Frank Hawkins – A few years ago, a young Florida relative of mine went off to a prestigious northeastern college as a pre-med student. As a good athlete, she joined one of the girls’ sports teams and was a starter on the varsity squad as a freshman.
The team was a mixed group of black and white students who had come from all over the U.S. As the girls met for the first time, my relative was accosted by a black teammate from Brooklyn who, discovering she was from Florida, said to her face, “You’re a racist.” In other words, if you were from Florida (or the South) you must be a racist. Continue reading