We’ve seen this all before, and Rod Serling knew we’d see it again.
Where will he go next?
In his closing narration, Serling continues:
Hes alive so long as these evils exist.
Remember that when he comes to your town.
Remember it when you hear his voice speaking out through others.
Hes alive because through these things we keep him alive.
Now we revert to pop in.
The white man is the boss.
The black is the second-rated on the scene, and he forever shall be precisely that.
And he waggles a finger at his Negro brothers and he says, Slow man, slow.
Cool it for a while.
Ease up on your demands.
Turn off the klieg lights and crawl into the shadows.
Nowthisis the so-called white backlash.
North of the Mason-Dixon line, you dont hear a candidate use that expression.
We heard it from the proponents of Proposition 16, who tried to pass the so-called Anti-Obscenity law.
But perched on top of the sobriquet so-called decent, law-abiding was Jim Crowplain, simple, and ugly.
By decent, law-abiding men and women, they meantwhitedecent, law-abiding men and women.
The inference and the innuendo were very clear.
They were nudging us.
You know what we mean, Mac?
Were fighting for the right kind of people.
Then they wink again.
The WHITE kind of people.
You know what we mean, Mac?
Let it apply to any and all overt attempts to subvert law and order.
Six thousandrecordedlynchings, that is.
God knows how many that took place that did not find their way into historical statistics.
And lets not make this morality of ours so selective as to color.
And this was not the act of passion that makes hopeless, anguish people throw bricks in store windows.
It makes no sense and it serves no purpose.
Will you slow down?
Dont ask for your rights so stridently, or so continuously, or so demandingly.
Youre hurting your own cause.
Now this is speciest, and it is without logic, and above all, it is without justice.
Or Youll get it if youre a good boy.
Or Youll get it if youre more differential, or perhaps less noisy about it.
In all truth, these are rights which properly are not ours to give.
Theyre a matter of record.
The truth is, all these equality belongs to the Negro.
Weve simply not given it to them.
Weve not extended it to them.
We never really made it a record that by everything holy and right, its theirs to begin with.
I frankly think weve run out of alternatives now.
Im not condoning the breaking of store windows or the burning of buildings.
Or the destructions of property.
Theres no question that it does hurt the cause.
Theres no question whether it damages the images of our Negro citizens.
I wish the hell they wouldnt march.
