Installment # 57

I was nineteen years old, stationed in Germany on November 22, 1963, when I heard that President Kennedy had been shot and killed.  They say that everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard.  That’s true.  I had no political frame of reference to put it into, but I recall being deeply shaken and concerned.  I think it was because my youthful assumptions about how the world worked had just been turned upside down in a moment.  How could this possibly happen?  If someone would, or even could, assassinate the President of the United States, what else could happen?  What was true and good and right anymore?

I was also in Germany during most of the Civil Rights movement of the early 1960s.  I really couldn’t relate to it, anyway, because I had no idea how people were living in the South.  But I was shocked to see images of public bathrooms and drinking fountains labeled “Whites only,” and of course I learned about Rosa Parks and “the back of the bus.”  Even in 2012 when I read the book, The Help, I could hardly believe that people were living that way in Mississippi during my young adulthood.  At that age, though, I wasn’t paying much attention to anything that was not in my immediate path.  Perhaps I should put it this way: I was (and am) very slow to form convictions, and I realize that opinions (as opposed to convictions) are not worth arguing about or fighting for.  Also, opinions are subject to change.  So I didn’t know how I felt about race relations at the time, and my thoughts and opinions have varied all over the place for most of my life.

Without going into a lengthy discussion, at least not here and now, my current thinking includes the following:

There are only two people groups that have been largely unable to integrate into American society – Native Americans, and African Americans.  Of course there are exceptions.  Let’s not get side tracked with that discussion.  Native Americans were living in North America when the Europeans arrived; African Americans were dragged here against their will.  All the other people groups came to the New World voluntarily.  One other exception might be the prisoners who were sent to America to relieve the pressures on an overburdened prison system in Europe, but they were products of European culture, which apparently makes a big difference.

People choosing to immigrate to America from Europe, Asia, South and Central America, and even the Middle East and the South Sea Islands, seem to lose their accents within one or two generations.  Their children, born here and attending American elementary school, middle school and high school here, speak English with no accent at all.  African Americans still sound like their parents, grandparents, and probably their slave ancestors, regardless of how much public education they have received. This was brought to my attention when I used to listen to sports radio.  If an African American listener called in, I could tell almost immediately that he was such, even though he and his family had been in the United States for 200 years.  If a second or third generation Asian or Hispanic person called in, there was no way I could tell what their ancestry was.  My logical mind does not understand why this is so.

Sandy and I recently attended one of Ezra’s football games and sat on the opposing team’s side, so we didn’t need to look into the sun.  The visiting team was from Oakland and every single player and parent was black.  We must have looked like a couple of snowflakes that landed on a coal pile.  They were very nice, friendly people, but the way they speak!  “Where her at?”  “You see dat?” “Which one yo’ baby?” (Referring to one of the players).   It sounds like the way I imagine the plantation slaves of 200 years ago spoke.  Why is that?  I hear a variety of opinions, but I don’t know who is right.  I heard a Jewish man say, “My people were slaves down in Egypt for 300 years.  We got over it!”  In other words, get over it.  Someone remarked recently that the reason most African Americans are not assimilating is that the parents are not interested in having their children be better off than they were in terms of education, career, living standards, etc.  They don’t care about that.  I doubt that is true, but to the extent that it is, the question remains – why?

Maybe it is a reflection of the deeply ingrained tribal culture of living.   For Native Americans and African Americans, the tribal form of society was the norm, similar to what we see in the Middle East and North Africa today, where the various tribes and clans and religious sects seem ultimately incapable of trusting each other and cooperating for the greater good. The tribal mentality seems to be so deeply ingrained that it virtually prevents assimilation into American society to the extent needed to thrive under our system of democracy and free enterprise.

My guess is that people emigrating to the U.S. from a tribe/clan area like the Middle East and assimilating into American culture within a generation or two are doing so because they wanted to come here. They wanted a better life than what was possible in their home countries. African Americans obviously did not want to come here.  They were brutally uprooted from their tribal way of life and transplanted to our southern states.  People like Colin Powell, Bill Cosby, Condoleezza Rice, and Oprah Winfrey speak with no accents at all, and they represent some percentage of all African-Americans, but evidently not a large percentage.  Perhaps, as with those choosing to come here from the Middle East, they represent those who want to distance themselves from the tribal way of life.  Perhaps they couldn’t fit into that way of life any better than I could fit into the corporate way of life in America.

My approach to life is logical, but often not practical.  Often I have not considered everything, particularly not the human nature side.  I would have agreed with Henry Ford when he said, “People can have any color automobile they want, as long as it is black.”  If we can keep the cost down by only making one color, why wouldn’t we do that?  Who cares what color it is, as long as it runs?  You can see how far that kind of thinking would go in the face of human nature.  If consumers all thought like me, we would have had very little economic growth during my lifetime.   Things would pretty much be the same as they were in the 1950s.  I hasten to add, however, that I have been cured, at least to the extent that I can appreciate that nice things are nice; that nicer things are nicer; that better things are better; that prettier things are nicer to look at; that nice things make a woman happy, and a happy woman is a joy.

