The Downside of Life with Dorian ...

Dorian and I attended the National Institute for Artists with Disabilities (NIAD) reception this evening and it was a mixed blessing. Two of her paintings are being displayed prominently in the front windows and she has two or three pieces in the gallery. But most important is that there were articles about her and her work in last Friday's edition of the S.F. Chronicle and another in Sunday's West County Times. I've seen neither, though I did give an interview for the Times. Learned this evening that her sculpture, "Tsumani," is being featured at an art gallery in Benicia where it is the centerpiece of the exhibit. She's loving every minute of her celebrity, but in the process is becoming more and more difficult to deal with.

Tonight we experienced a true blowout just before leaving for the reception. I learned by running across some receipts that she'd bought a pager ($91.00) last week. Since we live within two blocks of the city's major shopping mall, she happily spends much of her leisure time there. However, she's also watching a lot of television while crocheting her afghans and therein lies a major problem. Television commercials were designed to attract Dorrie. She's hopelessly seduced by T-Mobile, Cingular, AT&T, and any other cell phone kiosk within range. Though she has a phone that serves as an umbilical chord for us both and adds some security for me, each time she hears a new plan with "minutes" or "roaming privileges," or anything else -- she's off to the mall for a new purchase. She has no idea what minutes or roaming privileges mean but they sound cool in the commercials. I've returned 5 cell phones over the past 2 months; each time at a significant financial loss. They will usually accept the phones back, but the minutes are purchased in advance and are not returnable. Besides, when I call customer service to make a complaint -- the operator has a far eastern accent so I presume is sitting at a communication center in New Delhi or Bombay!

No amount of explaining that she is suit-proof, mentally retarded, illiterate so cannot be held to any contract changes the outcome. I'm reduced to taking her photograph, scanning and copying it, distributing it to every electronic communications kiosk or storefront in the mall in the hope of ending the problem. This is when I feel old and overwhelmed by a world that has become alien to the one I grew up in. Just one of the many hidden problems of living with the retarded. Her grasp of the world of her times is fragile at best, but the distances between our intellectual capacities as well as our natural generational differences works against us both. When we get caught up in these irresolvable cul de sacs there are no exits -- so the end results are these emotional explosions that flatten the landscape!

So today it wasn't a cell phone. She'd found a pager store and signed a contract that now demands $91.00 payment for services rendered. The thought of facing still one more young salesperson tomorrow to try one more time to return her purchase and erase the contract is almost more than I can bear.

After a useless shouting match that I resoundingly lost, we started out for the party where she would enjoy her celebrity and where I would continue to smolder! And she did - and I did. Watching her from a distance as she charmingly led guests to where her work was being exhibited -- I could see the hopelessness in my being angry. She simply doesn't have the capacity to understand the problem. I tried to remind myself of her considerable disabilities, but failed miserably as I continued to quietly simmer in anger at myself -- in my inability to get through to her. The frustration was even greater when someone came up to me to announce in a tactful whisper that Dorian was upset and that I ought to know since she was crying in the other room. She was telling anyone who was willing to listen how mean I'd been to her and how I'd yelled at her...! All true. And now embarrassment was added to my frustration and I wanted to shake her 'til her teeth rattled! And still my feeling of helplessness crowded out all else. I was furious!

Tomorrow she goes on a field trip with NIAD staff to Benicia to see the exhibit. It will be exciting for her and she will have forgotten all about our ugly argument. I will stay at home and go about the returning of the pager and hope that I'm successful one more time -- or at least until she sees another cell phone commercial and on impulse sets up one more of these stupid one-act plays designed to reduce her mother to a blithering idiot!

Maybe if I eliminated television ... .

Feeling conflicted ...

My intention has always been to use my web log as a way to leave behind a record for my family -- a family that in many ways has grown to include an entire world of people. It was during those days when I was deeply involved in a family history project that I saw how sparse was any record of the women among my ancestors, except for my slave great grandmother, Leontine, who was such a colorful and much-loved figure within the family that stories about her as told through my mother and aunt filled in enough of her life that she was always very much alive for me.

There were others, Aunt Alice (one of Leontine's daughters) who founded the first school for colored children in St. James Parish, Louisiana where she served as principal until her accidental death in her sixties. There was Uncle Sam's son, George Allen who was president of a college in Texas (will have to look up the Ebony story with the photo of George in cap and gown standing beside his friend, Thurgood Marshall). Then there are those whose stories are better left un-remembered, but most often they were male family members.

Increasingly I felt compelled to leave a record, as truthful as possible, for those whom I will leave behind to continue whatever legacy we've collectively created over all of the years.

Ran into a problem many months ago. Something that I disclosed about one of my sons obviously invaded his privacy. I'm not even sure what it was, but he mentioned one day in passing that he'd stopped reading my writings as the result of it. It was an innocent oversight, but I became aware of the need to tell my story without crossing the limits of discretion. It started to distort meanings, and I've begun to feel as if the impression I'm leaving is one of a thoroughly self-centered woman without much connection with her family. Strange. It has become an "I" document, and a huge piece of my life -- that essential part of my being as mother -- is being censored in order to protect the privacy of my sons and their families.

I'm not sure what to do about it, but I noticed how freely I've been able to share the agony of Rick's life as well as his death -- and in noticing, I realized that I surely would not have felt so free in doing so were he alive today. Dorian is illiterate due to her retardation so she figures rather large in my writings. My grandchildren, Rhico and Kokee, and Jessica and Justin, Alayana and Tamaya, are young enough to feel some discomfort were I to disclose anything more than incidental tidbits about their lives -- so they're missing here, as well.

There obviously is no immediate answer to this, but I guess I'm needing to at least make the observation in order to explain the absence of my two sons and their immediate families in this personal record. I've not even told David and his children about my blog -- but will now. Perhaps they'll have an answer, or, I'll be able to get some guidance on just how much embarrassment they're willing to put up with! One could so easily abuse the closeness that we share.

There are probably enough "Betty Stories" to tell without crossing those lines, I think. Meanwhile, I'll continue to hold to myself as subject and see how far that will take me without bruising any feelings unnecessarily.

Hypocrisy reigns!

It is hard to imagine a more insane picture to face this Palm Sunday morning -- than that of a self-proclaimed born-again Super-Christian president dashing home to sign a newly-created law to save the life of a terminally ill brain-dead woman in Florida -- in the face of 125,000 Iraqi lives lost and over 1500 young Americans lives sacrificed willfully by an administration out of control! It brings to mind also those quite possibly innocent Death Row prisoners in Texas who sat on Death Row for years while their last pleas for mercy were ignored by a callous governor who didn't even bother to read their cases before denying their appeals. How on earth can this be? And, even more troubling, why on earth are the people of this nation not screaming their outrage this morning at the tragic absurdity of it all!

It may be more important to ask what has happened to us that we're allowing ourselves to be diverted by a constant diet of salacious news reports on steroid abuse in baseball, Michael Jackson, Robert Blake, and Scott Peterson in place of the hard news from the rest of the world upon which our very lives may well depend?

If we have a problem of national security, it's increasingly clear that the source of that problem is internal. Hypocrisy has many faces, some of which look very much like our own.

