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Subject: Dial 'H' for Hate; My Angry Callers Forget That a City Needs to Stand
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 92 08:24:29 EST
Message-ID: <8.1992Nov15.082429@AmeriCast.com>

Dial 'H' for Hate; My Angry Callers Forget That a City Needs to
Stand United<By J.J. Green<

RUSHING OUT of the broadcast studio to answer my phone not long
ago, I was stunned by the anonymous question about me from the
impatient female caller: "Is he black?"

"Excuse me?" I responded.

The cold voice asked, "Is this J.J. Green?" Yes, I replied.
Sounding short of breath, she wanted know if the killer of the
15-year-old who was shot dead in the front yard of his house was
black. "Ma'am, we don't know yet for sure," was my reply.

Like an overheated radiator, the voice on the telephone spewed
forth words that are still clear in my mind. She said, "I listen
to your 'Black and White' show and I'm tired of you dirty, stink-
ing niggers!" (The show she referred to is a monthly call-in spe-
cial I do with Chris Core, during which area blacks and whites
talk openly about their racial concerns.)

The episode angered me. I never forgot that voice and eventually
pieced together an identity through additional phone calls she
made to the station's talk shows.  But hers was not the only dee-
ply troubling phone call I have received. In another call, a
well-spoken, self-described "white male retired auto executive
who is politically plugged-in" expressed the "need to exterminate
blacks" who are "lazy and unintelligent" and are "screwing up our
economy." Another angry caller, also a male, taunted me after I
broadcast the news of Pamela Basu's death at the hands of car-
jackers: "See what you niggers have done to our country!"

This time, I felt no anger, just despair - not for myself, but
over the resignation the callers had embraced. After the third
call, I realized that they'd said what they'd said because it was
the only way they could vent their frustrations without fear of
retaliation. Like so many people of all races, they seem to have
have accepted the violence that's imprisoned them in their homes.
Instead of taking a defiant stand against crime, they use hatred
to vent their pain. And I was a convenient target.<After one of
these calls, as I drove home from work, one phrase everberated in
my mind: Stay alert! Stay alert! I approached a traffic signal
and saw a young black male leaning against a signpost with his
hands in his pockets. My internal alarm went off: The Basu car-
jacking - which had occurred hours before - flashed into my mind.
I slowed the car and the young man shifted his posture; his hands
came out of his pockets; he reached for a bag.

At that moment, a bus approached from behind me, and the young
man boarded. I sighed heavily and felt a rush of guilt. Then
anger. I had been hit between the eyes with something black males
tend to try not to think about: the reality of black-on-black
crime. There's no running away from it. We black males are both
the hunter and the game.

So, just for clarification, I understand - but don't excuse - the
hatred of the callers. I understand that there are major so-
cioeconomic problems facing blacks, and many are driven to crime,
but I also understand that those who commit crimes don't deserve
any breaks. There is a better way than fixing blame and being an-
gry.

Before we law-abiding citizens of all races get caught in the
middle, it's time to get busy. Open your blinds and shutters; un-
lock your fortresses; come down from the hills, out into the
open, and let's confront crime together. Let's take back our
lives. You're not safe in your separate neighborhoods anymore.
Whites need blacks to survive and vice versa. With the prolifera-
tion of guns and the technology employed by criminals, there
really are no more safe neighborhoods.

Unless we work together, one of us, without a doubt, will be the
next victim.<

 J.J. Green is co-host of "Black and White," which airs at 10
a.m. Tuesday on WMAL.<02:07 11-15C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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