances that seems to me to be destroying the possibility of joining hands in the present circumstances. If we don't, we very likely will destroy each other.

At least that's the way I see it.