Well, it has been an interesting month.  As I was submitting my May column, news was breaking of the tragic death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Since then there has been rioting, the removal of Aunt Jemima and Eskimo Pie as brand names, destruction of monuments across the country and a bizarre photo-op in front of a church. I am not going to make this a political column. That's not my job. But the events since Floyd's death affect all of our lives in one way or another, whether we admit it or not, and therefore I must address my own situation with racism, specifically as it relates to harness racing. It's a topic that was recently addressed by George Teague and DeWayne Minor. So, while I SHOULD be writing about racing’s return, the return of fans to many racetracks and casinos, and whether I should wear a mask when I return to the track, I can't. In 1978, I was an 18-year-old kid who hit a big Northfield Big Triple (trifecta) and bought a horse with the winnings. I sent the horse to my friend’s trainer, a horseman named Keith Harran. Keith had just opened his public stable the year before, after leaving Lew Williams as a second trainer. He shared a Northfield barn with Lew's brother, Charles. I wanted to learn the business, so I was brought  in as a new caretaker, not telling anybody in the barn that I was the owner of the green horse I was rubbing. I also cared for a trotter named JEF's Rusty Ricky, one of several Jeanette and Edward Freidberg horses Lew Williams trained which were not good enough for The Meadowlands and got farmed out to Harran at Northfield. My experience and interaction with African-Americans was limited. There was one black student in my high school graduating class of 700, so working around Chucky and his crew indoctrinated me. One thing I noticed was that the backstretch really seemed not to notice color. We were not "color-blind," but we were horsemen. There were black trainers (Williams, Thaddeus McRae), aspiring trainers (Dalio Simmins comes to mind) and lots and lots of black caretakers. In the Williams barn, many were relatives, showing the same familial bond that we see so often in our sport. It was Lew Williams' grandfather Clyde who got him involved in the sport. As Lew's daughter, LaVonda Williams-Diaz, a fundraiser for Autism Speaks told me, "We had a family bond. We were always close. Clyde died in ’77, but we were always proud of our family and its achievements. I never really knew about all of my dad's accomplishments until I was an adult, but family things were always important." Although he was a star at The Meadowlands, Lew often came back to Northfield or The Meadows to drive in stakes races or to check on horses he had sent to Harran or others. I spent many hours with him in Keith’s pickup, making the trip from The Meadows to Northfield or to the Pittsburgh airport so he could return to The Swamp (Meadowlands). He never discussed racism on those trips, but it clearly affected him, as he told Hoof Beats in 1976. "Ninety-five percent of the sport accept me and judges me on performance alone," says the lithe horseman. "The remaining five percent may not seem like a lot but it includes persons in a real position to affect any horseman’s career." He was threatened with being shot on at least one occasion, and the N-word got thrown around the Northfield Park apron nearly as often as losing tickets. When he won, it was the losers using it. When he lost, it was those who bet on him tossing the word around. They were losers either way, and so was Lew in their judgement. Thirty years later, America had come a long way. Or maybe not. After a long campaign, Lew was announced in 2008 as a member of the 2009 class of Hall of Fame Immortals. His family, which had been so instrumental in getting him considered, circulating petitions and getting letters from his contemporary horseman, was warned to keep their reaction to the announcement muted. Williams-Diaz laughed, "What did they think we were going to do? Break dance in the aisles?" The next year, in 2009, Lew's son, Chris, who had interned with Dave Bianconi and me at Northfield, delivered a polished and moving speech about Lew at Goshen. Afterwards, Chris was approached by a well-known member of the racing community who asked smugly, "That was a great speech. Did you write that yourself?" Chris, a college graduate, was taken aback, and it was Ed Freidberg who asked, "Do you know how racist that sounds?" Obviously, this individual did not. So, our sport has not come as far as perhaps it could or should have. Even I just recently moved from being an "All Lives Matter" guy to a "Black Lives Matter" guy. As a privileged white guy, I am not going to tell, or even ask you to do the same. But every single one of us in this sport needs to look in the mirror and think about where we are in America today. Now go cash. On a horse from Team Teague or driven by Randy Tharps or trained by DeWayne Minor. See you next month.