Almost in a bar fight/Racism......Follow up.

[Myrtle]

I found FishwhenIcan's post and the whole string worthy of a follow-up, but I didn't want to hijack it, so I decided to start another to share one of my experiences surround Racism.

Back in November of '06, I made a post titled...."The "N" word and me.

I've searched for it in the archives, and cannot find it,however I save some of my posts in Word, so I would like to share it with fellow Loungers.

I believe that I posted it in the Politics thread as a response to the George Allen 'macaca' brouhaha.

In any case, it generated a number of responses, and two more follow up posts on my part.

I will below re-post (in it's entirety) the first post, and should some loungers want, I can also re-post the 2nd & 3rd posts.

Here it is.....originally posted some time in Nov of 06.


The ‘N’ word & me........Have you got a story to tell?

There has been somewhat of a furor lately surrounding George Allen and his use of the ‘n’ word in his past, and more recently the video of him using the racial slur macaca.

The whole situation has prompted me to relive, again, my first personal acquaintance with the ‘n’ word. It goes something like this.............

It was the summer of 1959, and the Kennedy/Nixon race was heating up. My family had just moved out of the inner city to the outlying suburbs. I was 12 years old, used to the hard concrete and harder neighborhoods of city living. It was a change in existence that I had only read about. I spent that first summer exploring, for the first time in my life, the local woods and streams........ learning how to fish.......making tree forts with my new friends, and above all, playing baseball.

Back in those days, we played ball every day. There would always be a group of enough of us to sort of magically show up by cosmic osmosis at the local farm field. It would be wooden bats (if we were lucky, we’d have more than one) and once they broke, we’d wrap them in electricians tape (the ‘old’ type of tape, of the sticky asphalt composition) and continue to use them until they literally fell apart. We’d have a ball that somewhat resembled a real baseball: more often than not, the ball was wrapped in the same tape that wrapped the bat. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not whining about it, and we never did. That was just the way it was, and anyhow, what mattered more was the game.

That year, the field where we most often gathered was at the junction of the joining of three towns. Not only did we get to have the kids from our own neighborhood, but after a while, some of the kids from the other two towns would show up, and by geezez, we’d actually get to have a full 9 man-a-side, two team game.

Life was good.

Of course....we were kids. We didn’t know it, though. Back then the world was a different place. Those who read this and grew up during those times well know of what I speak. Even at that young age, many of us worked......we did our family chores unflinchingly.....we toed the line, or else. We were held responsible and accountable for our own actions, and there was generally hell to pay when we didn’t hold up our end of the bargain.

So, we were kids, but most of us had a component of our lives that was very un-kidlike by today’s standards.

Our game at the field was a regular thing, and as we all got to know each other better, the games would get better. We’d ‘buck-up’, choose sides and play until it was time to go home. As kids (we were all between 8 -13), we’d of course, have the typical ‘kid disagreements’. Most of the time they were settled with words.....occasionally rising to the threat of physical combat: rarely ever getting there.

A lot of this behavior was new to me. I grew up in a tough neighborhood, and by necessity, learned well how to defend myself. I would not be exaggerating to tell you that from the time I was 6 until I was 12 and moved out of the city, I had 2 or 3 fistfights a week. That’s just the way it was......whether you were sticking up for your little brother, defending your lunch money from the organized group of thugs that tried to steal it each day at school, or defending your honor, real or imaginary.

City kids grew up with an ‘in your face’ attitude. It took me a while to adjust to this new world where you didn’t have to watch your back all of the time. I was the proverbial stranger in a strange land, and had to learn to adapt to a new way of living.

I digress........We were mostly white kids. There were two black kids that started coming to our games; Luther and his little brother, whose name I can no longer recall. Luther was about my age, and his little brother was the same age as mine.....3 years younger.

He was a good ballplayer, and I grew to like him as a person as we got to know one another. We were two of the better ballplayers, and as such would often captain opposing teams.

Time to cut to a different scene for a bit........

Amongst the adult males in my new neighborhood, there was a traveling pinochle game. Every week it would be played at a different player’s home. On the nights where it was played at my home, I was deemed ‘old enough’ by the men to sit and take in the game. It was quite a privilege for a young lad, so I sat there, taking it all in......not speaking unless spoken to.

These were hard-working men: ironworkers, bricklayers, electricians, plasterers, carpenters......no genteel souls here! They were known to tip a beer bottle now and then, and some of the language and conversation was quite salty and on the edge. Of course, I was thrilled beyond words to be able to partake of the ‘adultness’ of it all, if only as an observer.

