From the editor: Claiming ignorance

Oh, how I wish that I could begin this with a nonchalant “once upon a time.”

It was many years ago, to be sure. In Erie, Pennsylvania, for some project during my television days, I read that the city’s minor league baseball team had a game that evening and headed to the ballpark. Every time one of the home nine who happened to be of African-American heritage stepped to the plate an old couple behind me couldn’t help but comment.

“Black as the ace of spades,” they said about one. “All you see is teeth,” they mentioned when another cracked a smile.

The couple then cheered with...