Wednesday Weblog for January 31, 2024 |
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What’s fair about life? Nothing. Life is unfair to everyone. You can’t control the ups & downs, so don’t depend on luck. Work to make your own luck. Life doesn't owe us anything. Everything good that comes your way is a blessing. Trust me, there are many who have it a lot worse! -Jon Beck |
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Leading Off: Affecting Change |
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This story was first published three years ago under the title 'Black and White Linoleum' and this updated version is provided because of the feedback received.
The phrase 'anti-racist' has come to define someone who speaks up or acts up in the cause of racial justice or human equity. When I first heard the term, I asked myself if it was a term that applied to me.
Lots of you know that keeping my mouth shut is a skill I have yet to master, and taking action is part of my personality and that is all the evidence I have to offer today.
Suffice it to say that over the years, I have spoken up and/or acted in a way that meets the current definition of that term. Looking back, I probably could have done more or done better, and looking forward, I'm sure I will. At my stage in life, I can say that about a lot of things.
But I've often wondered, as you may have also, why I reacted the way I did in certain situations. I'm going to share a single quick recollection of a conversation that took place five years ago at a gathering of my fraternity.
A fraternity brother, who happened to be a grad student when I was a freshman, came up to me and said: 'do you remember when you called me out after I said something inappropriate on that trip to Florida for spring break?'
I knew exactly what he was referring to. He had made a remark 50 or so years ago when we were wedged in the back seat of a friend's car somewhere in North Carolina or Georgia. I nodded my head to indicate that I knew what he was talking about.
He then said something like: "I've never used that phrase again and spent the last 50 years calling anyone out who used it. It was the first and last time a freshman lectured me, and it caused me to look at myself, so I changed."
Not being part of the problem is not enough today. Being part of the solution is up to everyone.
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The two six-year-old boys ran alongside the tall, barbed wire fence that separated the treeless asphalt back yard of the housing project from the train tracks beside the housing project in Boston. They didn’t know, and didn't care, that the tracks went straight to New York City and beyond.
The two kids ran everywhere as best friends. From the dumpster to the back door of one building and between two buildings: front step to front step. Although there were many kids in the projects, these two were inseparable on the asphalt range they called home.
In those days, you just went outside to see who was available to play, or you knocked on someone's door and asked if so and so could come out to play (really, not making that up).
At that time, six-year-old kids, and maybe some even younger, were old enough to hang together without adult supervision or even older kid supervision. Both of these friends were fast runners, both were friendly, and both shared a bottlecap collection that was the envy of the neighborhood.
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Who knows why, but when they weren’t running, they picked up bottlecaps from the gutter or the playground and counted them. They were working towards 100 caps when this story takes place.
Both boys were named ‘Jimmy’ and both preferred being with each other, even occasionally venturing out of the neighborhood together, on the Hyde Park/Roslindale line, and running the five blocks to the corner store for some licorice or hard candy.
One day, one of the boys invited the other boy to his apartment to play with the new metal dump truck he’d received for his birthday. The venue? His kitchen floor. The offer was enthusiastically accepted, and both headed off.
Leading the way, one 6-year-old ran into his apartment and headed right to the kitchen floor where he had parked his truck earlier in the day, loaded with wooden blocks just waiting to be dumped on the floor.
The other kid entered the apartment but when he shut the door behind him, he was greeted with surprised stares from the three adults sitting around the living room, and he froze, his eyes flicking from one adult to the next, trying to figure out if they were grinning or grimacing until he heard his name called from the kitchen and quickly and quietly moved toward the sound.
Once both of them were on the floor, the visiting Jimmy said to the Jimmy busy with the dump truck, "Why did they look at me that way?”
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The truck driver simply said, “You’re the first white boy to come into our apartment.”
With a puzzled look on his face the other Jimmy replied, “What’s that? What’s a white boy?”
The perceptive among you have already guessed that I was the second boy named Jimmy asking the questions and this story is about the moment I learned I was white.
When I was a kid, my nickname was Jimmy (i.e., Edward James Doherty), to distinguish me from my dad, Eddie. How do I remember this so clearly since it was so long ago? I’ve thought of this experience over the years and shared it regularly with others so I admit, I may remember simply remembering it, but that doesn’t make it any less impactful on my life.
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Although I can get deep at times, it really didn’t occur to me at six years old that the symbolism of two boys, one Black and one White, sharing a truck on a black and white linoleum floor was a metaphor for something, but it does now.
I’ve often wondered what happened to my first best friend, because we moved away and since there wasn’t any social media to bind us, we didn’t keep in touch. My family was in the housing project, probably like Jimmy’s family, because my dad was a returning Korean War veteran, and well, housing former soldiers and their families was a big part of what public housing was for in those days.
The two kids in this story had no concept of color when they were six but learned whatever they learned about it from adults as they grew up. Somewhere along the way, probably not as a six-year-old, but well before I had the chance to form other opinions, I associated racism with a lack of intelligence. That's what I thought growing up and I like to think it guided, and guides, my behavior.
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I am not perfect, just ask my wife and son, and maybe a former boss or two. And I probably don’t meet a lot of the definitions of ‘woke’ that float around out there, but there are a few things I do know:
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Six-year-olds are clueless, regardless of color, their adult attitudes are shaped by others and learned by them, not born with them. I was instructed to avoid New York Yankee fans, but very few other prejudices were passed on to me.
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Attitudes are perpetuated, generation to generation. It only takes an attitude change from one generation to change the entire future. As children, we don’t see the things that come to divide us. Perhaps we see people around us more clearly, not influenced by society’s prejudices. Perhaps seeing each other through the eyes of a six-year-old might make this world a better place.
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The Golden Rule of treating others as you would like to be treated was a pretty good philosophy at its inception, and is probably even more important, and valid as a code of behavior today. Everyone is important to someone, and everyone deserves to be treated fairly.
Sometimes when I see a bottlecap on the ground, I think of those two kids running along the barbed wire fence beside the train tracks and I remember.
Six-year-olds. Bottle caps. Black and white linoleum floor. White boy. Golden Rule. Yankee fans. Grinning or Grimacing. Some lessons do last a lifetime.
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Archdale Village (formerly known as the Archdale Projects). Walking distance from Roslindale Square. No trees when I was a kid, same train tracks.
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Surprise Photo at the End:
Atlantic Ocean Without Water
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Joe's Positive Post of the Week |
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The Roll Call of states and countries where readers reside: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Washington DC, Wisconsin plus Canada, Spain, Conch Republic, Australia and the United Kingdom |
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Ed Doherty
774-479-8831
www.ambroselanden.com
ed-doherty@outlook.com
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