Race to the Finish

Race to the Finish

Our Village has had an ongoing dialog recently about immigrants and race. This has stirred up a lot of feelings for us all and brought up a bunch of memories I had squashed down pretty far in the ol’ emotional “compactor”.

I was born in Kansas City to a couple of white bread parents. My mother came from Ozark white trash and my Dad from plains farm stock. Neither had ever seen much of the world outside their stomping grounds and married right out of High School, then had me. My Dad went on to finish college then on to grad school and took a job with a major US Company that he held for over 40 years. His first posting was in southern Texas and we moved there right after my brother was born, I was 3.  

We moved into a cheap apartment complex and all the neighborhood kids were Mexican, so I learned Spanish before I had mastered English, kids can do that.

One of my earliest memories of “race relations” was during a trip back to visit my grandparents in KC. My brother was just learning to talk and walk so he must have been 2 or 3. We were walking past a small group of Black Men playing cards under the Awning of a “Corner Store” and my brother broke away and walked right up to them and said “HI !!! BLACK FACES”!!!!  I did not think anything of it because I had seen black people before, but my mother was devastated !!! I still remember her fear and gushing apologies. The men just laughed so hard they could barely breathe and sluffed it off as “making their day”……………..I was not too sure about that. I was 6.

Fast forward a few years and my parents had divorced, we moved and soon were involved in a horrific car accident. My Mom spent most of her days in bed, with prescription induced lethargy. I had a new set of friends and on Sundays we came up with a pretty cool way to keep ourselves occupied and fed by dressing up in our Sunday best, slicking down our hair and visiting all the churches in the area, first on foot and later on bikes. We’d quietly giggle and smirk as our teachers and local shop owners would be touched on the forehead and faint or speak in tongues at the Pentecostal and Baptist Churches. Afterward we’d get Koolaid and Cookies and “mingle” with the other parishioners and kids from school. This went on for months.

In the school we attended there were NO people of color. Hispanics don’t count in Texas as they were just “Mes-can” and regardless of their social standing they were either Mes-can Doctors” or Mes-can garbage men. Their kids went to our school and spoke Spanish to each other…………and me. My other friends were terrified of them all and were sure some kind of Westside story stabbing would take place if they even talked to them. I was warned of this constantly. I visited their homes, hugged their Abuellas and learned to LOVE homemade tamales, LOVE em !!!   

During one of these visits my amigo’s parents invited me to go to their church on Sunday as they had heard I was a Spiritual Bedouin and felt the need to play Missionary. I knew about Catholic Churches from my early days at the Apartment Complex and begged off because “Those People” speak a freak language my young buddies told me was older than Jesus. Their statues and gold also freaked me out  and they had Nuns who would “smack” you with rulers “for no reason” from behind their scary black and white penguin suits. “Um, gracias no”…..I was terrified of Catholics.

One of my buddies older brothers told us all one day about a Black Church across town that had singing and dancing and best of all they had Fried Chicken and “fixins” afterward. We were IN ! We got on our bikes early the next Sunday and rode all over the place looking for THE Church. It was hotter ant anything in our Suits and no one was giving up much to a “Gang” of white kids asking about THE Church. We rode around and witnessed sights we never imagined in our lives. Burnt out houses and cars. Trash and junk everywhere and BLACK PEOPLE !!!............None of us had ever seen so many black people EVER.

We knew one black person between us. She was the maid for the rich girl at the end of our block. She was stern and NEVER – EVER  let Becky out of her sight. We all liked Becky, hated the maid. “Mrs. B”

As were heading home we saw a few stragglers heading home down a side street with colorful clothes on and fancy hats. BINGO we said to each other and peddled toward the “saved ones” for a recon mission.

Sure enough or should I say Sho-nuf, who would be walking behind the 1^st group but Mrs. B , Becky’s maid. “Crap”.

“Hey, what u boys doin here?” she glared at us. “Come over here”.

We explained that we were looking for her church because we heard it “was so good” and went on and on with more lies………..She knew we were up to something and told us where to be next Sunday.

