I saw his black face glooming there in the half light, and I could only think of him as a monster. It’s tradition. At first I was told that the black man would catch me, and when I got over that, they taught me that the devil was black, and when I had recovered from the sickness of that belief, here were Jube and his fellows with faces of menacing blackness. There was only one conclusion: This black man stood for all the powers of evil, the result of whose machinations had been gathering in my mind from childhood up. But this has nothing to do with what happened.

After firing a few shots to announce our capture, we rode back into town with Jube. The ingathering parties from all directions met us as we made our way up to the house. All was very quiet and orderly. There was no doubt that it was as the papers would have said, a gathering of the best citizens. It was a gathering of stern, determined men, bent on a terrible vengeance.

From the “Lynching of Jube Benson,” by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote a beautiful story with a hideous ending to discredit racism. His observations still remain valid. Ostracism of blacks bristles in our society. To confirm it, all you have to do is visit a ghetto in Chicago.  Sometimes, fear also distorts reality. A few years, one my young black patients passed away, and I decided to go to her funeral. My notes reflect my feelings about my brief jaunt to this part of town:

“The wake was held at a small funeral home on the south side of Chicago, in a black neighborhood.  I had decided to cancel my office hours and attend it.  I asked some of my patients, and they warned me against going there because of the very real danger of random shooting. I called a cab and went to Virginia’s service. The streets in the neighborhood were flanked by small buildings similar to the one where I used to live when I arrived in the United States forty years ago.  Boasting beautiful facades and small gardens in front, the four-to-five-story structures reminded me of the English architecture I had seen in London. The streets bustled with black people who were peacefully tending to the duties of the day and minding their own business.”