Racial incidents in U.S. are disturbing

Recent incidents of apparent racial bias cloud Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s dream of a colorblind society.

It was just a few weeks ago that we stopped to mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of civil rights icon Rev. 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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,” saying the police had been called.

On Sunday the club coowner called the women personally “to apologize.”

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, too often eludes the country.