I was a thirteen-year-old paperboy, riding my heavy-duty bicycle with a huge basket on my front handlebars, where I carried the newspapers. One cool morning, I had delivered all the papers and was returning home, when an pickup truck slowly passed me. The back of the truck was full of walnuts and four young blacks, who began pelting me with the walnuts. I tipped over into a two-foot ditch . . . muddy and mad.
When I got home, my father was cleaning some tools in his workshop. He never looked up, as I described what happened. He waited a minute and then told me “Jim, you should know that 10% of blacks are bad.” (Of course, he used the slang term that was acceptable in those days.)
I thought for a minute and asked “Well, what percent of white people are bad?” He never looked up as he responded “10%”. Immediately, I saw the lesson – 10% of all people in all groups are bad. A little later, I asked him “Dad, does that mean that 90% of all people in all groups are good?” He looked up, smiled, and resumed cleaning his tools.
That was a lesson that stuck with me all my life. I tell the story again because we are in such partisan times. Hannity last night had a big sign saying “Democrats are Hypocrites” and it made me remember my father’s advice.
To Hannity, I would say – don’t forget that 90% of all Democrats are good.
To Pelosi, I would say – don’t forget that 90% of all Republicans are good.
