The Board Member Who Couldn't Be Bothered (cont'd)

Star in Heaven was a human services charity dedicated to raising the level of economic prosperity of the community’s minority groups, the principle one of which was the African American community. Herb had been anxious to be on the board, because he found it was good for business and because he wanted to be seen as supportive of the modern effort to bring minorities more into the economic mainstream. He wanted to be on the “right side” of the racism issue as the community worked through its issues.

But Herb’s thoughts took him back to that time twenty years before, when some of the fathers of the very kids Star in Heaven was now in the process of helping had wrecked and looted his store one night in a near riot that resulted from a public demonstration. That demonstration had been staged as a result of sustained and violent police brutality in dealing particularly with African American youth. He was still able to feel the flush in his cheeks at the renewed rise of rage and frustration that had enveloped him for many years after that event, and which had nearly made him quit his business altogether. He had no wish, really, to see any of those nasty people get anything of value from the community.

If he was truthful with himself, after that event he would just as soon have moved away to another community entirely, and left Long Grove to deal with the problems created by its minority population and its rabble-rousers. But he couldn’t do that at the time. He didn’t have that much money, the kids were young, the business was off to a good start. He just wasn’t able to pull up stakes and move on short notice. So he had stuck it out. But he resented it powerfully that those kids had put a severe crimp in his business plan.

No, there would be no auction that year. Or any year. Board meetings were quite enough involvement with that crowd. That was the extent to which he paid his dues to society as a businessman. As for the rest of it, he couldn’t care less.