Endings come in many forms ...

and the probability that I may be experiencing the end of my formal work life is gradually dawning -- and with it comes confusion and depression. I'm not ready, but it's quite clear that I might never be. My identity is so much defined by my work - and my work has been defined so by me. I will go on, surely, for some time yet, but in a different relationship to the world around me. It may take months to untangle the web of uncertainty and gain a redefinition of purpose. I'm not at all sure that I can live without intentionality but that may take new forms, I suppose. I'm not used to drifting -- something that may be quite appropriate to these years. I believe the RV crowd would call this freedom, and they may be quite right. Maybe this is what my contemporaries have discovered, and what I speak of as drifting might be quite different from what that word suggests in the old context. I also suspect that my answers will more than likely be found now more in poetry than in job descriptions, mission statements, or how-to manuals. But that should speak well for the long dormant poet, Betty, finally being released to simply "be." I wish I knew ... .

I've finally allowed the batteries in my Palm Pilot to die. The faint alarms are now silent. What entries there are on my dance card are more social than work or social action related, so the change is already happening. Why don't I feel that the social dates are worthy of Palm attention? Still there's that commitment to speak at the educator's conference on April 3rd, the one I agreed to do for the National Park Service. Other than that ... .

I do wish that I could feel more of a sense of completion ... but I don't, at least not yet. Maybe this is the rationale for retirement dinners and gold watches to mark the time, and honorary degrees that put a period at the end of one's career. Without those milestones, there's nothing to mark the time and allow for the formal withdrawal and transition into whatever-the-hell-the-next-step-is!

Instead of fading quietly into old age I find myself fixed on getting tickets to see DJ Spooky's Birth of a Nation presention next weekend (Friday and Saturday) at the Yerba Buena Art Center in San Francisco. His work is so exciting and the intellectual edge that it creates for Hip Hop culture must not go unnoticed or unheeded. He is about as cutting edge as Ken Kesey was to literature and John Cage was to music years ago, though his art will surely find greater recognition in this more eclectic world culture, and more quickly. Heard an interview yesterday where he gave the reason for his adopted name. "Music is the invisible art. There is something magical about that -- and I identify with that concept." He holds graduate degrees in both philosophy and english literature. His web site suggests that this is one to watch for future greatness. The rate of change will work in his favor, as the arts begin to catch up with technology, hopefully.

But would it be far more fitting if I took out a membership in AARP and fired up an interest in geriatric policies?

Dylan Thomas may have been right. I probably will not go quietly into that dark night!

Whose right to die?

The Terri Schiavo epic rages on. Just heard the latest news flash about the removal of the feeding tube. I felt a wave of relief -- a feeling that I had no idea I was experiencing. Found myself wondering how many others have been waiting to exhale on this one? And, when the news came, did they feel anger, despair, or did they share in my sense of relief? Have no idea how many have had occasion to deal with this or a similar situation? I faced it, alone, with both my parents.

My father, Dorson Louis Charbonnet, was blind and pretty much bedridden for the final ten years of his life. He survived to his 95th year, and though always tall and thin and seemingly frail--he actually had faired pretty well, overall. Toward the end there was diabetes to deal with but he had been fortunate to not suffer any amputations, only the blindness that results from hemorraghing behind the eyes that eventually destroys sight. This was particularly cruel since he'd always been very productive, a leader in his Catholic church, and a constant putterer around the house -- fixing and mending, hammering and measuring. I recall watching him (now almost blind) fixing something that had gone wrong with one of the doors in their home. He had determined at some point while still sighted that the space between the end of his 1st finger and the crease of the first joint was precisely one inch. He went about his work handily after adjusting to this "tool."

In the final year, after having suffered a number of minor heart attacks, a pacemaker was installed. I watched him -- when his busy life had been reduced to lying in bed monitoring his own heartbeat as recreation. He'd become obsessed with his approaching death. He said little about it, but I was aware of his preoccupation. His conversation was now sprinkled with instructions. He never used the words, but death was always a presence in the room.

Toward the end there were several trips to the hospital by ambulance as his panic began to feed on itself. Usually the call was made by Lou, the practical nurse I'd hired to be with my parents that last two years. She was wonderfully caring of them both, and after she'd called 911 , she would call to tell me to go immediately to meet the ambulance in Emergency. Those trips became more and more frequent, and the last time his doctor took me aside and told me that Dad's time had come. That Dad wanted a new pacemaker since he was certain that the old one (the one that he knew was keeping him alive) was no longer dependable. And, that Dad needed more than anything to be allowed to die in peace in his own bed at home and not here in the hospital. The physician told me almost impatiently that -- "... if you send him here we will be forced to treat him and that will simply prolong the agony." In other words, I would have to assume the responsibility of letting him die. The hospital couldn't, or wouldn't do so.

I remember how helpless I felt as I walked to where Dad was lying on the gurney. He was here now, and obviously the doctor was no longer empathetic. "After all, he's lived 95 years, right?

What was not being put into words was that the hospital did not want to care for him. He'd lived out his time now, it seemed. The doctor was placing my father's fate in my hands. I was to ignore his pleas the next time and allow him to expire. What a frightening responsibility! What a dilemma.

That very night I lay on the foot of his bed on the third floor of Providence Hospital. I'd requested that the hospital chaplin come to give him the last rites. A lovely nun (in full habit) spent extended time with us that night. I had a long monologue to his still and apparently comatose body -- the nun and I prayed together aloud, said a rosary, hoping that he could hear us -- and exhorting him to let go now. I then settled down to wait for signs of the end ... . At about three that morning I heard that long final breath, walked out to the nurse's station and told them that my father was gone. He died of congestive heart failure.

It had been a long year. I'd spent most of it working in our little store, trying to bring it back to life -- while taking care of my parents and trying to save my second marriage that was teetering from the strain of my varied family commitments. Being faced now with the responsibility of ignoring my father's undying wish to be "undying" in the face of a resistant medical practitioner had added an element that was almost more than I could bear. I've not talked about. I'm grateful that his last trip to the hospital ended the dilemma for me in that there was no need to make the decision to allow him to die because I refused him the final trip to the hospital.

So, one might say that the medical world has continued to respond to the demands of needful patients only so long as they are spared having to make the fateful decision. There are so many ways to deal with our inability to face death short of the drama being enacted in Florida today. One has to wonder about the motivations of all those involved:

The Right to Lifers who have a passion for saving life at both the beginning and end of life while being unable to empathize with those working toward an end to capital punishment, or, all those lives being lost in senseless wars on foreign shores. The irony is inescapable.

The politicians who are probably horrified at the spectacle of the Schiavo tragedy but refuse to stand up and take a position for fear of lost votes in the next elections, so sit in their legislative glory -- high above the population that might well be positively influenced were they to express something. Those who are exploiting the situation for political gain have no problem orating on the evils of that poor husband whom I sincerely believe is right on this one. Terri's parents are being parents; that is as it should be. I do feel deep sorrow for her family who cannot let her go. Those of us who have outlived children surely know that pain.

So much talk of death. Is it because I'm falling into the spell of the Lenten season? The old pull of my Catholic childhood does tend to surface at such times. I suppose it never really goes away; those emotional holds of orthodox religion on one's psyche.

Easter will come none too soon ... .

Another voice from the past ...