 We were scared sh*& as the following Sunday approached. We talked ourselves in and out of going a few dozen times and finally dared each other enough that all of our mothers would die or be crippled if we were too wussy to go. The ride seemed hotter than the last time and we made it there a bit early. We huddled in our little group as family after family of laughing colorfully dressed happy faced folks shook hands and greeted each other warmly and with tremendous enthusiasm. Mrs. B spotted us and ushered us to a pew about mid-way. We received a few glances but not any stares. We were terrified and stared straight ahead. All I remember from that first time was a lot of singing, loud voices of “Amen” – “That’s RIGHT” and more singing and standing up clapping too. Overall I just remember LOUD.

 They were not lying about the Fried Chicken. But it was an understatement. The food was fantastic and the people SO friendly that I wondered why anyone would ever call them the names I had heard my friends parents use all the time. My parents had their faults but one thing they never used was “that word” or any disparaging word toward any race that I can remember. In adulthood I remember my Dad making a comment about an Indian (country) guy and he said he was angry because the took all the scholarships when he was in college. Humm….interesting, file that away for the archives.

 Anyway, we had a number of weeks of singing and eating bliss until one of the parents found out what we were doing and in a rage got all the other parents together (and called my Mom) to explain at the top of their lungs that “no kids of theirs are going to hang around “monkey brained coons ”  and that was the edited version. It was a horrible demonstration of ignorance and it is like a cheap tattoo indelibly left in my brain. I continued on for another week or two but then I was called a “N- Lover” one too many times and quit going, cold turkey.

Sometime later I ran into Mrs. B and Becky at the grocery store and immediately started crying.  I cried so hard and was so embarrassed and ashamed that I had stopped seeing Mrs. B on Sundays. She hugged me and comforted me and “dear chyled” me until I stopped and just said “I know”. Becky was baffled. I was 9 or 10 and those were the best hugs I had EVER had.

 Fast forward a bit more and we move to Shreveport, LA where I hear all the tales of the KKK from my friends there and SEE actual Slave Plantations and learn about slavery in school. Then on to New Orleans where The MAN finally decides to experiment with integration via bussing white kids to an all black neighborhood school until a new school could be built. This was the late 60’s and the Black Panthers were on TV every night. Fires burned throughout the country.  One funny thing about this move is that I questioned a big gold dome I saw downtown as we entered the city for the 1^st time. “Oh, that is a synagogue my step-dad said, “that is where Jews go to pray” ……..”Jews are still around I asked ???” – I thought they all died with Jesus”…………..Yes, a very sheltered life up until that point.

 So, they shipped busses of us into the inferno. Bricks through bus window and glass into my ear. Fights on the campus and football field were constants. I happened to be in the marching band and on more than one occasion used my drumsticks and size to keep groping angry black hands off female band members and to defend myself from “gangs” of very angry black folk who were angry just because I was white and in their neighborhood. Most of my days at Hellen Cox were in abject terror, in a quest for daily survival.

 Another move and my 1^st real job was “picking up sticks” on a golf course in Naples, FL. Myself and 7 black guys. I was 13 and also rode my bike to that job. We worked from 6am to 4pm in the scorching sun loading up sticks and logs from a swamp that had just been drained. It was terribly hot and my crew members skin burnt SO bad and SO fast. After day 3 were all naked in the drainage ponds at every chance we could to cool off. Mosquitoes, Water Moccasins and all we did not give a hoot, it was camaraderie at it’s best and those relationships lasted for another 10 years until I moved north.

 I thought I knew about bigotry, prejudice and hate as a southern boy until I moved to New England later in life. My 1^st office was on Main Street in the Italian Section of Town. After a couple of years there I was asked to lead a Community Development Organization to create a Master Plan for the City and that is when I learned about HATE. Generations of HATE from White Italian Immigrants.

 It seems that if you are an Neoploitainaise you hate Abrutaise and Sicialianos hate Minaniase more than Mulaniane from Africa……….It was the worst job I ever had for FREE. Nothing could ever get done for the 15 years I was in that position. NOTHING.  It was there too that I learned “power-less-ness. Thank goodness.

 It felt good to finally bring up some of this stuff and let it fly away. It was also nice to remember Mrs. B. I still think of her often and certainly every time I hear the Blind Boys of Alabama. I also continue to surprise myself by remembering all “the words” both in and out of the songs.