Two days after George Floyd’s death, a friend shared an article on her Facebook feed: “75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice.”

“Seventy-five?”

I have no doubt there are that many, and more, but it got me thinking. If I were keeping score on myself, could a Post-It be sufficient to record the list of actions I have ever taken to demand racial justice?

My parents did the heavy lifting to close the loop on the cycle of racist language used regularly and casually in their families and communities. That was never an issue for me because they never would have permitted my sister and I to ever use those words.

By their example, I learned that judging people by the group is idiotic, and that we were no better than anyone else. Simple and important lessons, and there were others. But what, if anything, had I built on top of that foundation? I have learned that racism often doesn’t foam at the mouth and wave a flag. Instead, it creeps in around the edges through condescension and ignorance. I’ve tried to be mindful of that when I relate to people who are not white.

Once, when my automatic car locks deployed at an intersection where a group of African American pedestrians were waiting for the light to change, I nearly rolled down the window and yelled, “That wasn’t me! It was the car, I swear!”

Hardly a march on Washington.

The truth is, aside from trying to be a decent person who respects others, there are just a few efforts here and there that I would “count” as sincere demands for racial and social justice.

Not much to show for nearly 40 years of adulthood.

One reason, not excuse, is another value my parents emulated: not jumping to conclusions–an activity that has reached Olympic proportions in recent years because of social media.

My parents would have hated Twitter.

Automatically placing a racially-charged incident under the umbrella with 5, 10 or 50 others is something I am loathe to do. That desire to “wait until the whole story comes out,” becomes inaction because after a few weeks or months, it’s no longer in the headlines. Inexcusable.

A hurdle I’ve had to overcome to get to this point of self-evaluation is accepting the term, “white privilege.” Money. Entitlement. Silver spoons. That’s my word-association-exercise “definition” of privilege.

People of privilege don’t know how to sucker tobacco. People of privilege didn’t exist on bushels of pinto beans, leathery catfish, stringy squirrel and scrawny chickens like my father did growing up.

But the real definition of privilege is quite different: “a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.”

In the context of white privilege, the definition might be embraced by more Caucasians if it were viewed less as a special right that belongs only to Anglos and instead was cast as it surely is: an unjust burden placed on people of color. For example:

In 2015, a white supremacist shot and killed nine African Americans attending Bible study at Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC. The following Sunday, my cousin invited me to attend services at a local AME church with her and her daughter as a caring gesture to a few members of our African American community.

The service concluded with announcements. The usual stuff, church calendar, a hospital was offering free colon cancer screenings, and then the pastor asked ushers to pass out pamphlets to the congregation. The subject: how to respond to police if ever stopped for questioning.

Now, at this point in my life, I’ve probably been to a couple of thousand church services. In none of those services did the pastor give the men tips on how not to get shot by police. Likewise, I’m fairly confident that my sister and brother-in-law never sat my nephews down to give them the 411 on avoiding a lethal interaction with law enforcement.

That is white privilege.

All of these things have very much been on my mind since I heard about Mr. Floyd’s death. This time is different. Not because George Floyd’s life was worth more than Michael Brown’s. Judgments such as that are far above my pay grade, thank God.

No, this time is different for me.

I’m sending letters to local, state and national leaders insisting that every single law enforcement officer in the country be equipped with a body camera.

That’s one.

It is 3:19 p.m., and I have no idea what I was doing at this time 30 years ago. I was living in Elizabethtown, Ky., at the time, so chances are I was doing Saturday errands, maybe making plans with my mom. Perhaps we were on our way to Magnolia to see my grandparents. I simply don’t remember.

Hours later, however, around the time when May 14 was ending and May 15 began, that memory is crystal clear. I was awakened from a deep sleep, told some dreadful news by my boss, and sent on an eerie drive north to Carrollton. I was a reporter then, for the News-Enterprise. The bus carrying a group of kids and a few chaperones to and from Kings Island that day was owned by a church in our county. The story was national, but for us, it was very local.

By now, the facts are rote: a Carroll County resident, with a blood alcohol level of more than twice the legal limit in 1988, got into his pick-up truck and began driving. Traveling north on I-71, Larry Mahoney no doubt was unaware that he had steered his vehicle across the grassy median and onto the southbound lanes of I-71. He hit the bus head-on, and the impact was in the worst possible location. The fuel tank, situated just behind the front exit, was ruptured, and the bus became a fireball. Investigators said the temperature inside rose to 1,500 degrees, and that toxic fumes from the burning seat covers became as deadly as the flames. In just a few minutes, 24 children and three adults were dead.

With the anniversary in the news, last night I found myself remembering the details of my “first big story,” as a reporter. Five years ago, I’d heard about the release of a documentary on the tragedy, Impact After the Crash. Although I wanted to see it, mostly because crash survivors were instrumental in the production, I wasn’t eager to revisit the story, the names, the faces, the devastating facts.

I watched it for the first time last night. It is available on Amazon via streaming or DVD. There is also a Facebook page dedicated to the film, the memories of those lost, and to the ongoing journeys of the survivors and families.

The film is very well done. It is unflinching without being gratuitous. It is touching without being cloying. It delivers a powerful message without preaching.

It is the definition of authenticity.

Of the many survivors interviewed in the film, I had met two. Weeks after the tragedy, the most critically injured remained in Louisville hospitals. I made the drive from E’town not knowing if any of the parents would speak to me, let alone permit me to talk to their hurting kids. I wouldn’t have blamed them if they’d kicked me out on sight.

The parents were gracious. I think with the outpouring of love from home, they wanted to give the community some sort of an update. I remember not really knowing what to ask Harold Dennis and Ciaran Foran (now Madden), at the time. Another survivor in the film is Carey Aurentz Cummins. She and Harold were producers on the project. I spoke with Carey’s dad at the hospital in 1988.

The word “strength” is tossed around a great deal when describing people who have come through tough times, whether it’s illness, the death of a loved one, financial ruin, and sometimes a combination of obstacles that can be described as anything from “struggles” to “horrors.”

But sometimes, even the word, “horror” fails to capture the reality. For Harold, Ciaran, Carey, and the other survivors, they have more than earned the right to be described as strong.

These kids about whom I wrote so many years ago are now adults. Most are parents, and have other distinctions. They speak with emotional intelligence, and a combination of world-wise weariness and keen awareness of everything good in their lives.

In 1988, I wasn’t old enough to be their parent, and I was young enough to remember, in detail, my own church trips to Kings Island, Opryland, and Six Flags, riding in a bus as old and as combustible as the one that erupted in flames that terrible night. I was too young to be responsible for the poor design of the bus, or even the tepid penalties for drunken driving on the books. But, I was old enough to feel, deeply, that somehow we had failed these children, and their families. I wondered if anything good would come out of the mess.

Without question, buses are safer now. Drunken driving laws are tougher. Those are very good things.

Viewing Impact After the Crash led me to realize that many, many of the survivors, their families, and the families of those lost, took ownership of that outcome beyond those obvious positive responses.  A thread that runs through their comments is about taking control of one’s attitude and optimism.

There’s a maturity about accepting consequences, and how one single decision can alter the course of countless lives. You hear the wisdom of talking through pain, letting go of anger, and perhaps most important, recognizing that the talking and the letting go sometimes have to happen more than once.

Yes, in a way, these individuals will always be kids to me. They are cute tweens with their 80s glasses and hairstyles, smiling back from grainy yearbook photos, images taken before they knew anything about how school buses are built, or what debridement and skin grafts are.

I’ve learned, however, that they are so much more.

*feature photo at top from (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal by Bill Luster