She was his first love. She was fourteen and he in his mid-teens. Rick and Kris were in LRY (Liberal Religious Youth) together and forged a friendship that spanned the years. It had apparently been about ten years since her last happy birthday call, so she was unaware that he had died while she was otherwise involved with her work, marriage, and family. He adored her and always mentioned their re-connections as they occurred.

His birthday was March 11th, always a dark day for me and impossible to dismiss or re-direct myself away from the recurring pain of his loss. It was on that day that Kris called and learned from David that Rick was gone. She was shocked! She since called me. I could hear the pain in her voice -- regret that she'd allowed so much time to elapse without ...

Two days ago we talked by phone and she later sent a long email that described their early innocent relationship and I am so grateful. Since he was only 16, I'm not sure that he had yet begun to understand or accept his homosexuality. He was undoubtedly in the early stages of gender confusion and would not come to terms with his true sexual identity for several years. He came out to me when he was 21 and entering into his first real same-sex relationship.

He eventually partnered with his soulmate, Gordon, with whom he would share his life in a monogamous "marriage" for 19 uninterrupted years of torment and pain; they were co-dependent alcoholics. They died about a year apart a few years ago. I wonder -- had they survived -- if today's judgement by the California courts making same-sex marriages legal might have saved them? Being same-sex, of different races, and members of a despised minority on both scores, would it have been different now?

I remember the day that Gordon died while Rick was at work. He'd been suffering from lung cancer. Rick came to my office (two blocks from their apartment) after calling to break the news. He'd called me earlier that morning to ask if I'd look in on Gordon -- if I had the time -- since "...he didn't look terribly well." We went to his place together and arrived just as the coroner was picking up Gordon's body. I'd called Gordon's physician when I couldn't reach him by phone - and was afraid to enter the apartment if, indeed, he'd died. It was awful! We then entered a nightmare when Rick called Maine to let Gordon's family know of the death . They slammed the phone down in his face! They refused to accept responsibility for the disposal of the body (we were not asking this) but also refused to release the remains to us for burial. It was dreadful!

It would be 30 days before the Coroner's office would release the body to us. Rick knew for all that time that Gordon was lying on a cold marble slab in Martinez. The law required that period before his remains could be declared abandoned, then and only then could we have him cremated and his ashes scattered as he'd wished. Rick had no legal status through which to claim the body. He never really recovered from the pain of that experience and was dead after a year from an endless drinking binge -- cirrhosis of the liver. His was a thinly-veiled suicide. He had no wish to live.

I do not know what difference it would have made to anyone that these two lovers be allowed to live out their lives as they wished -- together in law as well as in fact. I never knew Gordon's history except that he'd been married and fathered two children when very young; kids whom he loved deeply but had lost contact with. His drinking surely was in response to the guilt, the heartbreak that his gender confusion created for them all. There was his mother, a former wife, and brother and sister-in-law somewhere in Maine, but no one responded to our messages. Rick and I gathered up the few personal possessions Gordon left behind and mailed them off for his children -- in the event that they ever felt forgiving. To my knowledge those items were never returned, so maybe ... .

How much easier it would have been on that family if, as with Rick and I, he'd been able to "come out" to them at an early age. Rick was not forced to bend to societal demands for compliance with love across gender that his body could not feel. Gordon "ran away from home" to San Francisco, much later in his life -- and left a trail of tears behind him. Both their lives ended prematurely -- after the excruciating pain of rejection by a society unwilling to allow them to define themselves according to their birthright -- as gay men.

How dare we!

Kris and I will meet soon and we'll share stories and caring and I'll have the rare opportunity to get a glimpse of Rick's earliest and closest loving relationship with a girl. I suspect that she was the only girl in his life, ever. She meant a great deal to him, and the cost of following the dictates of his confused heart must have been high.

Our phone conversation was effected deeply by the fact that he's been dead for me now for several years. For Kris he died only two days ago. The loss was freshened for me through her pain. But the pain is now bittersweet as I remember how awful it was for him, and of how valiantly he tried to comply with custom and tradition, and how much self-hatred there was in both these good men.

I think of all those couples who've survived to celebrate this day, and wish them all love and peace into all the tomorrows.

Suppose Rick had suppressed his homosexuality -- that that first innocent boy/girl love had blossomed into maturity -- and at some late date, after a child or two, he'd found the lie impossible to contain? They parted with a strong friendship intact, she went on to a productive life and marriage. Were he alive today, they would have shared birthday wishes as in the past, and he would have called to tell me happily that he'd heard from Kris .. and I would have felt his delight.

How much more painful it must have been for Gordon ...?

How deeply I miss them both... .

Cultural deficits and other woes ...

It was such a small thing, really, but if so -- why on earth am I still thinking about it after all these hours?

We didn't get to Strybling Arboretum after all due to circumstances beyond our control (garage man didn't have the car serviced in time) so we had to find something else to do with the hours we'd set aside. The trip to San Francisco has to be carefully planned in order to avoid commute traffic hours and the window on that closed around noon.

So it was off to Oakland and an art exhibit I'd wanted to see for weeks. We stopped off first at the African American Library and Museum at 14th and Castro streets downtown in a cluster of historic buildings reclaimed and lovingly restored fairly recently. The old building is an architectural gem and the new use (of the old main library) is appropriate and timely in light of changing demographics in the city. The exhibits, however, are almost non-existent, or, are so scant that there's a general sense of elegant empty space when you climb that beautiful staircase to the second floor and find so little to see and honor. I suppose it's a museum in progress and much will unfold in years to come.

But what troubled me was to come a bit later when we stopped in at the Joyce Gordon Art Gallery a few blocks away, where there was a fine show featuring the work of Keba Konte -- photographer/visual artist. Keba does fascinating work in mixed media that incorporates his fine photographic subjects -- blown up and transferred to reclaimed old wood pieces by some process that I don't quite understand. I've watched his work for years now, and find it always exciting and most original.

It was in another room of the gallery that the incident that's been following me around today surfaced. There were three large paintings of familiar figures from the jazz world tastefully displayed. These were the icons of the genre. My friend asked quite innocently who they were? I was amazed! These were quite good images of Sarah Vaughn, Winton Marsalis, and Dinah Washington. I thought for a moment that the likenesses might not be quite sharp enough to be instantly recognizable -- but it wasn't that at all. A minute or so later I realized that he'd never heard of any of them. Not one. Here was that weird place where African American and European cultures are galaxies apart. He'd have instantly recognized any of the old masters (Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, et al); these were the greats in his world. They were universally accepted as the icons of music -- but in his world. Without a name plate, none would register in quite the same way in black America; except in that part of the community that had studied classical music. I cannot imagine anyone in my world who wouldn't instantly recognize the 3 jazz artists in those portraits. They are world renown, celebrated throughout Asia and on the European Continent a well as in Africa and the Middle East. How could this be?

It's something observed some posts back -- the fact that if a white person expresses ignorance of jazz it matters little, "..only a question of taste." Though were I to stand before paintings of the great European masters showing no sign of recognition (never having ever heard of them) it would surely be interpreted as a cultural deficit on my part and would have sent me to the back row of life to sit among the rest of the unwashed!

Maybe I need to be seeing this as a grand opportunity to do some bridging. Thus far I've been benefitting hughly from visiting both the visual and performing arts venues with someone steeped in the arts. It's been a rich experience and I've been loving every minute of it. Taking the time to follow the critic's columns in the NY Times and the New Yorker is new for me, and has been enriching to a life too long caught up in the immediacy and chaos of the political world.

