I’m going to try to be an optimist and suggest that there’s at least something of a generational divide in this whole terror of scary black men.

My fiancee’s best friend’s dad grew up in Brooklyn and attended a Catholic school 1 block from where I currently live. When MLK was murdered, the school had the (mostly) white kids leave in groups, because of the violence going on outside. They were afraid that individual white children might get picked off by the mob.

I can see how that might leave an indelible mark on one’s psyche.

Fast forward 45 years, and he dropped his daughter off at a party at our place, and apparently said that he’d never thought he’d ever let his daughter come to this neighborhood. She, meanwhile, has come to our place on multiple occasions, riding the LIRR in and walking to our place. She has no fear of the majority-black neighborhood.

I’m hoping that it’s a generational thing. For those of us who never witnessed a race riot, and saw America’s cities spring back to life as crime fell, being scared of the “ghetto” would be as odd as being scared of the Soviet Union.