Читать книгу Racing Toward Recovery. The Extraordinary Story of Alaska Musher Mike Williams Sr. онлайн

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At that point I said, “We talked about it before we came over here. This guy right here is not a white guy. He is a Pole and he doesn’t consider himself to be a white guy. He’s not a white guy. That’s why we came over here.” There were some back-and-forth exchanges and the black guys said, “Nah, you’re a white guy.” And my friend would say, “Nope, I’m a Pole. I’m not a white guy.” Finally, after all of those exchanges—and we kept sitting there—he got a beer. At that bar we made lasting friends and we respected each other after that. We could return to that bar any time.

It didn’t really surprise me that it worked out that way. I was not black. I was not white. I was accepted on both sides, so I could swing both ways. Why not him? It was pretty interesting. In the army was the first time I saw racial tension between guys who were supposed to be on the same side. They were on the same side, but segregated. I had followed the civil rights movement, but then here you had a guy, a good friend of mine, who was on the other side. His skin was white, and he didn’t want to be considered a white guy, but a Pole.