It may be time now to check out the deficits in his experience. We're surely in sync politically -- both addicted to MoveOn, the Jon Stewart's Daily Show, AlterNet and GoogleNews, and that's gratifying. It means we can start most conversations in the middle of the third paragraph. It helps to not have to feel uncomfortable or defensive about my continuing activism. But there are obviously places in his life experience that have been left virtually untouched as both a second generation American and as a scientist serving in the academy both here and abroad. I'll need to be far more open about those places where our lives have followed divergent paths -- and where there are clear differences that need to be recognized and negotiated. Otherwise, I'm sure to find myself beginning to drift away and back to the place where there are fewer bridges to build or oceans to cross toward understanding.

It's one of the places where age, indeed, does seem to make a difference. We're both probably too close to the end to want to squander precious time and energy trying to bring into alignment impossibly alien lifestyles. I'm finding that I've had far greater access to his world than he's had to mine. So it will be my task to forge the links, I suppose.

How on earth will I ever make him realize that -- if every bit of black influence were to be magically removed from America's music -- there would be nothing left but Lawrence Welk! That may be the most accurate measure of the powerful influence of America's black classical music; Jazz. That those who have created, shaped, and re-created this brilliant art form over all the years can go unrecognized is an indication of how much we've suppressed those influences and of how effectively we've expropriated their work so that the infusion is now hardly traceable to its black roots.

"...Jazz is the only truly American contribution to the world of music." How many times have we heard those words expressed by those who shape opinion and guide the destiny of visionaries who define reality in the world of the arts?

Much to think about ... as always.

Anger has abated and life goes on ...

The anguish flushed out by Michael's death gave way to nesting bird calls, spring blossoms, and blue skies, and a quick return to today's headlines that dwarf's all that's gone before as I share concerns with the rest of my country about our administration's behavior in the world. Funny, I can be passionately African American for short bursts of time, but my pure and unadulterated "American" patriotism does tend to crowd out all but the most egregious offenses against "my people." when the need arises. I'm just as defensive about this nation as any other, maybe even more so because of the great sacrifices and indignities suffered by my ancestors over the centuries. Our investment in this country is huge -- as are my demands that we live up to the promises made so long ago by those slave-holding sexist old dead white men. Despite all, they laid the groundwork for one grand social experiment -- one that needs each of us to protect and defend ferociously. It was never more than a skeletal framework, maybe, and must be re-created by succeeding generations in order to hold and keep operative. I keep reminding myself of that each time the paralyzing anger rises and chokes off my breathing as it did from time to time this past week.

I remind myself that there was Mt. Shasta, after all, and Ashland and NIAD and Dorian's fascinating artwork -- all in the foregound to keep me whole.

Life has a way of thrusting me into the future day after day and there's less and less time to look back. But the lessons are there in a past that holds as much wonder and pleasure as it does pain.

Have been invited by the National Park Service to speak before a national gathering of educators on April 3rd. Will be recalling my World War II experiences in Jim Crow America. I've become the Park Service's reluctant Rosie -- to my surprise, and will be brought out again to utter the unspeakable. It may mean something that the country is finally able to hear those stories alongside the innocuous Rosie tales of ladies holding up the homefront while the men battled overseas (all to the tune of "Little Brown Jug"). It's becoming easier to allow myself to publicly stand up against the conventional stories in favor of re-invigorating the lessons that should have been learned and were not always.

Participated in a phone interview with the West County Times -- they're doing a story on NIAD and Dorian (along with other artists, I believe). A reporter and camera person visited with her the day before at class. It was interesting that the call came as we were visiting the Art of Living Black exhibit at the Richmond Art Center. It was easy to walk around in that environment and relate Dorrie's work in context while talking on my cell phone -- a sign of the times.

Received a call from one who is organizing a major demonstration at San Quentin Prison in relation to the impending execution by lethal injection of Stanley "Tookie" Williams. His last appeal was turned down by the Ninth Court of Appeals and only the Supreme Court now has the power to save him; or action by the governor. We're hoping that enough doubt has been cast to allow this state to re-instate a moratorium on the death penalty. Maybe the increasing number of exonerations and the re-examination of death row cases has changed the climate in the nation and change is now possible. But it will mean returning to the emotional roller coaster of the debate again. It seems such a short time since the last vigil ... .

But today we-re going to visit the Strybling Arboretum in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Been anxious to see the glorious butterfly section and the orchids collection. There are things in life that feed the soul -- the arts, the theater, music of all kinds, and the natural wonders. To let them pass without notice is to shorten one's life, I believe, and reduce one's supply of inner-ness with which we learn to withstand the chaos and continue to grow until time runs out and we become a part of the all again.

It's spring!

Michael Robert Finney, AKA Langston Wright
1950 - 2005

It was the Sixties, a time of great struggle and turmoil that marked us all -- willing or no.

Michael was a child of relative privilege with a beautiful, bright, and charming mother and a father who was one of the first and rare African American members of the city police department. His life should have been predictable, easy. His father stood perhaps 6'4' but Michael was small for a man, standing barely 5'5" and barely more than 120 pounds, as I recall. He was tiny and wiry. His small body would not contain the giant soul and smoldering outrage that eventually erupted into the rage that would consume him.

In his senior year at the University of California at Berkeley his student activism (now deeply involved with a black nationalist movement) would scream out from the front page of the S.F. Chronicle, wildly kicking a helmeted Tactical Squad officer in a violent expression of youthful justifiable racial fury! He was a very young man of principle and ideals that would smother compromise and filter out caution.

We may never know what it was like to have been the son of a member of the SFPD at a time when the legendary Black Panthers were branding them "Pigs!" Black youngsters who were less than "black" had much to prove to their peers and many of the most ferocious nationalists whom I knew had the light skin and smooth hair of "the enemy." This surely fueled matters. It surely did for me as I moved ever more deeply into blackness during those years of unprecedented political change.

In a tragic incident that would separate him forever from those who loved him, Michael and friends found themselves involved in a fatal shootout, an airplane highjacking, and eventually landing in Cuba - where they found asylum and a new life among welcoming strangers. That was 33 years ago, I believe. He was not much more than a boy, the age of my middle son, Bobby.

For Joan, for me, for our very middleclass and largely politically moderate friends, the Revolution had come home. We were devastated! These were our children, and our passivity was creating chasms of differences that either radicalized us or increased the generational differences irrevokably.

I never saw Michael again.

Over the years since, he changed his name to a combination of two of his literary heroes, Langston Wright -- for Langston Hughes and Richard Wright, of course. He mastered the language easily and quickly and eventually evolved into one of Cuba's young intellectuals and worked for Radio Havana as a jazz disc jockey. He won great love and respect and continued to nurture his ideals in a new format, in a new language, and under a new political system. His family never lost the fear that -- on the day that relations were restored with the island, Michael would be seized and returned to the states and inevitable imprisonment. They both visited him as often as possible, and maintained a close relationship over all the years. He'd left a young wife and child here, but eventually created a new family -- with a new daughter on the island. His parents juggled their feelings and allegiances enough to embrace both families, and both were represented yesterday at the memorial service.