As I said early on, the presidential race was heating up.....JFK vs. Richard Nixon. The sides were sharply divided. We also had been exposed to this little thing called the Civil Rights Movement for the past few years, and it was a time of the beginning of a great societal upheaval for those who experienced it.

JFK was a strong supporter of civil rights, and that was a substantial part of his platform. On this one particular night, after a few beers, the topic around the pinochle table wended its’ way to the upcoming presidential election. Emotions rose and words got heated, as they often did. No big deal in my eyes.....that’s the way it was when these guys had a few beers and while playing the game discussed whatever it was that was the topic of the day.

My new best friend was also my next door neighbor. His dad was also my fathers new best friend. He was an ironworker, and tough as a 16 penny nail. He could work any two men into the ground, and as such was greatly admired by all. He was very funny and had a laugh and a smile that was infectious. He was also my Little League coach. We looked up to him.

In the heat of the argument as to who was going to win the presidency, he suddenly blurted out...... “Kennedy will never win, he’s a [censored] lover, and the country will never elect him”.

It’s not as if I had never heard the word, so it really didn’t shock me. I really didn’t think all that much about it at the time. Much of this was new to me; I was a boy, trying to be a man and trying to fit into a world that was full of surprises. I know that now; I didn’t know that then.

This comment came out of the mouth of a man I looked up to. He wasn’t, to the best of my knowledge, a ‘racist’, but.........back to the ball field.

On this particular day, during one of our many games, the subject turned to the JFK/Nixon debates that were being televised. Even though we were young, most of us had watched them. It was kind of hard not to, because this was before the days of even UHF broadcast channels (Channels 1-13 were all that was on the TV dial), and there were a whopping 3 actual channels that we got to choose from.....ABC, NBC & CBS. Since they all simultaneously broadcast the debates, guess what we all watched?!

So there we all were, in our 13 year old intellectual magnificence, debating the finer points of the virtues and vices of both candidates while playing baseball.

Well, I sure had a serious point to make, and before I knew it out of my mouth came.........

“JFK will never win.....he’s a [censored] lover”.

All this, of course within 5 feet of Luther. Remember him? My new friend.....the kid I really liked who also happened to be black.

To this day, and I’m now 59, I can remember both the look on his face, and the agonizing awareness on my part of what I had just blurted out.

He looked as if he had just been stabbed in the heart. I knew that it was me who had wielded the knife, all in one incredible flash of both awareness and shame on my part.

I can’t remember what I mumbled to try to atone for what I had just said. Whatever it was, of course it wasn’t enough.

The game broke up: we all went home. I felt awful. I told no one else about it.

The next day, back at the field......Luther and his brother were nowhere to be found. Nor were they there the day after.......or ever again.

Time goes on.....we all grow up. We forget much of what we’ve experienced; most of it being relegated to the purgatory of our subconscious.

Not that day......not what I said.......not for me.

I’ve often wondered what happened to them after that day.

What did they do when they went home after hearing me, their supposed friend, say that?

What did or could their parents say to them?

Was there any consolation that their folks could offer that could ease their pain?

They were in a different town; a different school system. I never saw them again after that day.

On that day, at that time, I was a racist. I hurt two souls who did nothing wrong other than existing.
There is no apology that will suffice. There is nothing that I can say or do that will erase it.

I said it.....I did it.....I own it.....I will never let myself forget it.

Nine years later, I’m in the Navy in Vietnam. One day we get the news over AFVN (military radio broadcast) that Martin Luther King had just been assassinated. Many were stunned; some were not.

Some were actually celebrating his death.

For those of you who might not be aware of the Vietnamese War, there was a great undertone of rampant racism in the military at that time. It simmered under the surface; always threatening to explode, and it did many times. The military kept a lid on the incidents most of the time, but believe me, it was not a proud part of our country’s military heritage.

The announcement of MLK’s death brought back my memories of my day as a racist. I became very angry. I really wanted to hurt some of the men who rejoiced at his death. I didn’t...I just turned and walked away.

I had to live with the memory of what I had done. Maybe some day they will have to live with theirs.

My sixteen year old daughter overheard me telling this story to my wife tonight. I had never shared it with either of them. I was prompted to tell my wife about it because the subject being debated on MSNBC was the ‘macaca” comment by George Allen.

She (my daughter) after hearing me tell my story, asked if she could use it as a topic of an essay at school, because her latest assignment was to write something about one of their parents.

I told her that it would fine with me, but to let me see it before she submitted it so that I could ensure that she could get all the facts down accurately.

I then decided that I would put it down on paper for her to read after she had written her version of what she had heard.

