patrick.net

Some people on Facebook are wondering if the Golden State Warriors should accept President Trump's invitation to come to the White House. The argument against accepting the invitation is that they will be going to see a president that a lot of people see as a racist.
At the end of Apartheid in 1991 I worked for a South African company with offices in Johannesburg and Durban. Our office manager in Durban was a beautiful white woman with blond hair named Shona. Her best employee was a woman who was part African and part white. In South Africa such people are described as "coloured." Under Apartheid people of this racial group received the same bad treatment as Africans did.
When I was in Durban, Shona and I would take this wonderful woman to a bar frequented by Apartheid supporters and racists. (We would call this type of venue "a red neck bar" in the USA.) When you walked in there each male sitting at the bar had a bulge in his pants from the pistols they were carrying.
Under the new legal regime this bar was required to give service to customers of any race. We would walk into this bar and sit at a table. After a long wait we would grudgingly get service. We got all sorts of nasty looks from the other patrons there. Sometime there would be cat calls or other signs of displeasure.
We sat there with dignity and ignored all of the hostility. We were giving these people a message that we were not intimidated by hate and racism.
Golden State Warriors go to the White House and hold your heads up high. Be dignified.