I'd been wondering over the past few days just how I'd handle my feelings about Michael. What could I say? I'd not seen him over all the years -- though it was certainly possible to have joined Joan in a visit at some point -- though there were my aging parents to tend and my mentally-retarded daughter -- and there was my deeply-troubled alcoholic son to agonize over... all excuses, I suppose, but quite real impediments.


Yesterday I stood to speak during the testimonies of friends and families:

"Let me place Michael in context," I said. "Visualize with me a piece of parchment upon which the names of a long list of unsung heroes are traced in milk. Invisible. Heroes one and all. Heroes because they were in most cases our best and brightest; "young, gifted, and black!" These were the idealists. The passionate. These were the children of the never-enfranchised; the hosed and beaten, with memories of lynchings and Klan raids. Their time had come -- as had ours. What they did not have were patience and restraint -- but they were young and uncompromising.

Make no mistake, these were the brave young souls who could not be harnessed; who would not bend, and who dared to hold out the spectre of the unspeakable -- the possibility of an armed Black rebellion before a nation stubbornly deaf to our pleas and in the throes of violent change. These were the Bobby Huttons, H. Rap Browns, the Stokely Carmichaels, Fred Hamptons, the Huey Newtons and Bobby Seales, the Malcolm Xs, and yes, the Michael Robert Finneys. It was these brave young souls who -- by their smoldering rage made peaceful change possible. They enabled the work of Dr. Martin Luther King. Without their unbridled youthful fury success may have been even more difficult to achieve. As the ever-present frightening alternative, they stood tall and fearless and threatening as they challenged white power.

One day, probably long after I'm gone, that parchment will be brought out of hiding -- lain carefully upon some grassy plot of ground under a warm sun where those invisible tracings will be burnished brown -- made clearly legible so that the moderates among us -- far removed from the pain and anguish of radical social change -- can finally embrace these heroes who gave their futures, their young lives, to the struggle for full equality that continues unabated to this day.

I find myself, an unrepentant elder without reservation, proudly eulogizing Michael this day, regretful of the years he spent out of the arms of his family -- but grateful to learn from those of you who remained close -- how gracefully -- how uncompromisingly he lived out the remainder of his short life. Amen."

And so he was laid to rest, though much of his work remains uncompleted -- and his successors in the struggle are now largely accounted for in the prison statistics of this nation. I strongly suspect that the pacification of the inner cities has been accomplished over the years through the proliferation of crack cocaine and heroin delivered by the same forces that tried to contain the Michaels of his day. Cynical? Maybe. But one would have to be unbelievably naive and/or blindly insensitive to not see a pattern designed to protect the majority from the rest of us. But I'm exposing more of my own anger than I wish to at this point, and should leave something for another time.
Meanwhile, today's young "heroes" in the uniforms of the nation, are away on foreign shores engaged in the legal killing of brown strangers and being made to justify this as an expression of patriotism or protection of our still seriously flawed democratic process, -- with many puzzled and frightened and increasingly cynical as they as often as not must fight for personal survival against young innocent people like themselves -- those who are fighting to free their country from occupation by outside forces; us. Their fast-fading ideals were borrowed temporarily from corrupt systems and leaders far far away in a Washington situation room -- from old men without the heart for the battlefield. And one of these new soldiers bears the name of my 18 year-old Jessica, the grand daughter who was lured into the military from her high school campus by persistent and aggressive recruiters -- and who cries today in boot camp in South Carolina where she is undergoing preparation for war against ...? It's hard to not see Jessica as more of a victim than was Michael, in many ways. At least that's the way it appears from here on this, the day of his eulogy. There's little fire in her belly. There is only that vague promise that four years from now she can come home again. She will kill her way into college, though the Armed Forces brochure expresses it quite differently, of course.

If you'll scroll back to song lyrics I wrote long ago, you may find Michael buried in "Little Boy Black," or someone very like him. It was a composite of Michael and a youngster I met in Chicago at that time, a member of the Blackstone Rangers.

Maybe I'll re-enter them here, but tomorrow ...

Gloria en Excelsis Shasta!

Home again in an exalted state of being. I've seen Mt. Shasta! Is there anything anywhere on the planet to compare? I do not believe for one minute that I could have lived in the shadow of that wondrous mountain and remained a lifelong atheist. To see it and have it follow you for several miles as you travel along Highway 5 is to give up all claim to any rational intellectual capacity. For the sake of my sanity and to not be pushed off the edge of the earth by the crazies of the world, I'd long ago given up all notions of religious belief or practices. I'd satisfied my spiritual needs in unorthodox ways and insisted upon the right to define meaning for myself. In the shadow of that mountain one can easily believe in fairies, Sasquatch, magic potions that bring love or damnation to one's enemies; all within the realm of real possibility. To say that I was awed was to understate the obvious. How else does one explain the fact that this 14,183 ft. natural monument stands completely snow-covered from top to bottom when no other site within range has any more than a dusting at the crest? We were almost blinded by the brilliance of the pure alabaster whiteness under an almost cloudless blue sky. It seemed almost translucent. For miles and miles it appeared to us from left then right then straight ahead as the road bent and ribboned as if made of serpentine -- as if built to purposely provide the illusion of being surrounded by this wonder. I will read now the myths and Indian tales that must abound in the literature of the sacred mountains. How have I missed all that?

On the drive north earlier in the week we ran into a soft rain all the way from Redding, California, into Oregon. That meant that we experienced a low cloud covering that completely obscured Shasta. It wasn't until we drove south yesterday in the warmth of early spring that suddenly there it was in all its glory! It was probably just as well. I'm not sure that anything offered by mere mortals would have been more than an anti-climax.

But I'd say that mere mortals did pretty well. Ashland lived up to expectations. It fueled my determination to find some way to work with others to enrich my city through the performing arts -- and by any means necessary.

And, yes, we did get to Ashland and Richard III, Shaw's Philanderer, the world premier piece -- By the Waters of Babylon, and the hilarious early thirties romp called Room Service, plus a two-hour backstage guided tour of the wonderful world of the theater as created by the Ashland Shakespeare Festival Theaters. We were accompanied on the tour by two of the actors we'd seen in Room Service -- and would see later that evening in Richard III. There was a minor disappointment in that Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is scheduled to open on March 30th so we missed the August Wilson play. Knowing that this magical world is a mere 5-6 hours drive north (and past Mt. Shasta!) helps to remind me that one day I'll go back at a different time of year and that the trip will be timed to catch Wilson's work.

Not sure who was holding the world together until I got back, but I can't say that it mattered a great deal at the time.


Today I will attend the memorial service for Michael Finney, the son of my dear friend, Joan, and my godson. He died in Cuba where he lived his entire adult life. There is the tragedy and the genius that was Michael -- who could never come home again... . A story for another time.

I need now to get out of my paper hat and back into my mourning clothes ... .

Jamey Foxx and other loves ...

Last post before trip to Ashland.

On Saturday we attended a beautiful evening of chamber music -- a string quintet of fine women musicians; two cellos, two violas, and a brilliant violinist, the concert master for the S.F. Opera orchestra. It was another performance of the Gold Coast Chamber Players of Lafayette.

It was also an afternoon spent in Walnut Creek -- our family home from 1950 through the early 70s ... birthplace of my personal formative journey through the Black Revolution in White Suburbia. There is much residual pain, still, but I'm finally confronting it with some feeling of having "overcome."