It is my hope that my retelling of this story will give pause to whoever may read it, and in doing so, allow them to reflect on matters such as these, and the sometimes far-reaching effect that they may have on others.

I carry the following words around in my mind and heart with me, and I’ve done my best to live by them ever since that day in Vietnam.

Martin Luther King...... “I Have a Dream” August 28, 1963. - “I have a dream......that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

[dcasper70]

Myrtle,

Please write a book.

[LetItBe]

Awesome post...just awesome. If you wouldn't mind posting the follow up comments (and maybe what prompted them if you remember?) it would be great.

[Runkmud]

Great post Myrtle, and I second the book vote.

I grew up in Mississippi in a much later time, however, much has not changed there. Thankfully my parents brought me up to eschew racism rather than embrace it. Even so, I remember many experiences similar to the one you described, but could put none down so eloquently as you have.

[ChipWrecked]

My dad was a racist. I remember him telling me during George Wallace's campaign that he had no problem with Wallace wanting to send 'the [censored] back to Africa' in principle. It could never work, dad said, because there were too many of them now; and they were Americans. "They couldn't any more survive in Africa then you or I could. But I like the idea."

We lived in the lily-white Arkansas Ozarks then. There probably wasn't a black person within a hundred mile radius of us. There was plenty of racial hate around though, of people most of the locals had never met.

When I was a senior in high school, our basketball team was pretty good. It looked like we were headed to State. Our coaches got us a Saturday game with one of the 'black teams' further south so we'd have some exposure before the tournament. The game went off well, though we felt way out of our element being the only white people in the gym. Lord only knows what those kids thought of us.

We did make it to the state tournament. Our school had trouble finding accommodations for us. Our principal sat the team down and explained that he finally got so desperate that he told a motel manager "I don't know what else to say, except that they're all white."
"Well, why didn't you say so? Of course they can stay here."
The principal said he hated to pull that card, but he didn't know what else to do. He warned us not to 'show our asses' at the motel.

When I got to the University of Arkansas, I was pretty country. In the country, you greet everyone you see, even on the highway. I was saying hello to people I met on the sidewalk... the white kids never answered. Only the black students did. That was how I learned to say 'Sup'. Several of my first college friends were black students. I never told dad.

Now I live in California and have a three year old daughter. I see now that it's true: kids don't see race. That's something they're taught. My daughter plays with any kid she meets. She never uses skin color to describe a kid; she goes by clothes.

I'm doing everything I can to make sure she stays blind to skin tone as long as possible. It's just another part of the world I want to protect her from as long as possible.



Great post Myrtle. Thanks.

[blackize]

[ QUOTE ]

Now I live in California and have a three year old daughter. I see now that it's true: kids don't see race. That's something they're taught. My daughter plays with any kid she meets. She never uses skin color to describe a kid; she goes by clothes.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's really true. My dad has a similar story he likes to tell from time to time, and along with it comes the story of the first time he told the story.

The private school I attended as a kid went from 3-12th grade, I entered in 4th. Just before I was to enter the middle school, 7th+8th grade, the middle school headmaster had retired. The school sent out newsletters saying that they were conducting and exhaustive, nationwide search.

A few weeks before school was to begin a letter was sent out to let the parents know that they had found a new headmaster, Randall C. Dunn III. His resume was quite impressive. He graduated from Harvard and a great job history. He turns out to be the perfect candidate for the job and embodied all the principles the school was trying to instill in us. He was kind, gentlemanly, intelligent, generous, and respectful.

Things went along as usual until a couple months into the school year at the homecoming game. My dad asked me to introduce him to Mr. Dunn. I pointed to a group of teachers talking and said, "That's Mr. Wu, Mr. Fleming, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Dunn." My dad said, "Well which one is Mr. Dunn." I responded by saying, "The guy in the striped sweater." He was amazed by the fact that I didn't say "The black guy" and even more amazed since it would have been terribly easy to explain that he is the black guy since there are maybe 10 black students in the school at the time and 2 black faculty members.

Now for some reason my dad enjoys telling this story. The first person he told it to though was his boss. He tells her the story(omitting the details about Mr. Dunn's background) and her immediate response is, "An affirmative action hire I'm sure."

It's amazing how our perspective and biases change over time. I went from being colorblind up until the 7th grade to making the same distinction Chris Rock does, between black people and n******.

[Myrtle]

[ QUOTE ]
Awesome post...just awesome. If you wouldn't mind posting the follow up comments (and maybe what prompted them if you remember?) it would be great.

[/ QUOTE ]

.....at your request, here is my follow-up post to the original.

Please understand that it was written by me in response to John Coles, who had responded to my OP.

Here it is......

