Indeed.

Despite >50 years in the south (now), Millen still floored me on a very regular basis, and thinking back still does.

The Black neighborhood a block behind me was the source of more than weekly gunshots and screams, yet I never heard sirens indicative of assistance. (Despite the residence two blocks in another direction of then gubernatorial candidate, Bo Ginn.)

In three years, the only reference I ever saw to any POC resident in the weekly paper was: "A Black man was killed in a fight over a bag of potato chips." I feel pretty certain that it was only printed because such an unfortunate and insulting reference to a Black man could be included. (And indeed, it's the wording that has etched in into my memory.)

I knew of race issues prior, but not like this. Millen was a violent town by any reckoning. This tiny town had a murder rate > four times that of pre-Giuliani NYC, but not because of Black residents. Lots of weed was grown in the area, with the participation of local law "enforcement". (But I'm confident that fear is why everyone kept quiet concerning racism.)

Early on, my ignorance of racism very likely could have killed a Black child after I gave him permission to climb over a fence to get fruit in my landlady's fenced back yard. (That haunts me to this day.., thus the reason I've documented it. (As a a 100% UNPAID Medium writer, I generally write as therapy.)

I'd love to sit and talk to you for hours, but that seems unlikely. Instead, I would very much like to read more of your writing on race.

Thank you once again.