Tom lives less than a mile from the home that we built and where my children grew up. I've rarely had occasion to drive past the old neighborhood -- and, indeed, have purposely avoided doing so most of these past years since returning to bayside. On Saturday before concert time I found myself in a situation where I was not driving -- a passenger in his car that was heading up Boulevard Way -- past the house at 2501 Warren Road, on the way to pick up something at the art store that now replaces one of ramshackled small homes that once stood there in a small orchard, across the street from the grocery store (also long gone).

Strangely enough, all of the angst seems to have been used up at some point and my only response to passing our lovely old home was to marvel that anyone would have painted over a redwood house! How on earth ...! Also, noted that the swimming pool was no longer visible, but had been filled in with earth long ago. Many of the old trees had been removed but the interesting amphitheater-shaped site was as lovely as I recalled. There was just a twinge of regret, but nothing profound. I've lived a lot of life since those years with few regrets. This house had served us well and needs to be released now to yesterday.

The experience was still near the surface when after dinner -- as we drove the short distance from Walnut Creek to Lafayette to the concert hall I felt the rush of other memories: I began to tell him about the time that Bessie Gilbert (my closest neighbor and a devout Mormon recently from Utah) and I were driving home from a shopping trip. At the bus stop on the highway nearest to our homes there were about six African American domestic workers gathered in conversation while waiting for their employers to pick them up. I was at that time waiting for a new housekeeper to arrive from Nicaragua (friend of a friend) but had placed an ad for interim help. As if sizing up a group of slaves my friend remarked casually, "Betty, when you find someone, be sure she's not built like those. They have a hard time cleaning under the beds!" I sat horrified. She was not being anything more than Bessie, and she was my friend. I could find no words to push down the beads of perspiration that suddenly popped upon my upper lip and the flush to my face. Shamefully, I sat in a painful silence as she drove on in her innocence.

When I finished my little story Tom's only remark was, "...but you have to admit, Betty, you aren't really quite Black anyway, and I don't really understand your insistance being so identified." I found myself (now older and wiser) not willing to accept his lack of understanding of my point. My voice got louder and more insistent. "I am the great granddaughter of a slave. I am African American. Why can you not simply accept that?" I am now and have always been a child of the one drop rule. Nothing will change that during my lifetime. And I have no wish that it have it otherwise."

We arrived at the concert hall where we heard the lovely Quartet #2 in D major by Borodin and the Quintet opus #39 by Glazunov. I was the only African American within a mile -- may ten -- of that historic building, I'm sure, but the appeal of such music is universal, and I got lost in it as always. The Borodin served as the source of Broadway show, Kismet -- (Baubles, Bangles and Beads -- This is my Beloved, etc.)


Last night I joined black folks everywhere to watch Jamey Foxx receive his well-deserved Academy Award for that brilliant portrayal of "Ray." I was struck by his defensive posturing during his acceptance speech -- obviously, he was finding that he was being asked to identify as an actor and not as a black actor. He was being anointed by the industry and was finding it hard to accept this conditional acceptance. I heard myself. I felt his pain. I knew that this young man was having the same struggle I'd not quite worked through, even as late as this weekend.

As usual, the answer was lying right behind my eyes and surfaced shortly before sleep took over:

Those good folks (Tom included) were puzzled by us. Why on earth -- when the door was finally being thrown open for us to walk through to unconditional integration -- would we balk?

The answer for me is that subtle racism is hidden in the fact that it is the resistance to altering the wrong perception of what an African American is. Instead of adjusting to the fact that that those perceptions were wrong and needed to be adjusted to include me instead of moving me out of my racial group and leaving it bereft of what I may have brought to the whole. That is the problem. There needs to be recognition of the fact that black folks are as complex as any other group, capable of greatness on a par with any other. Instead there is the hint in that conditional acceptance that, "...we know that you are just as good as any other. We accept that. We no longer need to categorize you in a sub class of artist (person). But don't think this means that you can hold the door open for all your scroungy relatives. You're the exception. You've risen above the others and we recognize that."

Hogwash!

There are those of us who bust the stereotypes, but that doesn't mean that we're a separate class of human being. It only means that, like anyone else, we're all one-of-a-kind people and need to be seen that way. We also demand the right to identify ourselves and not be externally defined like children. Jamey Foxx need not have been so defensive had others not made a condition of his great achievement in the movie industry that he lose something essential to his being -- something that has shaped his life 'til now, and that will continue to do so despite arguments to the contrary. His humaness came through clearly in his brief acceptance speech, as did his forgiveness of those who've trespassed against him ... .It is that this made him transcend the obstacles placed in his path at earlier times in his life. He, as did others before him, transformed the ugly stuff into heart that fuels his work and his art. He and others like him may someday translate that into systems that will help others to overcome as well. At least that's what I seem to have heard him say, though my paraphrasing may be less than perfect.

And I suspect that the breadth of my musical sensibilities -- that embraces not only Borodin and Grazunov but that still has an even more visceral response to the artistry of Ray Charles, Billie Holiday, and James Brown -- may suggest something pretty important -- though that's yet to be defined.

Dogging perceptions ...

Spent a few days this week nursing a stubborn digestive tract irritation and -- simultaneously -- some anger I couldn't trace to its source. The two (as always) were related.

As mentioned, I'm scheduled to leave early on Tuesday morning for Ashland, Oregon. The first vacation I've had in more years than I can recall. I do believe the last was the trip with my late husband that took us to the island of Kauai for an extended stay in the mid-80s. Since he died in 1987, you can see that it's been ages. I did travel for a weekend or two -- a cruise to Ensenada and one to New Mexico. But those don't really count as vacations; hardly enough time to unpack my bags.

During those trips with Bill, Dorian was living in Santa Barbara at St. Vincents Academy in the safe care of the good nuns. She graduated at 18 at which time she entered Clausen House in Oakland where she'd moved up over the years to independent living status. That's all changed now.

Early in 2004 -- and for reasons brought on by state budget cuts -- we gave up her apartment, stored her possessions, and combined our lives here in my not-nearly-large-enough condo.

Due to my really complex work and civic life, though I've lived here for several years -- I don't know any of my neighbors except for passing them on occasion in the parking area. Not true for Dorian. She's here when I'm not, and is gregarious and open and speaks with everyone whether they're responsive or not. They are surely aware of her mental deficits. She's not been treated badly in any way that I can see, nor has she been isolated.

Dorian comes in each day from her art classes (5 hours a day, 5 days a week) and plops down her bags and immediately takes off to collect the mail (she holds power over our one key) then heads for the shopping mall just two blocks away. It's a ritual. She walks around a pattern she's set for herself, and visits with kiosk personnel and picks up sample cookies at the bakery and chocolates from See's Candy. Then makes a call home on her cell to reassure me that she'll make it back before dark (usually 3:30 or 4:00). This has become a ritual and serves us well. She's made friends with the security staff, and enjoys their protection, I'm sure. Where I don't know my next door neighbors, I have gone over to meet some of the folks on her route and assured myself that she wasn't abusing the system in any way.

Back to Ashland:

When I arrived back from Mendocino a couple of weekends ago after a heavenly stay at oceanside, and as I was getting my overnight bag out of the car -- my downstairs neighbor was just driving in. She's also a senior. She mentioned that Dorian had told her that I'd been away for the weekend and that she was alone with her cats. There was no indication that this was a criticism, but a just quiet remark in passing. But I felt gently chastised. Dorrie and I had been in contact by phone each night and David had responsibility for looking in on his sister.