Also on the technology side – we are all so much more productive because of technological innovation, even though my natural inclination is to resist change.  To my mind, increased productivity equals increased prosperity equals a better life.  So I guess I see the big picture now and have bought into the dominant paradigm.  I’ve “drank the cool aid,” as the saying goes.  Maybe I am not less logical, just more tolerant.  I fully subscribe to my Aunt Dot’s philosophy: “Live and let live.”

There are some things I just accept, without worrying whether they are logical or not.  I understand that millions of viewers keep television programs on the air, such as “professional” wrestling and NASCAR.  Although they make no sense to me, I accept that millions of people tune in to watch, which keeps them on the air. New young celebrities like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift – I don’t get it.  What is so special about them?  Tattoos are all the rage these days – big, ugly, multi-colored tattoos in places for all the world to see.  What in the world are people thinking of?  A young(ish) girl getting a large tattoo on her neck or arm seems the same to me as deciding to pick one shade of lipstick or one pair of earrings or one blouse to wear for the rest of her life. I can only conclude that I must be missing something that millions of others get. Oh, well.

As another example, I worked with a fellow who liked duck hunting.  Not only would he sit quietly in the cold and dark pre-dawn for hours on end waiting for some unsuspecting duck to show up, but he liked to attend conventions where they displayed hand-made duck decoys.  He made it sound a lot like going to an art gallery and admiring the paintings.  The duck hunting enthusiasts would stand around admiring hand-made duck decoys.  Awards were given to those who had made the most attractive or intricate or realistic looking decoys!  My reaction was: Wait a minute.  As a sport, you start out duck hunting; then you discover that it is easier if you float a decoy out on the pond to attract a duck; then you get sidetracked by who can make the most realistic-looking decoy?  You go from seeing who can kill the most ducks to seeing who can make the best duck decoy?  Isn’t that like a baseball player becoming fascinated with the bat, instead of concentrating on hitting the ball?  Again I say, “Oh, well.  I must be missing something.”

I’ve learned to apply the “live and let live; oh, well” approach to politics, too.  “Majority rules” means the minority must accept that they will not get their way on a particular issue.  If more than half the people agree on something, could it be that they are right and I am not?  I remember when I first heard “I may not agree with you, but I will defend with my life your right to your own opinion” I was shocked.  First of all, to this day there is virtually nothing that I would literally give my life for.  (Devote my life to, maybe, but give my life for?  Let’s not get carried away).  Anyway, my first thought was more along the lines of “If I disagree with you, you are jerk.  You may have a right to your own opinion, but I have a right not to listen to it. Why don’t you just shut up?” 

With the perspective that comes with maturity, if no other way, I can see the incredible importance of each person’s right to their own opinions.  One of the greatest blessings of living in a free society is our personal liberty to have and to express our own opinions.  I still might not be willing to die for it, but if everyone felt that way we probably wouldn’t have our precious freedoms today.   “Majority rules” does have its limitations, however.  To quote something I read, “Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote. Those rights are spelled out in the Bill of Rights…”  A quote usually (and possibly wrongly) attributed to Benjamin Franklin says that, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch; liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” 

With my tendency to accept the status quo, I probably would not have understood the patriots who fomented the American Revolution.  As I understand it, England had nearly emptied its coffers defending the colonies during the French and Indian War, and felt it was only fair to institute the Stamp Act and the tax on tea.  That would have seemed fair to me.  But I guess it was the way they did it.  After allowing the colonies to be quite autonomous and self-governing for a hundred years or so, England suddenly became too heavy-handed.  Each time we pushed back on them, they became more determined and raised the stakes even higher.  Still, it took an incredible amount of courage and vision to see where this was going and to take a “do or die” stand.  One of England’s mistakes in judgment was to believe that the 13 colonies would never act in concert.  Their interests seemed too disparate.  I would have thought so, too.  It’s a good thing not everybody thinks like me!

One of the primary founding values of the United States is personal liberty, although in practice this creates some great disparities.  Personal liberty allows the ablest and best among us to flourish, while the least able among us struggle by comparison. (Note: by comparison.  The standard of living of our poorest still exceeds that of most of the other people on earth).  Much of our political divide revolves around the question of how much struggle and poverty we can tolerate in this country in order to preserve personal liberty, and what the role of government should be in protecting and promoting access to the “American dream” by the many who struggle. 

In Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published near the beginning of the Revolutionary War, he says - if I may paraphrase the first two paragraphs of Chapter 1 - that “Society”, on the one hand, promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, while “Government” promotes our happiness negatively by restraining our vices; that society is a patron to us (if you will), while government is a punisher; that society is a blessing, while government is at best a necessary evil. Viewed that way, government has no business interfering with the proper exercise of our liberties in any attempt to make things more fair or equitable for the less able.  That is (ideally) the role of society, not government.  Again, our political divide can be seen in the extent to which the major political parties agree or disagree with that tenet.