I was born in Mississippi in the mid-1960s and grew up here. When I was a kids girls were still being disaggregated and I spent time in schools that were 90% white and one school that was over 90% black. Fights in school were common, I don’t think there is a single year from first grade through 12th grade that I was not involved in at least one fight in school, as well as fights outside of school. I never, not even one time, was engaged in a fight or saw A fight or even heard about a fight that involved racism.

My senior year of high school a black kid and I got into a brawl in the high school cafeteria, the reason was really stupid, the kid pushed by me in order to cut ahead in line and started talking smack when I failed to stop him. That’s it, that was the reason for the fight, a kid cut in line and started talking smack about it so I punched him. I wasn’t thinking “oh this black kid is disrespecting a white guy and I can’t let that stand,“ nothing could’ve been further from my mind. When boys get angry they will fight, and really there is nothing wrong with that, we both just needed to get something out of our system and we did. Never had any problem with that kid after that, and he didn’t have any problem with me.

And that’s what was going up and watch all of you think is the most racist place on earth, during what you all think is one of the most racist time periods in history. Fights between black kids and white kids weren’t based on racism, it was just boys doing what comes naturally to boys.