John,

Thank you for the kind comments and your story.......

Your mentioning of the niggerpool ping’d my purgatory of the subconscious......I had completely forgotten the term, and yes, you are correct, that was a term commonly used to playing the daily number with bookies around here in my youth.

As far as you North Carolina experience goes?........

These kinds of things confront us at the most unsuspecting times. We’d like to think that we’re prepared for them, but most of the time we never are. On the day that MLK died, I was too shocked to think straight, but somehow knew that any kind of violent response to the awful comments that I heard would be wrong. In hindsight, I think my walking away was probably the best choice. It sounds like you made the same choice under similar circumstances. I would not beat yourself up over it.

The hope is that we learn from these experiences, so that we can better deal with them in the future should we encounter them again.

I think that I have, and to that end have another story........

It requires a bit of background in order to put it in proper perspective, so please bear with me.

My profession is that of an independent sales representative. I started my business in 1978 and have owned it ever since. I live here in Massachusetts and cover the six states of New England and we represent consumer electronics manufacturers.

Our job is to be the eyes, ears and hands of the manufacturer. We determine what retailers they should be doing business with, and conduct it for them, for which we are paid a commission. We get paid for what we sell them. If we don’t sell anything; we don’t get paid. It’s a life that most people would find uncomfortable living, and to a certain degree is somewhat like playing poker. In poker, one invests one’s money and looks for a return. Being a rep, one invests one’s time and hopes to earn a living.

When a retailer expresses interest in one of the lines we represent, it is our job to evaluate whether or not ‘we’ should be doing business with them.

One day back in the mid-nineties we got a call from our regional manager about a dealer in southern Connecticut. This particular dealer also had a store in NYC and was carrying our products there. NYC is not in our territory, so we had no experience with him. The regional told us that his rep in NYC was putting pressure on him to authorize this guy’s Connecticut store for our products, and asked that we follow up and report back to him.

My junior partner covered that territory, so he went to visit the dealer. We have been in the biz for a long time, and as such, are pretty savvy in regards to how to do this. One of the things that we do is network with other people in our biz to see if they have any information about a prospective new dealer. We did our due diligence in this manner, and found out that this particular guy was, shall we say, not one of the ‘good guys’. He had a pretty unsavory reputation.

Armed with that info, my partner went to visit him. What he found was even worse. To cut to the chase, the owner of the store made it a point to tell my partner that “he would not allow kids, [censored] or [censored] in his store”.

After the meeting, my partner debriefed with me. As far as I was concerned, there was no way in the world that I would ever do business with this man. I then called our regional sales manager and briefed him on the situation and gave him my opinion. I had to put it in proper prospective, as one must remember that most sales managers care only about making the sale, and many could care less about things such as this. After a few days, as the senior partner, I called the dealer and informed him that we were happy with our distribution at this time, and chose not to add another dealer in that area of our territory. He was not happy at all with my decision.

A few days later, I got a call from my fellow rep in NYC, asking why I would not do biz with this guy. I told him flat-out about the conversation that my partner had had with him, and that was that......or so I thought.

Cut to the annual consumer electronics show........The CES is a once a year gathering that is held in Las Vegas where all of the manufacturers get together and display their new products for their dealers to see. It is a time where business commitments between dealers and manufacturers are agreed to.

Every vendor (manufacturer) has a booth, and it is staffed by all of their personnel, and as reps we set up appointments for our dealers to visit and discuss the new products and programs and make business commitments for the upcoming year. The booth is open to all who attend the show, as one of the primary reasons for exhibiting is to attract new dealers.

Having set the stage.....the fun begins. I’m standing there in the booth, and our regional comes over and tells me that this particular dealer that we had turned down earlier in the year had pigeonholed both the executive VP of sales and the president of the company and was giving them an earful about how badly he was treated by us. Our regional had a very worried look on his face. This was not good. This particular line was our largest income generator, and without it, we would be out of business.

I’m the owner of my company.....the buck stops with me. My partner was not around, so over I go to join the in-progress ‘conversation’. By the time I get there, the conversation had gotten heated. This dealer was virtually shouting at both the VP and president of the company. I had never met the guy personally, so I introduced myself, and injected myself into the conversation.

The dealer then launched into a semi-diatribe about ‘who the hell am I to call him a racist...blah, blah, blah”. I asked him where he had heard that. He told me that his rep in NYC had told him that I had said that. I responded by playing back to him what my partner had reported back to me he had said at their meeting. He called my partner and effin liar. At this time, both the regional and the VP walked away....they couldn’t handle the ‘heat’ as this was turning into quite a scene at the booth and heads were turning to see what was going on.

