Different Time, Same Need.

I grew up in a different time, in a different place, on what sometimes feels like a different planet.  It was not an Ozzie and Harriet world, not by a long shot, but in very odd ways, it was a much simpler time.

(Source)

I do not remember my neighborhood as at all diverse, Other than my sister, I don’t remember ever seeing another white kid on my block…and I loved it.

I don’t remember life before living there, so for me it is where a vital part of my worldview was locked in place.  I knew I was different from my neighbors, and because it was the late sixties, and I was a TV junkie from the beginning (Mom and Dad got their first color TV in ’69, so I  had my own TV, with a remote when I watched the Apollo 11th landing…and I memorized the TV guide every week, which was a nice parlor trick my parents would have me demonstrate whenever Street Racers would come over for pasta before they went racing on Friday nights), I was well aware that there was a raging debate about race in America. 

My issue was, even then, that what I was seeing in the world did not match the narrative that the media was pushing.  My neighbors were just people, some smart, most normal, some not so bright.  My parents made clear to me that there were people on our street who had been deputized as part of the policing force that would guide my young life, and that some of them had been authorized to use force upon my backside if I crossed certain lines of behavior…I had zero privilege because of my uniqueness.

I saw violence in my neighborhood (one neighbor across the street shot her husband 6 times, all below the waist…apparently he had violated the vows of their marriage…I didn’t learn that she was violent because of the color of her skin…I learned that a man better be careful violating that vow…I think they got back together later)  I was attacked a few times, nothing that left a permanent mark, but violently…twice the person hitting me was yelling the word “Honky” as they did so…I didn’t learn that all black children were violent, I learned that some people do dumb things, for dumb reasons.

If I am remembering right, I believe I finally learned what the word “Honky” meant after a conversation with Kip, the son of the Aunt Anita and Uncle Reggie…he explained it, and then explained what…I am not going to use the word, meant…and explained to me why it should never be used by me…he must have been pretty convincing, because I remember then and there deciding never to use that word AT another person, ever…the only way I utter that word now is if it is in piece of literature, and it is being used to show how ignorant a character is to use it toward another person…even then, it almost physically hurts to say it.

I agree with Eric Holder (I know, shocking) there does needs to be an honest dialogue about race…problem is, how can we do that?  Growing up, the entire framework for the discussion was different.  If you needed clarification of what people were thinking, or why they thought it, you asked, if you knew an answer, you gave it. (I didn’t have many answers at the time)  The language  of the discussion was different, and because of things like the Flip Wilson Show…and watching my Father and Uncle Reggie traumatizing people with jokes based on the color of their respective skin (it was both incredibly funny and slightly frightening to watch how people reacted to their jokes), I grew up taking for granted that humor was essentially for defusing the tension inherent to discussions of race, and that at its base, it wasn’t us versus them, but rather us with them…”we” had things to work out…but since we were in it together, we could and should find solutions to the differences.

As I am watching the news today, I see the media trying to drive wedges, intent on fracturing us once again.  They seem intent on rolling back any progress that was made, not realizing or not caring who it might destroy. I am watching the media exploit the grief of a family to inflame the situation, I see them play up past historical abominations, and some legitimate concerns with excessive profiling to then profile  officers around the country. (I am in a position to be able to empathize with both sides, working with students I would not want to see hurt and having several former students who are now police officers) I see the media, if not actively encourage, at least tacitly endorse violence which they will then feature in breathless reporting which is creating the very us versus them conflict that we do not need.  

My frustration is building…it isn’t supposed to be like this.  The idealist in me hoped that we were past this.  I want peace, I want people to treat people right…I want someone to fix this problem.

But that isn’t going to happen.  It really doesn’t work that way.  If a solution is imposed by some higher authority, it will be resisted, because it is being imposed by a higher authority. The only solution to this problem is that we need to stop thinking it is going to come from somewhere else.

Toward that end, let me state that, for me, that regardless of what I see on the television, or read online, I will not embrace the hatred, and I will not allow myself to buy into any narrative that suggests that all of any group is doing anything. I cannot disengage, but I will try to stay as objective as possible, judging events individually, acknowledging that in some cases I will be wrong. I will strive to treat people right, because it is the right thing to do…period.

...and I will continue to make jokes.