Saturday, August 8, 2020

Other

 My wonderful , thoughtful, brilliant partner is Jewish. Her father was a survivor of the Holocaust, as are many of her family members. Her uncle was Eli Wiesel. Photos of her family in concentration camps are displayed at Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem.

I am an Irish-Italian American who still (even in Trump times) believes in an America where we are all safe from mass extermination. 


In my job, I tutor all kinds of people, from all over the world. I think of myself as being the kind of person who is there for everyone, regardless of background. I received my degree from a New York City university (CUNY Queens College). I worked at another New York university, where my students were from every imaginable country on the planet. I now work In Miami, where, again, my students are from everywhere.


This is what I have learned.


All people, women, men, local or not, are remarkable in their knowledge, drive, understanding, and hope. I am always humbled by my students. They represent a future for the planet that I cannot imagine, a future that, (first of all) exists, and a future every human can be a part of, and proud of.

 

My life has had its twists and turns. But I never had to risk my life, or that of my children for the freedoms I expected. My wonderful, thoughtful, brilliant Jewish partner knows better. Her family has been on the run for centuries. Now, in this time, in America, all thoughtful people should be concerned for their neighbors -- Black, Jewish, Other.


No human is “other.” We are so much more the same than different. Is it white male supremacy that is the problem? It very well could be. Or is it the basic fear of whatever is different? I dress differently. I speak differently. I am different. But not really. I am the same as you, I want the same things as you. I hear you, beyond language, beyond culture. We breathe the same air. We walk in step. We marvel at the same stars.


Saturday, July 4, 2020

Escaping the Plague

Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of my younger brother's death. Despite his weakened state, his passing shook me through and through. His downward slide was rapid in his final months, and our moving him from New York to a nursing home just down the road from us did nothing to help.

Never in a million years could I have then foreseen the encroaching threat of a virus that reserved its most insidious tentacles for those older or infirm. 

I do not imagine, if Chris had survived the year, that he would have been able to stave off Corona's attack. Did he know something we did not?

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Take It or Leave It

CUNY Queens College's Powdermaker Hall is tattooed with quotes from famous writers and thinkers. By far, my favorite quote is one I pass each morning on my way to class. It is posted somewhat obscurely on the outer northwestern wall, and it is the one I have memorized and constantly call up within my own mind. It is a James Baldwin quote: “The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.”

baldwin-quote

Baldwin, who was poor, black and gay, often joked that, rather than being thrice cursed, had “hit the trifecta.” “How much more disadvantaged could one person be?” he asked. Baldwin’s search for self, like Ralph Ellison’s was more of a lifelong journey than a destination at which to arrive. I believe Ellison, whose path diverged significantly from Baldwin’s would nonetheless appreciate his contemporary’s quote.
After following in the angry, and somewhat separatist footsteps of his mentor Richard Wright (Native Son), Ellison evolved into more of an integrationist, insisting that blacks would succeed by excelling and mixing it up with the larger world, a view also held by the founder of his alma mater, Booker T. Washington. His contemporary, and fellow Wright offspring, James Baldwin, (Notes of a Native Son) also came under Ellison’s harsh criticism. Baldwin was much more a separatist, finding no real home for himself in America and eventually emigrating to Paris.
One thing all three have in common is their search for a sense of self. Ah, that all-important word, which to Antonio Damasio can be deconstructed into three levels. Ellison (et. al) understood that unconscious Protoself level — that’s an easy one. But dive deeper into Core Consciousness and Extended Consciousness and these writers each take a different road leading to Rome. Ellison seems to narrow down his search by first finding what and who he is NOT. To white people, he is as invisible as a shadow which passes along as near nothingness. In the prologue to Invisible Man, Ellison states, “That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact. A matter of the construction of their inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality” (Prologue II).
Ellison’s self is there. He just has to find it among the sea of black faces and its accepted group identity, as well as within a larger, (optic) white-washed world. His allusions to Jazz as metaphor for individuality or self-ism (my term) are intrinsic to the story.
In the end, Ellison’s nameless (self-less?) narrator comes back from his trip around his own inner world to say, “I had no desire to destroy myself even if it destroyed the machine; I wanted freedom, not destruction. It was exhausting, for no matter what the scheme I conceived, there was one fatal flaw — myself. There was no getting around it. I could no more escape than I could think of my identity. Perhaps, I thought, the two things are involved with one another. When I discover who I am, I’ll be free” (11.103).
This book and topic is so very timely. Black Lives Matter, racial profiling, the fires that burn in Charlotte, Chicago, Kansas City and elsewhere, all indicate Ellison’s point, while shining a hopeful light onto Baldwin's message. Once we discover who we are, perhaps, only then will we all be free.

Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Hold the Door

At the school where I work, the campus buildings have heavy double doors. Most come equipped with large square buttons to push for extended automated entry. This is South Florida, so winter winds blowing through the halls is never a concern.

