Dear Mr. Flaherty,
Thank you and God bless you.
Your book White Girl Bleed a Lot was delivered to my house yesterday via Amazon. I got home from work at 2:15 PM, and shortly thereafter began reading it.
I couldn't put it down and finished it around 10 PM. I told my wife that she and our 26-year old son have to read it.
I know you've heard a million stories and personal accounts, here's one more.
I'm a 55-year old white male, born and raised in Baltimore City. I'm a retired Maryland State Trooper. After retirement, I became the owner of a small barbershop.
In 1970, I began 7th grade at Herring Run Jr. High School in Baltimore. It was an integrated public school, with students bused in from other districts. It was my first experience with blacks. There was daily harassment by black groups on soft whites.
Thefts, assaults, intimidation.
If I ever wrote a book, it would be titled "Gimme a nickel." In a threatening/intimidating manner, this would be stated with a palm out - "Gimme a nickel." The victim would reach in his pocket, pull out his lunch money, and the perps would usually then grab the entire handful of change from his or her hand.
Teachers and administration turned a blind eye to all of it. White students quickly learned they were on their own. I went to school there for three years and hated it. I was a jock/tough guy - they only targeted the weak, scared and vulnerable whites. We called it "Little Africa." It truly was the law of the jungle there. Only the strong survived/were spared.
Never, ever, once did I see an incident of white-on-black crime there. Countless black-on- white, however.
During the winter of 1974, my best friend, Mike Lawson, and I visited "Two Guys" department store on Belair Road. We were both 16-year old white males. Mike's driving and he steers towards a parking slot.
An opposite approaching car does likewise. After a few seconds, the other car backs up. Mike pulls in and we get out. The other car driver (he'd parked a few slots away) comes walking towards us. He's an adult black male with a female acquaintance.
Without saying a word, he approaches Mike and sucker punches him in the face. I immediately grabbed the guy and threw him to the ground hard. I remember one of his shoes flew off when I upended him. I hit him once or twice and he submitted.
I then let him go seconds later and watched him walk away. I then turned back towards Mike. He was holding his hand over his eyebrow area. Blood was pouring through his fingers. Mike said, "He punched me with a key."
He was laid wide open. We got the dude's tag #, went to Mike's house and his mom took us to the hospital. Mike gets stitched up in the emergency room. Baltimore city police are called. The cop followed up on the tag # and vehicle description. It came back to a black female who he interviewed at her house.
She lived minutes away from the Two Guys store. She denied any involvement or knowledge of the incident or suspect. The cop said there was nothing he could do. Mike and I joined the Maryland State Police together January 3rd of 1978.
To this day I regret letting that scumbag off easy.
In June of 1975 around 3pm, I get off the #22 bus near Erdman shopping center coming home from school. I was 17 years old and minding my own business. I'm alone walking in front of the G.C.Murphy store.
Curbside near me, a van with two black men in it is driving slowly next to me. As The Beaver and Wally used to say, they were "giving me the business." They were letting me know what they thought about white boys.
They then parked, got out and approached me. I was now walking backwards with both of them facing me. As they continued their racial assault on me verbally, I made the mistake of letting them get within arms reach of me. I remember looking towards the one to my right, and then the blur of an arm coming towards me from the left.
I then felt the explosion/shattering of an empty glass bottle on my face. I grabbed this ass immediately and pulled him into a headlock. I could see absolutely nothing due to the blood pouring into my eyes. While I was punching this scums face with my right hand, his accomplice was punching and kicking on me.
Very quickly I felt the first guy go limp and realized I had knocked him out. I dropped him and grabbed the second guy. I threw him onto the ground and between wipes of the blood from my eyes, saw him get up and run back to their van. I kept wiping away blood, looked down at the unconscious guy, and looked over at the van.
The second guy emerged with a tire iron and headed towards me. I remember double-checking the unconscious guy, then preparing for the guy with the tire iron. I raised up both my hands defensively to block the tire iron, wiping away blood to see better, as we both were heading towards each other.
Lights and siren came next as a marked city police car flew in from around the corner of the shopping center. Me and the tire iron guy were maybe 15 or 20 feet from each other when the cop got out. I remember him looking real quick at the unconscious guy on the ground, then at me (covered with blood and my skull exposed, the skin flapped over into my eyes) and then at the dude with the upraised tire iron.
He yelled drop that tire iron. I can still see it clear as day. The black guy was looking at the cop when he yelled to drop it. He paused, then looked back towards me. He began walking towards me again with it still raised high. The cop then pulled out his gun and yelled drop it or I'll shoot. The guy stopped, looked back at the gun pointed towards him, and dropped the tire iron.
The two black guys were taken away in a paddy wagon and I was taken in an ambulance to Union Memorial hospital. In the E.R., a nurse asked me if I wanted the E.R. doctor to stitch me up, or a plastic surgeon to come in. I hadn't seen myself yet, but I knew it was bad.
I told her I didn't want to look like Frankenstein, and I preferred a plastic surgeon. She told me they'd call one in and it wouldn't be too long. At some point before he got there, I asked to use the bathroom. Big mistake. In front of the mirror I almost passed out. It is very unsettling to see ones own skull, with your skin separated and flapped over as if filleted.
In August 1975, the two guys faced their criminal charges. They both plead not guilty. Their defense was that I was a racist who instigated the event by calling them niggers. They were only defending themselves with an empty bottle and tire iron because I was a violent high school football player who they were scared of.
