Why start conversation if accusations come next?
A new survey found that of 400 black people polled in metro Milwaukee, scarcely half said they could generally trust white people. Imagine, then, the forbearance demanded of whatever agency gets stuck helping rehabilitate Terrence Stapleton, the former North Lake fire chief sentenced to serving black people for siccing a dog on a black fisherman. He isn’t, we all should appreciate, a typical white guy, any more than Louis Farrakhan typifies blacks. If anyone thinks he is, we have a rough road ahead. The race survey, done for the Public Policy Forum, described race relations here as bad and called the topic the “elephant in the room,” about which no one will talk. Doubtless we will hear we need a “conversation about race.” I disagree. We haven’t lacked for words about race. We talk of race incessantly, if fruitlessly. If a big heart-to-heart could make Milwaukeeans feel better about race, we’d already be euphoric. Besides, why should average white schmoes like me join a dialogue if we s
