The group of six kids were from the neighborhood adjacent to mine. They beat me up on my way home from school. I had nothing of value, so they left me after beating me up. I sustained quite a few bruises and my school stuff was scattered everywhere.

Two years later, the racial riots were over and two of the younger kids that beat me up and I were on the same football team. It was awkward, but after awhile we were able to get past what happened and we coexisted.

Two years after that Greg one of the two and I became good friends. Marvin, the other one and I got along. I doubt if we had not been on the same football team that we would have reconciled.

It is one reason I think of racism as a form of tribalism, where membership is based on skin color. Football made us members of a different tribe, not based on skin color.

Today five of my seven grandchildren are African American. I tell them we are all members of the same tribe… our family. Blood is thicker than skin color.

I put “muggers” in quotation marks because in hindsight they were kids like me. I was targeted because I was white, not because I was “me”. Black white confrontations were going on as rioting was widespread at the time.

Five years after my mugging, I volunteered to work one afternoon a week in one of the most riot torn areas called Elizabethport to work with the younger siblings of racially based gang members at a community church to try to stop the on going violence between the African American and Puerto Rican gangs by build cross racial friendships at a young age. I do not know if it worked, but it was clear racism is learned behavior since these young children got along just fine.