-By Selwyn Duke
When I was 12 years old, I played tennis at a certain public park in the Bronx. One day it got back to me that a black fellow at the courts, whose name I forget, said “Selwyn doesn’t like black people.” This raised my eyebrows. You see, I had never really thought about the man one way or the other. And what occupied my mind were forehands, backhands, topspin and volleys, not race. So the only thing I could figure was that I was probably in a funk one day and didn’t hear and acknowledge a greeting he might have extended.
Whatever the perceived slight, race was a factor. After all, imagine the reaction if he had been white. At worst he might have thought, “Selwyn is a self-absorbed brat,” which would have been closer to the truth. Or he might just have concluded that I was having a bad day (I was an aspiring player at the time, but, lamentably, had a lot of bad days). Instead, he saw bad intentions where none existed.
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Obama’s America: Why Black Grievance Will Never End”