Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 11, 1994 TAG: 9401110140
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Neil Chethik
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
For these reasons, Reginald Denny and Cornel West are my choices for Men of the Year, 1993.
After what happened to him, almost anyone would have forgiven Denny's outrage toward blacks. On the afternoon of April 29, 1992, the 37-year-old white truck driver was passing through the intersection of Florence and Normandie in South Central Los Angeles when a brick shattered his cab window.
Moments later, several black men - angered by the acquittal earlier that day of four police officers in the Rodney King beating - dragged Denny into the street, punching him, kicking him, and smashing a brick against his head.
When the racial assault was over, Denny was unconscious, his skull fractured in 97 places. Miraculously, he survived. Even more astonishingly, he did so with his sense of empathy intact.
Rather than condemning his assailants, he tried to understand them. "It was just a crazy day, there was a lot of angry people, and heck, some guys were just led by the crowd," he told the Los Angeles Times. "I'm certain there were people who got caught up in the excitement, not even realizing what they were doing."
He added: "I think the best example one can show another person is a bit of forgiveness . . . deep down inside there's got to be some forgiveness somewhere."
From the start, Denny was quick to point out that his rescuers were black, too. At the trial of his attackers last August, he embraced the mothers of the two men accused of trying to kill him, saying he understood their pain. And when the trial ended with mostly acquittals, he was ready to move ahead.
"Let's get on with life," he said. "I've been given a chance, and so I'm gonna extend that courtesy toward some guys who obviously were a little bit confused. I hope that they see the light now."
Cornel West, 40, has much the same hope for the whites who have done violence to him through the years, dismissing and reviling him because he is black. But rather than focus much energy on them, the Ivy League professor has chosen in the past decade to apply his considerable intellect to breaking America's racial deadlock.
In 1993, he took a big step toward that goal with the publication of "Race Matters" (Beacon Press, $15). In this eloquent best-seller, West transcends liberal and conservative labels - "Great Society Democrats against self-help Republicans" - to convince us that all races have a moral and practical self-interest in the salvation of America's black communities.
"If we go down, we go down together," West wrote. "The Los Angeles upheaval forced us to see not only that we are not connected . . . but also, in a more profound sense, that this failure to connect binds us even more tightly together."
To his fellow black Americans, West encourages a "politics of conversion," a grass-roots movement that extends beyond fighting racism to opposing sexism, homophobia and economic injustice as well. Without such a broad anti-prejudice agenda, he says, the movement will lack moral and political credibility.
To non-blacks, he encourages participation by those who would honestly confront prejudice in their institutions and their hearts. With a new black leadership that picks up where Malcolm X left off, he says - attacking white supremacy, not white people - all races can work together toward freedom, fairness, and the rehabilitation of our common culture.
Some may say it's overly optimistic to believe that the simple words and acts of two men can make a difference in America's racial morass. That may be true. But Cornel West speaks for many when he says that racial-justice work must continue, whatever the odds of success. "I am not an optimist," West says. "I am a prisoner of hope."
Male call
Men and women: What are some ways that your community tries to improve understanding between members of different races? Send responses, comments and questions to The Men's Column, in care of the Features Department, Roanoke Times & World-News, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, Va. 24010-2491.
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by CNB