Celebrating Bill and Ted, Condoning Throwback Racism

You know what 2009 is? Among other things, it’s the 20th anniversary of a very silly, but funny, movie called “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.”

You remember "Bill and Ted," don’t you? Don’t act like you didn’t see it…

That was the movie where the main characters, Bill S. Preston and Theodore “Ted” Logan, two high school students, who happened to be of European descent, began to have difficulty understanding the content in their history classes. The course, interestingly, was taught by old-school, black actor and former NFL star Bernie Casey.

The plot was that Bill and Ted ran into a guy named Rufus, played by comedian George Carlin, who promised to help the two boys to truly understand history by taking them back into time, through his phone booth/time machine device.

In the movie, the boys do actually wind up being transported back into time, where they meet Napoleon, Beethoven, Billy the Kid and Socrates, among others, each of whom help them to gain historical perspective and a "hands-on" command of their classroom subject matter.

Did I hear you say, “so what?” Well let me connect the dots for you….

More and more, over the summer months, here, in Philadelphia, I’ve been thinking that Rufus, on the 20th anniversary of the film, must have “snuck” into Philadelphia, slipped me into a phone booth and transported me back into time.

More and more, with regard to race relations, here in the City of Brotherly Love, it feels like I’ve been transported back into the 1950’s, or the 1930’s, or, even, the 1860’s.

It’s just like the movie. Twenty years later, it’s "Bill and Ted" all over again, except that, this time, it’s not funny.

What else but a time machine would allow us to explain how blacks in this city have reverted to a pre-Civil Rights acceptance of racial indignities? How else to explain the deathly, cowardly silence that has broken out across the black community as the City’s black children are banned from a swimming club in a predominantly white community because the club's managers believed the kids might negatively impact the pool’s “complexion,” as occurred in July, at the Valley Swim Club.

How else do you explain having the ongoing situation that’s been in place at the City-owned transfer station wherein black employees have been restricted from using “white-only” water fountains and “white-only rest rooms?” How else to even explain why some of those same, disrespected black men allowed the Philadelphia Daily News to take a front page photo of them, holding up a copy of John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger's book, "Runaway Slaves." Was that additional, visual indignity even necessary?

Where else but in a time-travel sequence would a noose be hung in a Philadelphia hospital by a black employee’s white co-worker? Where else would the case, in the resulting legal action, be heard by an all-white jury, in a city whose population is only 39 percent white? Where else, but in a historical flashback, would that same jury find the white perpetrator innocent and dismiss his actions as merely a poor "joke?"

And, how about that announcement in early August, from District Attorney Lynne Abraham? That couldn’t have happened in 2009, could it?

I’m talking about the one that included the Grand Jury report from that savage, brutal, way-out-of-control, beating and stomping of three innocent black men by 15 or more Philadelphia policemen, back on May 5, 2008. That incident was videotaped by FOX 29, made its way onto the Internet and was eventually seen by people all over the world, but the Grand Jury found that there was absolutely no evidence of police misconduct or excessive force. In fact, the Grand Jury report included the following: "We found that the design of the force applied by the police was helpful, rather than hurtful." The report went on to say that "The kinds of blows, in other words, were aimed not to inflict injury, but to facilitate quick and safe arrest." The District Attorney, herself, added, during the press announcement: "The video, in fact, did not speak for itself...A picture is just a picture."

By the way, the Grand Jury report was released about a month after a Common Pleas Court jury acquitted the three young, black men of the "attempted murder" charges brought by the arresting officers.

Seriously, it’s not just me, is it? The entire City of Philadelphia-- all 1.4 million of us-- must have also been stuffed into Bill and Ted’s phone booth. Maybe that slick, old Rufus decided to send us all back to that other Philadelphia-- Philadelphia, Mississippi-- during the “good old days” of Jim Crow segregation. That would explain it, wouldn't it?

There is absolutely no way that those kinds of things could still be happening today, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; not in 2009.

Is there?

I really do want to believe that if any of those things really were happening today, that not only black people but, also, whites, Hispanics and Asians of good conscience, would be up in arms.

But okay, let’s assume that we have all gone back in time and that we have re-lived the atrocities of blatant, racist behavior, segregated public facilities, black-focused police abuse and all-white, totally biased juries.

The question, now, boys and girls, is “What have we learned from this experience?”

So far, judging by the lack of a consistent, institutional, government or community-based response or outcry, it seems that we haven’t learned a damned thing.

I believe it was Spanish poet/philosopher George Santayana, who said, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

George Santayana was dead right.

Given the increasing incidents of hate crimes here and across the country, it appears that we can reasonably expect to see a growing trend of this kind of behavior, especially if we continue to respond, locally and nationally, as we have.

It seems to me, regrettably, that black Philadelphians would rather accept the prospect of continuing malicious and disrespectful treatment than to stand up and demand the respect that we’ve earned, over the years, in this city and, in this country, over the past 390 years.

As dumb as they both were, even Bill and Ted would have figured out, by now, that it was time for the two of them to adopt a more effective strategy.

What’s wrong with us?



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