Letter | Bikefest: Be careful; unsavory racial stereotypes can cut both ways

Re: May 15 letter by Katherine Johnson, “Stop assuming the worst about Bikefest in Myrtle Beach.”

Have we finally come to the end of this year-long tirade of negative Atlantic Beach Memorial Day Bikefest opinions?

Or will Round Two begin as soon as the bikers leave?

You might say that depends on biker behavior. I disagree.

Past opinions never dealt with individual bikers; they were always judged as a group, as them.

Katherine Johnson wrote an excellent reply opinion to one such writer, beseeching him and others not to assume the worst and prejudge. Sadly, Ms. Johnson, your words were probably read but did not resonate with that person or others like him.

I recently posed the following “what if” to a neighbor who does not consider himself a racist but referred to the black bikers as thugs and a bunch of hoodlums.

What if we painted all those black bikers white and they did all the same things that define thug to you?

His answer was simple: “White people wouldn't do that.”

Does my neighbor believe he's a racist? Certainly not.

I pointed out to him that every attempted or successful presidential assassination and killing of major political figures were at the hands of a white person.

Entertainment figures such as John Lennon was shot down; 167 lives lost and hundreds wounded in the Oklahoma City Bombing; Columbine High School left 15 dead and 23 wounded; 12 dead and 61 injured in the Phoenix theater massacre; each of those tragedies was committed by a white person.

Fort Hood and the Boston Marathon? No black person (thug) was responsible.

I didn't get to the 20 children among the 26 slaughtered at that Connecticut school because my neighbor by that time had returned to his home.

Some of us paint people as we do the outside of houses - never knowing or wanting to know what is on the inside.

The writer lives in Carolina Shores, N.C.

This story was originally published May 19, 2015 at 10:03 AM with the headline "Letter | Bikefest: Be careful; unsavory racial stereotypes can cut both ways."