Charles E. Garland, of Syracuse, is manager of Garland Bros. Funeral Home. He is a candidate for the Onondaga County Legislature in the 16th District.

By Charles E. Garland

My first wife was from London, England. A beautiful soul. I met her when I was living in Gaeta, Italy. We were together for six years. On one of my visits to London, in the early 1990s, in one day, on two separate occasions, I saw and heard people verbally and physically assaulting two Irish cab drivers in broad daylight, in public, while people watched and did nothing to stop it. I had never seen a white person treat another white person in such a vile way. It was profound and touched me to the core of my soul, because in those instances I relived my own experience of being called “N-----” and being kicked and spat upon in my youth, while living in Michigan.

I had read about the “Irish Plight” and seen the negative depictions and inferences on television and the movies, but it wasn’t until that fateful day in London that I realized the the Irish were considered "the N-----s of Europe.” And I finally understood why my Irish friends in Michigan and Syracuse, the Kellys, Conroys, Hallorans, O’Sheas, Glavins and Irish in general, were so fiercely protective of their Irish identity.

When Congressman James Walsh brought the Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams to Syracuse, it must have been like us, as black Americans, having Martin Luther King Jr. grace us with his presence. But the irony wasn’t lost upon me either. I thought about how the Irish, Polish and Italian immigrants in America all had a history of being persecuted at least some time in their long, rich history that spanned centuries before ours, but here in America some of them are still the most racist people towards us. Some, not all. And the only thing that discerns us is the color of our skin.

So, I say to America, “The sins of the fathers are not visited upon the sons.” What is past is past. We are here, together now and what we are doing together now, to make this a better country, is what matters. We don’t expect reparations or apologists. Black America is a young race. We’ve only had our freedom since 1865 because of the 13th Amendment. Compared to other ethnic groups, we’re still in our infancy.

So after being stripped of our identities and culture through slavery, denying us our central family unit, making it illegal to read, write or gather, giving us freedom but not equality, Jim Crow and segregation, obstructing our voting rights, redlining us denying us decent housing, limiting our social and economic mobility and basically despising us and treating us like second-class citizens in our own country, I say to you America, “Don’t continue to handicap us and then complain that we’re limping! We are young. We are crawling, but eventually, we will rise!”