For reasons I'm not quite sure -- I felt the sting of criticism. My neighbor was under the perception that I was an irresponsible mother who'd gone off for whatever reason, and left this helpless young woman alone in the apartment!

It had never occurred to me to take my neighbors into my confidence by telling them that this handicapped daughter had been living independently for many years in an apartment two towns away, or that she had been learning since her sixth birthday to live beyond the life of her mother by gaining independence over many years. That coming home after the experience of learning to depend primarily upon a team of case managers, social workers, therapists, and teachers, was a regression. That those professionals and I were still working to retain what we could of those lessons over those years -- by building in some times when she was left very deliberately alone to handle her life. I'd done none of that. They couldn't possibly know. How on earth could I tune them in now? It would seem so self-serving; much more related to my new male interest than to my daughter's welfare. I'd let it get away from me. And, I couldn't live with even the perception that I was being irresponsible. What to do? At that point my gastro-intestinal system took over and rebelled! Climbed into bed and pulled the blankets over my head and tried to sleep past the dilemma.

Since Dorian really enjoys having the place to herself, to hire a "sitter" would have offended her and appeared like a measure of mistrust on my part. She, after all, is a fully grown woman who uses every single modicum of brain power that she has, and does pretty well with that. That's more than can be said for most of us, right?

Finally, an inspired thought: She loves Kokee, David's 22 year-old daughter, and Dorrie's niece. Gave a call and learned that Kokee is free to spend the nights next week at our place. It only means late evenings to morning when she leaves for work and Dorian leaves for NIAD. No problem. David is around in the event that the terrorists strike Chevron-Texaco or Berlex Chemical just up the road apiece, or if the Hayward Fault decides to slip. Dorian will not feel babysat. And, I will feel free to fully give myself to George Bernard Shaw, William Shakespeare, August Wilson et al -- on the first carefree vacation in at least two decades. My neighbors will simply have to hold their fire until I get back. But there is surely a need to take the time to clue them in on life with Dorrie, at some point. On this score I've been neglectful.

So saying, I'm up and totally symptom-free, ready to attend an evening of award-presentions at the Richmond Main Street Initiative event this very evening. And a chamber music concert and dinner tomorrow afternoon and evening. Dorian has a Special Olympics basketball tournament all-day on Sunday, so it will be a full weekend. You may not hear from me for a bit.

I'm feeling cherished, valued, beautiful, and "young." I've about decided that "youth" is in many cases simply a case of arrested development. All are feelings that go on being felt even as the years pile on, and are surely not restricted to only those young in years.

It's quite possible that a lifetime with Dorian who's stuck in childhood in many ways, has spilled over onto her mother. My concept of youth may have been distorted by that experience. I live every day with proof that years may hold little meaning with respect to the maturation process, and, with little relevance to chronological age -- the feelings and the capacity for continual growth is widely varied and Quixotic at best.

Most of life is illusory, and what we make of it depends largely upon which end of the lens we're looking through at what moment in time ... .

Photo: Three little "beauty queens" in a contest on Treasure Island during the World's Fair. I'm the 17 year-old on the left, my cousins, Ruth (Warnie-Romine-Strange) and Elaine (Allen-Wilson) were two other runners-up in this news clipping. It may be interesting to note that the young lady who actually won the contest (the ticket-selling kind) would have appeared in the bottom center of the picture -- but she was neatly clipped out by I know not whom. (T'weren't I!)

Living History ...

Happened to catch a PBS presentation of a truly fine documentary entitled "The Tallest Tree in the Forest," a leisurely look at the life of the undisputed genius, Paul Robeson. What a treasure! This discredited American will someday grace the history books as one of the greatest Americans of his or any other time. I'm sure of it.

The jerky and sometimes almost inaudible pieces of film collected over many years by those with the foresight to see through the veil of slander that damned him gave an astounding picture of the man. Participating as narrators along with his son, Paul Robeson, Jr., were Harry Belafonte, Ossie Davis, and a host of others who must have come together to share their history in common. These are also giants among black men of action and patriotism.

Robeson held a law degree from Rutgers University, was an All-American on the Rutgers football team, spoke seven languages fluently, was a concert baritone known and revered internationally, and led the black community in the earliest struggles against the bigotry that crippled the nation throughout the earliest phases. He opened up baseball by questioning its racial hiring practices -- allowing Jackie Robinson to be brought on as the first black player ever to be fielded. He challenged racial prejudice through the United Nations because it threatened our status across the world through hyprocrisy it exposed. Few would argue whether he was right in his criticism.

How does one ever know when the epochal events are interwoven with one's own life? I watched that documentary -- remembering marching in a picket line with Mr. Robeson in my youth. We were under the marquee of the Oakland Paramount theater where the disputed Walt Disney film, "Song of the South" was being shown. Later that afternoon we returned to Matt Crawford's home in Berkeley to have punch and cookies and to a playful game of "Spin the Bottle." Got kissed on the cheek by this wondrous man ... how could I have known?

Some time later my husband and I were in the audience at the Curran Theater in San Francisco to see Robeson, Jose Ferrer, and Uta Hagen, starring in Shakespeare's "Othello." It was my first experience with the work of Shakespeare. I knew little of "The Bard." I was only there to see Paul Robeson in performance. A kind of "supporting a brotha" kind of action. Funny. Again, how on earth could I have known?

It was like that evening when Mel and I and others -- at the invitation of one of our record distributors traveled to Grace Cathedral to sit in the sanctuary of that great edifice to experience Duke Ellington's first Jazz Mass (featuring Bunny Briggs in tap shoes floating before the altar as if levitating). It was when I first heard and responded to the magnificent "Come Sunday" featuring Johnny Hodges on alto sax. Small matter that much of the sound wafted up into the vaulted ceilings instead of out into the pews. I knew that the sounds I was hearing were making musical history -- but there was little understanding of just how important this worship service would be in looking back.

A few days ago I was invited to attend a film to be shown this very night at the Grand Lake theater on the shores of Lake Merritt in Oakland -- sponsored by Congresswoman Barbara Lee and honoring the memory of Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm. When the invitation came I recalled that it was at the 1972 Democratic Convention in Miami that we met. She was at that time the first woman to run for president of the nation, and the first African American woman to challenge the system by so doing. She was a small woman, not particularly impressive to one as new to politics as I was at that time, and even less knowing about the eastern movements. I know now that I slept through an important part of feminist history -- as well as African American.

Some years later, in the 80s, it was my privilege to house the Northern California headquarters for candidate Jesse Jackson in my building in South Berkeley -- and to recall now that we'd pretty much forgotten that it was (female) Ms. Chisholm who opened that door and not (male) Mr. Jackson. I was as guilty as anyone for the omission. We gloriously celebrated him for opening up the process to the under-represented, but failed to credit his predecessor in that role. Shirley Chisholm also preceded Geraldine Ferraro (vice-presidential candidate) in breaking through. We tend to forget that, too.

Makes me wonder now how future historians will look at these disturbing times we live in, and just how many times any of us have been unwitting participants in history while it was being created? Makes me want to -- even more than usual -- account for my actions by taking public positions.

