Yesterday’s theme about my relationship with our current president was “old like me.” He and I are both old white men. Tomorrow, I’ll focus on gender. Today’s focus is our whiteness. We grew up in a world of white supremacy. That reality may be our greatest link. New York City is vastly different from Alabama, but we grew up in a culture of white dominance and privilege. His teen years were 1959-1966. My teen years were 1963-1970. The three years we “overlapped” as teens were 1963-1966.
Alabama’s racial segregation was de jure. New York’s was de facto. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were key events of our teen years. The Harlem riot and the NYC school boycott (both in 1964) and the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery were during our teen “overlap” years. I understand the President’s innate racism. It’s part of my DNA, too. He and I may have dealt with our whiteness in different ways, but we were both products of a white supremacist culture.
When the President first appeared on the national political scene, he sounded like the early George Wallace (who was first elected governor of Alabama in 1962). In my bones, I heard MAGA as “Make America White Again.” The intended brutality of ICE and the “raid” on the Fulton County voter records are clear expressions of racism. John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me was formative for me. I don’t think Griffin’s project was part of the President’s consciousness as a teenager.
So, how do I deal with my white brother in the White House? I oppose him vigorously and urge my fellow old white men to do likewise. I loved Robert Hubbell’s account of the “F— Ice” chants at a professional wrestling event, and the President’s decision not to attend the Super Bowl (for fear of “big league” booing). See “The tide is turning as Trump hides from the public.” His key point: This all stops when enough of us say, “No.”
Photo of an unidentified old white man at a protest in Athens, Georgia, from Robert Hubbell’s Today’s Edition Newsletter for today (February 5, 2026), cited above.
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