° Not my solidarity, that goes without saying. Practitioners of aggres- sive violence disgust me.° I refer to the solidarity shown by the Mayor of Rome and by so many provincial department heads, who all immediately denounced the cowardly attack on two men holding hands in the moonlight near the Fori Imperiali, early the other morning. Ten or more ruffians spat on the lads, pelted them with stones and bottles, and assured them, in best Jim Crow style, “We don’t want your kind in Italy.”
° The same attack, in an American city, would go unreported, lest the victims be abused by the police in the very act of reporting. Indeed I recall reading this warning from the D. A. in Pope, Piers’s former home: “Same-sex hand-holding may go over out in California, but it won’t fly here.” The law enforcers are as lawless as the citizenry.
° My brother and I weren’t permitted to join the other kids in our neighbourhood in rocking, as we called it, any Negro so bold as to walk down our hill. We were told it was wrong so to do.
° Why did Daddy know it was wrong? Because he and his brother once hid in a culvert and stoned the children of their black cook. What a beating Granddaddy gave Daddy and Uncle when he found out.
° Worse than that, Grandmother said she was ashamed of them. So they grew up then and there.--Giac.
