|
|
Voice |
|
|
|
The pain of another person is often the subject
of humor. The chair pulled
out from someone. The pie
in the face. Comedians,
comic strip and cartoon characters are always falling or getting hit
with something. We laugh. Some pain and situations are beyond laughter.
We can feel empathy for the suffering or status of another.
But we can’t know the full extent of how another’s life
wears. None of us have a choice over the life we will
be born into. I just
happened to have entered this life as a WASP—a White Anglo Saxon
Protestant, born to small town Virginia parents at the beginning of the
Depression in 1932. At
one time, the WASP status was touted by those with prejudice to oppose
anyone of another religion, color or even country of origin.
Derisive terms were employed to describe anyone who didn’t fit
the mold. Organizations,
clubs, fraternities and even some government placements were restricted. What if I had been born to an Indian family on
the reservation in Oklahoma? What
if my parents had been Mexican, Chinese or Japanese immigrants?
What if I had been born to a black sharecropper family in South
Georgia? It staggers the imagination as our Cradle of
Democracy goes into the 21st Century to realize that slavery existed and
flourished in the this country less than 150 years ago.
If you considered a generation lasting 50 years, that would put
America being a slave holding country only three generations ago.
While the nations of Europe and elsewhere abolished slavery, this
county continued with it. People with one drop of blood of black ancestry were
classified and subject to slavery.
Men, women and children were bought and sold routinely.
A black person had no rights. Some masters bred them like livestock. A large man and woman might be paired to produce strong field
hands. Selective
individuals might be for house servants or other vocations.
A slave had rights no stronger than an animal. That one group of people could do this to other human beings
boggles our minds as we look back. Only 100 years ago when Theodore Roosevelt was
president, he fought unsuccessfully to abolish lynching, an accepted
vigilante justice. Roosevelt
was criticized when he invited Booker T. Washington to a sit down dinner
at the White House. To
placate his own Republican party, any further of blacks and whites were
stand up affairs. Anyone—white or black—born into the South
before 1950, lived in a fiercely segregated society.
The Jim Crow Law forbade anyone of color from sitting with whites
on public transportation. They
sat at the back of the bus, ate in a separate area of a restaurant, used
designated rest rooms and drank for a fountain marked “Colored.” Physical slavery was gone. But a form of mental bondage held black people. Few presidents had sympathy for anyone of color.
Woodrow Wilson, who was president of Princeton before going to
the White House, called “The Birth of a Nation” a great movie for
its depiction of white superiority. Despite his idolization for “ending
slavery,” Abraham Lincoln never believed in racial equality.
He said as much in many written and spoken instances.
His so-called Emancipation Proclamation did not abolish slavery.
It only freed slaves in the Confederate states outside the union. States who accepted slavery in the union could keep theirs,
as could the City of Norfolk when it came into federal occupation. Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor began
the first chipping away at segregation, accepting persons on a level
field regardless of color. Harry
Truman continued the civil rights progress with abolishing segregation
in the American military. Dwight Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren to the
Supreme Court, and always regretted it.
Warren surprised everyone by pushing through the destruction of
segregated schools. Incidentally,
he had a clerk in his office who disagreed.
That clerk was William Rehnquist, later to become Chief Justice
himself Lyndon Johnson furthered creation of equality
with civil rights legislation. And
the Solid South which had always voted with the Democratic Party was
lost. Conservatives in
Dixie had begun to shift to the Republican philosophy with votes for
Eisenhower. The change continued with subsequent Democratic candidates. It was slow coming, but a lot has happened in
America since the first blacks were brought to Virginia in the 1600s
with the yoke of slavery. Unfortunately,
there remains some remnants of racial prejudice—going both ways. What is the situation of a black person now?
John McWorter wrote in “Authentically Black” that those of
his race spoke differently among themselves than they did with whites.
He said they were proud of accomplishments with each other, but
sought incentives from the white community.
Comedian and humorist Bill Cosby put it more bluntly, urging
black people to take a good look at themselves and quit blaming others. Color me black and see how I feel.
Would I look at a white person with bitterness and hatred because
of the world his ancestors lived in?
Would I blame the white man or woman I had never seen before
because I was born black and could never be a WASP? If I were black, I hope I would remember that it
took a select and courageous number of white people to fight with blacks
for civil rights and to end segregation. I hope I would tell a society that offered me
preferential treatment because of my skin color to forget it.
I hope I would say you told me I was inferior and couldn’t
associate with you. Now
don’t tell me I’m inferior and can’t compete with you on a level
playing field. Don’t tell
me I need a crutch of laws to suggest I am not equal. If I were colored black, I hope I would remember
that bitterness and hatred are self consuming, that they eat away and
destroy the person who nurtures them.
I hope I would look to the future and the positives instead of
dwelling on a negative past.
|