It is now just myself, the president of the company and this guy. The president was fairly new, a Louisiana native, former Special Forces major in Vietnam. He and I had begun to develop a relationship, but I had no real idea how he was going to respond to the discomfort of this situation.

I had an ‘on the spot’ decision to make. I could back off and throw my partner under the bus and attempt to make nice with this guy and calm the situation down. Or, I could stand my ground and let the chips fall where they may. I chose to stand my ground. I told him in very plain language that my partner was a man of high ethics and would never lie to me about such a thing, and that I would not support any decision to make him an authorized dealer because of the attitude that he had conveyed to us. I made it clear to this man that I would not back off my position. All this under the watchful eye of the president, and now half of the booth who could clearly overhear what was going on.

At this point in time, the president stepped in and disarmed the situation. I can’t quite remember how he did it, but I do remember that he made it clear that he backed up my position without further inflaming the situation. That’s why he held the position......he could handle that kind of heat.

At that point, the dealer gave it up and left the booth. I apologized to the president for him having to have been part of such an unpleasant experience, but reiterated my position that I would have nothing to do with this dealer.

I will tell you that my heartbeat was slightly elevated! Now, it was simply a matter of how this whole episode would play out ‘behind the scenes’ between the regional, the VP of sales and the president of the company. I had no faith in either the regional or the VP.....they were sales weasels of the worst kind, and quite frankly, I expected to be fired within a day.

Later on, I pulled all my guys together and told them what had happened, and to be prepared for the worst. It was a pretty somber moment.

Well.......we never heard anything about the ‘incident’ after that, and life went on.

In hindsight, there are probably many different conclusions that one can draw from my two stories. I choose to draw the following.

There are times in each of our lives when we are tested. How we deal with these tests defines who we are. There is a yin and yang in this world that I don’t pretend to understand, but I might choose to attempt to describe it simply as.... “what goes around, comes around”.

I can’t help but feel that my racist day with Luther so many years ago had a profound effect on my life. I’d like to be able to meet with him and tell him of this story.

I’d tell him that the pain that I caused him was not in vain.

I’d tell him that I did not fail him that day on the floor of the show, and I hoped that he could somehow forgive me.

It’s now a beautiful autumn Saturday morning here.........I have much work to do outside, and as I do it, I will again reflect back upon that which I have just written.

It is my hope that whoever reads this may take away something that will allow them to better deal with these kinds of things when they encounter them.

[rothko]

myrtle, well-written. touching and poignant. sad how such a simple mistake really messed things up for those boys and for you. to never see them again, to never play ball with them again . . . must've made you feel pretty small.

in my early teens, i used to be one of those people that thought words were just words and anyone who had a problem with them, well, it was their problem. i wish i could remember what it was that made me realize if words hurt people it's not their problem, it's mine.

[Duke]

@OP

I think the same thing would happen in 2007 as happened in 1959. You're starting with a couple black kids that already feel like outcasts, and are pushed away even more.

I'm positive that in 2007, if the makeup were 17 black kids and 1 or 2 white kids, the same statement leads to everyone laughing their asses off together. Do you think that that would have been true in 1959 (17 black 1 other, same statement, everyone laughs)?

It's just your judgment that we can go by, but I'm trying to figure out how much of it is the word itself (and the historically derogatory implications) changing in meaning and use, how important the timing is (blatant racism throughout the US), and how much has always been with the perceived intent of the statement.

[Myrtle]

[ QUOTE ]
@OP

I think the same thing would happen in 2007 as happened in 1959. You're starting with a couple black kids that already feel like outcasts, and are pushed away even more.

I'm positive that in 2007, if the makeup were 17 black kids and 1 or 2 white kids, the same statement leads to everyone laughing their asses off together. Do you think that that would have been true in 1959 (17 black 1 other, same statement, everyone laughs)?

It's just your judgment that we can go by, but I'm trying to figure out how much of it is the word itself (and the historically derogatory implications) changing in meaning and use, how important the timing is (blatant racism throughout the US), and how much has always been with the perceived intent of the statement.

[/ QUOTE ]

Duke,

I'm with you on trying to figure out the answers to some of the questions that you laid out above.

They are damned good and meaningful questions, and I wish I could throw a simple answer or two at them that might be meaningful.

But, it's not simple, and I think you know that.

Racism is another word for prejudice.

Prejudice is a learned characteristic and is bi-directional.

No race has a monopoly on racism, and history shows us that virtually every race and culture has practiced some form of it.

What this all means beats the hell out of me?

As Robert Palmer once sung in "Sneaking through the Alley with Sally".......

....I'm just looking for clues.