Despite the automation, I still check behind me to see if another person is also intending to enter. I hold the door and smile. That person, whether student or staff, smiles back and says "Thank you." A small event in an otherwise uneventful day.

Yet I do not think this is such a small event. My campus is host to a rainbow of students and faculty. This rainbow embraces ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, religion, age, and economic class. When I hold the door, I am saying, "I honor you, I respect you, I am your friend. Your entry into my office, the restroom, the dining hall, my life, is a joy, and a blessing."

Small actions can offer bigger meanings.

If I could choose the title of my own eulogy, it might read: "She held the door."


Thursday, May 28, 2020

The Mark of Cain

Unmarked Category (def):  the default, the majority, the go-to, the assumed, the norm, the unless otherwise specified.

I learned this term in my Anthropology 101 class at Queens College in New York City. While the professor charged us with learning a heaping slew of terms, my forgetful brain perked up and retained this one nugget nonetheless.

Among the areas of New York City, Kings County (Brooklyn) is never called such, while Queens is a constantly referred-to thing. The King is an unmarked given.

Without bending to check the undercarriage, pet enthusiasts default to the "he" pronoun.

Repair people are assumed to be male.

Clergy too.

Politicians, especially these days, are assumed to be lily white, and male. The trickle of women who pass through the old-boy gauntlet are interrupted, shushed, and belittled.

The Unmarked straight white adult male speaks a bit too loudly -- at the dinner table, in restaurants and on the street corner. The default volume on this default category is turned way up.

The Unmarked tend to mark their territory nonetheless. They man spread, man splain, man spit, man scratch and man segregate. These forms of metaphoric pissing on all things they believe they own is widely accepted, sometimes applauded, and seldom challenged.

The norm dictates neighbors be straight (family members certainly so!) and, in fact, there are only two types of neighborhoods: Neighborhoods, (read: straight white, male dominated ones) and blackgayhispanicinnercityghetto neighborhoods.

I have a number of personal stories illustrating the Unmarked. While I check a couple of "marked" boxes, I still cannot comprehend the daily existence of people of color, especially in this day of white-supremacism-is-real-america. The image of a white man in power kneeling on the neck of a black man, causing his death, exemplifies the perceived privilege of the Unmarked. It is high time the Unmarked be given the Mark of Cain placed upon their foreheads.




Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Camouflage


Hidden beneath his sneer and shock of dirty brown hair tumbling constantly into his eyes, was a look. A certain look. I did not notice it then, and it has been many years since I had last seen him, or suffered his wrath.


Although Dwayne Horowitz lived just down the block and was the same age as Henry, Joel, Bobby, and my brother David, they were not his friends. His reputation as a bully and be-littler kept everyone at arm’s length. His taunts, punches, hair-pulling and bike stealing were legend among the neighborhood kids. We "played" with Dwayne only when Sally, his diminutive mother pleaded with our mothers to include her only child in our street games. We wondered how such a nice mother could raise such a bully.


“Aw, mom! Do we Have To? He’s such a pain!” We would yell after him when he would knock one of us off our bike, or pull our hair, or pinch our arm. “Dwayne, Dwayne, the BIG FAT PAIN!!!” I began to refer to him as Dwayne Horrible-witz. His face would twist, his tongue between his teeth, avenging a reality of which we had no idea.


But when I think back to those days on Sherman Drive, days of stick ball and SPUD, and Monkey-in-the-Middle, I see something else in my mind’s eye. The hurt and anger in his eyes. The fingernails always bloody and bitten to the quick. The shaggy hair in need of washing and cutting. Dwayne’s bully was his disguise, his way of spitting into the winds of a childhood filled with the swearing and violence of his father, and the pitiful ministrations of his long-suffering mother. 


I was too young to understand those realities then. It was only years later, when my own mother returned from Sally Horowitz’s funeral, that she told me Dwayne’s real story of abuse and neglect. Sally had tried to shield her son, but was no match for the hurricanes of her husband’s rages. She was terrified that Dwayne would become like his father, and in those days, he seemed up to the task.


Not long ago, I followed up on Dwayne. He grew up to be a successful businessman, and caring husband and father. I am not sure if Sally ever got to know the kinder man her son became. I also wonder at the boy-turned-man who found the strength to step out from behind the camouflage shadow . . . and into the bright sun.

Saturday, March 7, 2020

you, dog

you, dog

you do not worry about Corona Virus.
you do not fret about the Stock Market.
you do not care who is elected.
you do not mind about my problems, my insecurities, my weaknesses.

you, dog.
the best fun for you is when we play fetch. When we scratch you behind your ears. When you escape out the front door and chase ducks. When we are both home, and you can sit beside us. When you swim in the pool to cool off. When visitors come and you think that is so great.

When you let us know you are home.

you, dog.
If only I could see your world. If only I could be as happy. If only I could love beyond hurt. If only.

you dog.
can I be you?