The song is titled “Black and White.” The band was Three Dog Night, and the year was 1972. The song was written in 1954 but most only know it from this version.

That places its origin before the turbulent 1960s. That places it before the demonstrations in the South and the fires in Los Angeles.

Appropriate for us, it starts out with the lyrics “The ink is black, the page is white, together we learn to read and write.”

It is a very simplistic tune and one that popped into our minds this week and refuses to go away.

“The child is black, the child is white The whole world looks upon the sight, the beautiful sight.” So sweet, and so pure but too good to be true? “And now a child can understand that this is the law of all the land, ALL THE LAND.”

Yes 1954, and we are still trying to find that basic understanding that is as relevant and demanding today as it was under the pre-Martin Luther King days.

The real message here is that the hatred and racism that is causing our cities to burn this weekend and our minority citizens to cry out in despair is that we are causing the children to get it wrong from birth.

We don’t have this mess if we teach children the proper love and respect for all people. We should never expose a child to thinking they are better or worse than anyone else for any reason, and that includes race and religion.

We never thought of Minnesota as a hotbed of racism or police brutality. Isn’t that only in the big cities with large minority populations and illegal immigrants? Isn’t Minnesota part of the pure, melting pot region of Midwesterners with the wonderful family-oriented and churchgoing population?

That is our rosy picture of Minnesota. Not the awful video of three (not one) police officers holding down a man who had allegedly committed the awful crime of using a counterfeit $20 bill.

Three men held him down, not one, but the focus is and should be on the one kneeling on his neck until he squeezed the last gasp of air from his lungs.

Are the others that watched or aided in the killing of this unarmed and handcuffed and alleged criminal any better though?

Somewhere in their training and their upbringing these white men failed to learn the lessons intended for children in this Three Dog Night version of “Black and White.”

The lyrics go on to say after noting that “this is the law of all the land” that “the world is black the world is white, it turns by day and then by night, the child is black the child is white TOGETHER they learn to see the light.”

These four officers involved (one stood guard) totally disrespected the life and the rights of their victim. Neither he nor they will hear or see the end of Black and White.

For it ends “and now at last we plainly see we’ll have a dance of liberty.”

1954 lyrics, 1972 performance, 2020 reality. There is still no dance of liberty for a black man in the United States and certainly not in puritan Minnesota.

Should they burn and destroy buildings or cost more lives over the sins of these officers or the sins of those in power that allow this to keep happening to black men?

Absolutely not. But until the people of power quit tweeting their threats, their concerns, their excuses and their finger- pointing and instead take real action there will never be a dance of liberty.

— RV