Golarz: Two things that will lead to America's demise: Guns and racism

I was in my office when my secretary Phyllis came bolting through the door.

“Chief Wise is on the phone — sounds urgent.”

I picked up, “George?”

“Ray, Blacks and whites armed with all kinds of weapons are moving toward Central High School. I have dispatched everything we have but it might not be enough. I’ve called the Chicago police for help.”

I replied, “Thanks, George.”

With Bill, another assistant superintendent, I headed for Central High. After parking we could see nine or 10 white guys with long guns on the edge of their neighborhood heading toward the high school. To our right there were several armed Blacks. The corner of the school building was obscuring their views of one another.

We prayed.

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Then, two squad cars, sirens blaring, came at breakneck speed from Sohl Avenue and headed directly at the armed whites. As they ran back into their neighborhood they fired several shots.

When we finally got into the school building we could see teachers in the hallway shaking uncontrollably, some simply staring into space and others in the process of vomiting. A national sickness had breached our doors and had come into the building.

The police confiscated over 20 guns that day, nowhere near what was out there. The nightmarish images of that day still haunt me.

Having worked 30 years with teachers and police, I have come to understand that our death as a nation will inevitably come in one of two ways: by not curbing our paranoid obsession with guns, and/or by continuing to wage war against our fellow Americans — particularly Blacks and Jews.

On the matter of guns, former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg left for us a clear path out of the gun illness if we have the courage to take it. Following are her words.

“The Second Amendment is outdated in the sense that its function has become obsolete. Historically the new government had no money to pay for an army, so they relied on the state militias. And the states required men to have certain weapons and they specified in the law what weapons these people had to keep in their home so that when they were called to do service as militiamen, they would have them. That was the entire purpose of the Second Amendment."

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"In my view, if the Court had properly interpreted the Second Amendment, the Court would have said that the Amendment was very important when the nation was new, it gave a qualified right to keep and bear arms but it was for one purpose only, and that was the purpose of having militiamen who were able to fight to preserve the nation.”

Ownership and possession of guns must become a privilege in America not a right. A right never did come from the Second Amendment and our current course of gun control is clearly not working. Supreme Courts are not infallible. Remember your history: Plessy v. Ferguson, a Supreme Court decision, set civil rights back 60 years.

On the matter of the ongoing war against Black Americans and Jews, Stephen Gould’s "The Mismeasure of Man," and Gunnar Myrdal’s "The American Dilemma" are must reads for any American looking for the personal sensitivity necessary to lower their arms and find comradeship with their fellow man. Or we might just look around because the discrimination is everywhere. It continues in segregated housing, in job opportunities denied, in segregated schools, and in that look that says you’re not welcome.

If your interest is to get deep into this topic of race and guns in America read the book "THE SECOND: Race and Guns in a fatally unequal America" by Dr. Carol Anderson.

Time is running out, citizens, and the national cancer remains unchecked.

Raymond Golarz is co-author of “The Problem Isn’t Teachers” and “Sweet Land of Liberty” and former superintendent of the Richmond and Hobart schools. He is a Bloomington resident.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Columnist: America's obsession with guns, hatred will be its downfall