My second job after high school was as a service station attendant. For those of you born after about 1989, we referred to ourselves as “grease monkeys” and there were two sets of pumps at filling stations. One was self-service and the other full-service. Grease monkeys worked the full service isle and washed the windows, pumped the gas and took the payment. It was a time honored tradition from the age of the horseless carriage. After we had squeegeed the windows, we would ask “Can I check under the hood for you?”

It is an interesting lens through which to view the world and our culture today, slightly transposed. I ask the question now in terms of the endemic racism that seems so raw, so pervasive, so consented in this day and age. The metaphor is simple, the Klan is thriving. If you check under the hood, you see the same faces that have been hooded since 1865.

It all boils down to fear, not supremacy. Supremacy is just the justification for the laying of blame. The truth is, I can understand the fear. It is primal, it is deeply embedded in the reptillian brain and we all have it. It is a survival mechanism that predates homo sapiens. You see “other” and if you don’t recognize them as your species you fight or flee.

We have stopped fleeing. The hood is up now, and nobody is checking the oil.