I remember the judge saying, "You want me to believe this lone high school kid started a fight with two grown men for no reason? Then you're so scared of him that you get out of the safety of your vehicle, to approach him with weapons?" The judge found them both guilty, but I don't recall what their sentences were.
I got one traffic ticket in my whole life. It was two years after this incident, and the same cop that drew down on "tire iron man" was the one who gave me that ticket. (Shouldn't have run that red light.)
In the winter of 1975, I was walking behind that same Erdman shopping center. I was coming back from a girlfriend's house. It was late at night and I was alone. I heard a car coming up behind me and slowing down. I turned around, a car full of black guys. One leaned out the window and said, " Give us all your money white boy."
I knew it was on, grabbed my crotch and said, "Take all this Mother Fucker!" The driver floored it and tried to run me over. When I jumped out of the way I side kicked the car as it went past.
Weird, I had lots of black friends in high school. Loved my black friends on the football team.
In the winter of 1977, I was walking to my girlfriend's house on Frankford Ave. It had been snowing and traffic was affected. As I approached an intersection on Sinclair Lane, I saw a car stuck in a left turn lane. A group of approximately 8 or 10 black guys approached the car. While I was getting closer, I heard one say that they would push him out for money. He was scared and they knew it. They began threatening to take his money. I walked up to the window and told him that I'd push him loose. "Stand back for the bad white boy!" one of them said. I ignored them and went to the rear bumper and began pushing.
The racial taunts and threats by the group intensified, as I couldn't push the car loose. I saw a white guy walking nearby and called for him to help me. He did, and we broke the car loose. The insults and threats continued, and I turned towards them. I said my first words to this group of thugs,
"Fuck every one of you black bastards, who wants to fight?" The entire group turned away en masse and walked away.
Sometimes a creepy ass cracker gets lucky in spite of himself.
When I first entered the State Police academy, my roommate was black. Kevin Gray, we were buds. You had to have a cumulative 70 average to stay in and graduate. Lots of quizzes and tests. Kevin was always failing them. Every night, instead of studying, he was in the gym shooting hoops or goofing off.
I kept telling Kevin to study with me, or he'd get the boot. Kevin wouldn't listen. He should have never been hired, he should never have graduated. I finished valedictorian, he was pushed through. I retired Trooper first Class, he retired a Major.
The cream does not always rise to the top.
During the competitive promotion process, some of us simply became so discouraged that we stopped trying. Some people can only be passed over so many times with lower qualified candidates before they quit trying.
That's the biggest regret of my law enforcement career, that I quit trying to get promoted.
I admire the guys that didn't quit trying.
The worst that happened to Obama was he got stared at, or followed in a store. And he reaped all the benefits of affirmative action.
Wow, I really feel his pain.
I think it was June 2nd, a Sunday, of 2013. Myself, wife and our 26-year old autistic son took the metro to Washington D.C. We got off at the Smithsonian platform. We visited the U.S. History museum there and ate lunch.
Later we walked to the World War Two and Vietnam memorials. At the end of the day we got back on the Metro to head home. It was crowded; we were seated near each other but apart.
After the metro took off, I was looking around and noticed a woman to my rear standing in the aisle. I motioned for her to come forward and take my seat. A few minutes later after another stop, a seat opened up near the sliding door.
I looked around, no women or kids standing in the aisle, so I took the seat. To my left was a young black male seated. I said a friendly hello, and he looked at me angrily without saying anything. Not much later he said something, I'm not sure what, but I thought he was asking me a question.
I looked to my left and said "excuse me?," or "what?" In a raised and angry voice he said he wasn't talking to me. This drew the attention of everyone, and I said "sorry", and turned away. Moments later out of my peripheral vision I saw him putting on some ear buds.
Very loudly he began singing "Mother Fucker I take my gun and shoot you in your fucking head" mimicking a handgun with his index finger and thumb pointed at me.
I said, "What did you say?"
Him, "You heard me mother fucker, I take my gun and shoot you in your fucking head."
Everybody nearby was aghast, by their expressions. I said "Quit cussing in front of all these ladies."
Him, "fuck you."
I said "I'm serious, quit cussing in front of all these ladies."
Him, " Mother fucker I take my knife and stick you nigger."
I said, "What did you say you're going to do with your knife?"
Him, "You heard me nigger, I stick you. "
I stood up and said, "Let's see how bad you are with that knife."
Him, "Fuck you, you just don't like me because I'm black." (Funny how that works)
After he realized he couldn't intimidate me, and his friend and another passenger called for calm, the racist shut up.
Two women, including the one I gave my seat to earlier, walked up to me upon exiting, and said thank you.
I don't think he liked that, he glared at them.
Since he'd threatened to kill me, I did not keep my eyes off him until he and his friend exited at the Rockville platform.
Later, I thought if things had escalated I would be the next George Zimmerman. Obama would have said that I was racist and had caused the problem.
Just like the Cambridge police when they arrested Professor Gates, as he was yelling discrimination. But then Obama might have changed his tune after the true facts came out. Then he could have declared it a "teachable moment" over suds.
I think I would have declined the invitation, and told him to give himself an enema with my pint. I don't like having beers with racists, or being taught by them.
Anyway, I will be recommending your book to the max, and I thank you for it.
Sincerely,
Ed Humphries
When I asked Ed if I could use his name, he said, predictably: “Go ahead, it would be cowardly not to.”
Let’s leave the heroic and find the comic.