50 years later, 2 incidents continue to cloud King’s ‘Dream’

It was just a few weeks ago that we stopped to mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

We talked, once again, about his dream of a nation where his children would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

And we wondered how far the nation truly has come since those burgeoning days of the civil rights movement.

Then we went back to our everyday lives.

For many of us, that included a visit to our local Starbucks. That’s what two young black men were doing when they entered the coffee shop on Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, where they had planned to meet another man to conduct some business. It’s something people do every day.

They were only in the store a few minutes when they were approached by the manager, who inquired if they planned to make a purchase. They indicated they were waiting for someone. One of them asked to use the restroom. That request was denied, because they had not made a purchase. When they declined the manager’s request to then leave the establishment, the Starbucks employee called 911 and reported them.

No less than six or seven officers arrived, the two men were arrested, held several hours, and then released without being charged.

A video of the incident (of course there is video, isn’t our entire life recorded these days?) went online and the story exploded, becoming an international sensation.

Starbucks apologized. The mayor apologized. Even the police commissioner, after initially offering a defense of his officers, reconsidered, saying he was not fully aware of Starbucks’ policies and that his comments served only to make the situation worse.

There are those who insist this whole thing has been overblown, been made into something – that being a racial incident – that it is not. They note that Starbucks has a policy that you must make a purchase in order to use the facilities. It’s true, many people would have done just that in order to avoid just such a situation. We wonder how evenly the policy is enforced in Starbucks, since we seem to hear anecdotes from just about everyone of sitting in Starbucks for periods of time without making a purchase seemingly without incident.

Which raises an obvious question, one we and many others have been asking since this incident first exploded and caused a national debate.

Would the incident have been handled the same way – and had the same result – if those two young men had been white?

We fear in too many instances that answer is that it would not. And it leaves us once again wondering just how far the nation really has come in terms of race relations.

Could the two men have easily defused the situation by making a purchase? Certainly. But we wonder if the employee could not have just as easily sought another solution, and if that in fact is something that does not happen every day under different circumstances.

The whole thing again leaves us wondering just how deep are our racial misgivings are rooted in our consciousness. How far have we come?

Apparently, not all that far, at least at one golf course in York.

Yes, that’s where another ugly incident played out this week.

A group of women golfers were confronted by golf club officials, who informed them they were guilty of “slow play.” It’s not an unusual situation to play out on a golf course. Calling the police is.

Club officials informed the group – who just happened to be the only group of black women golfers on the course that day – that they had to leave the course. Eventually police were called. Fortunately, in this incident, no arrests were made and no charges were filed.

But once again the factor of race in a social incident cannot be avoided.

“It was like we were playing with targets on our backs,” said Sandra Harrison of the experience at Grandview Golf Club in York. And she’s a member of the club, albeit new to the area. The 59-year-old retiree said she was traumatized, rattled and hurt by her experience, which the group claims started literally on the second hole. “What other reason could there be other than we were guilty of being black while golfing?”

After the ninth hole, three women in the group dropped out and headed home. Instead of being allowed to continue on, the woman say they were confronted again, and told, “Get off our property,” and informed the police had been called.

This all happened Saturday. On Sunday the club co-owner called the women personally “to apologize.”

But on Monday she issued another statement, which leaned on an explanation of how the club handles complaints of slow play.

We assume that does not include calling the police.

Ironically, the women were members of a social group called Sisters in the Fairway.

“Our name implies that we want to live life in a fair way,” Harrison said. “We want to be sisters in the fairway, in golf and in life.”

That is the notion Dr. King preached, the centerpiece of his “dream.”

And one that, 50 years later, this country still too often finds all too elusive.