How on earth can we ever know? But does it matter?

I believe that it does; critically.

Undelivered ...

This morning I discovered in AlterNet a column written by Christopher Rabb of Afro-Netizen. It was sharp and cogent and struck a nerve that sent me to his website to respond. The email was returned by Daemon as undeliverable. I felt frustrated. I wondered how many other African Americans who inhabit cyberspace simply knew nothing about this valuable resource, and that he had been "our" man in New York during the November convention as a credentialed blogger? How I wish I'd known. It may take years before we'll learn to organize using the power of this magical instrument and make of it the kind of political asset that it has begun to create in other communities. There has to be a beginning place. Maybe this is one of them. There may be other African Americans reading here for whatever reason, and just maybe they'll find a way to help to connect the dots between the various forms of "The Drum" so that our power can be expanded and enhanced. If anyone knows Mr. Rabb, do let me know so that I can add at least one more small fragment to the quilt he's been trying to create over what appears to be several years.

This was my message:

Dear Mr. Rabb:

"I'm a West Coast African American elder (83) who has been online since the Internet was called "The Well," and blogging since fall of 2003 (http://cbreaux.blogspot.com/)

I, too, am anxiously waiting for greater black representation among the
bloggers, so that through this magical medium, we can skip through the
generations of change by passing along the history that precedes current
struggles.

Those of us whose lives have spanned slavery, Jim Crow, the Civil Right battles of the Sixties, the periods of regressions that followed, have a duty to inform. I was 27 when my slave ancestor joined hers. She was born in 1846 and died at 102 in 1948. I was born in 1921. Just think of the history embedded in brains like mine; and the opportunity now to "download" that into the Blogosphere for our progeny to build upon. It's mind-boggling! But we're not only hauling around this genetic windfall but many of us are continuing to contribute to and mold history through activism and continuing influence.

Not sure how many of my contemporaries are "out there" and still coherent, but given the longevity that my own family enjoys, it would not surprise me a bit to find many. It's quite possible that those of us who are descendants of those hardy survivors of the Middle Passage carry strengths as yet unrecognized.

Delighted to have found you.

Betty Reid Soskin,
Richmond, California


If Afro-Netizen has gone dormant it would be a pity. Mr. Rabb has made an important contribution to black online political life and nothing would please me more than to become a part of that in some small way. I found his listed links to be an extension of my own. Perhaps you'll find the same. Perhaps one day I'll list the places online that I visit regularly; should that be of interest. That might mean that -- should we ever meet -- we can start our conversations in the middle of the sixth paragraph.

Watched an interesting discussion on CSPAN yesterday --

of an event that happened mid-week, I gathered, though I tuned in after it started and missed the introductions. The words weren't particularly new. I've been getting them in bits and pieces but the hysteria was simply too strong to allow them into my cortex. This time I heard both the words and the meanings. By the time I'd watched for a fair amount of time I could feel myself relaxing ... feeling as if someone had placed a hand on my chest and held me back from I know not what.

They were discussing the nation's gradual slide into Fascism (though no one used the word). They were doing a retrospective on the past years. What was different was that these were not the conspiracy theorists; the usual suspects. This was the honored mainstream "establishment." Their names were recognizable as members of wellknown think tanks, foundations, study groups -- and from both sides of the Atlantic. A number of speakers agreed that our present world-dominating stance had not happened yesterday or the day before, or even ten years ago, but had been a slow but steady meticulously planned takeover that started at least forty years ago. That was the point where I felt myself exhale. Of course. This critical debate has finally risen to prominence in the national consciousness. Surely this is the beginning.

The point was made that it took many years for Spain to come back from Franco and that the Soviet Union was still recovering from a succession of takeovers. Italy and Germany had been different in that their military losses had forced change almost overnight.

Seeing ourselves in this context was both frightening and sobering in that it removed the expection of having to restore our systems between now and the next election cycle. There is some small relief in that. I surely will not live to see how it all turns out. We'll need to re-educate our population before that restoration can even begin. The task is enormous and turning the juggernaut of Democracy is far more difficult than any other form of government, I'm sure. There's not yet enough recognition among our citizens that a change of course is needed at this point, and probably won't be until after we've suffered through the coming economic and ecological collapse that heads wiser than mine have forecast.

Though disturbing, the good thing about that discussion was that I finally could accept the fact that sharp minds with power were grappling with these issues, and that the corrective course is surely being designed even as we speak. These analyses helped me to see that the chaos is not total, and that we are not yet powerless. Progressive think tanks are pouring over the developments of the last administration and are preparing for the next. The wheels are turning and the pendulum has already begun to trace the arc toward the Left.

It will be hair-raising, I'm sure, but when the program ended I felt better -- at least in the moment. I can only pray now, that those flawed but wise old dead white men of vision who designed our Constitution and Bill of Rights will have placed enough "give" in them to rein us in one more time, and that by the end of the next decade, at least, recovery will be well on its way to restoring our freedoms -- and will have removed the threat of a nuclear holocaust from the rest of the world.

But, it's not a good sign that Camilla and Charles have now relegated stories on the Middle East to page seven!

I'm fast becoming an escapist;

losing any ability to connect with the headlines. I cancelled the subscription to the local newspaper months ago and haven't missed it -- and I'm a news junkie. I scan the headlines in the Washington and New York Posts daily, giving more attention to AlterNet and TruthOut, but skipping all but the editorial columns much of the time. At some point the day-to-day outrages have so fueled my fears that even the Six O'clock News fails to draw me in anymore. However, I never miss the Daily Show and Jon Stewart's outrageous satire. Maybe the indirect view is less frightening for me. It's so hard to tell the real from the unreal now, and made-up news is less crazy than what is coming out of the Capitol. The final blow was to discover that "made-up news" is also coming out of official sources and paid for by taxpayer dollars, at that. It's becoming even more difficult to tell where to place one's trust in news sources than ever before.

I continue to wait for reactions to come from leadership -- from anywhere; the arts, the state capitol, Washington, city hall, county seat. I'm beginning to suspect with increasing dread that much of the nation is precisely where I am; paralyzed with fear and no longer able to respond. And this is probably just as true for those blue cities caught in red states. This must not be!

I keep reminding myself that what is happening to us all -- worldwide -- is a runaway global takeover by hostile forces (yes, I know that's wild talk), and that crossing the point of no return on the environmental breakdowns can only be topped by the impending economic collapse, and the resulting panic and devastation of the planet. I also remind myself that such words would have been seen as hyperbole only a short time ago, but now are highly possible -- and my grandchildren will not be spared, nor will yours.

Today I will prod myself into acting somewhere beyond my self-imposed limits. Last night I was in the audience at Berkeley Arts Magnet school where my two youngest granddaughters are students. The innocence of those children, the hope shining from the faces of young parents, convinced me that giving up and continuing to cede power to forces beyond my control has never been a valid response. I must return to the old ways of acting on pure faith that invisible others are out there waiting for me to help to shoulder the burden of change as in the past, and that I'm still capable of doing so.

Whistling in the dark may be all we have left, but whistle I will! (At least until the next awful disclosure, appointment, or act of aggression.)

Oh, word has come from army recuit, granddaughter Jessica, from the South Carolina Boot Camp. She's terrified, angry, disappointed, and wants to come home. At 18 she is just one more youngster who yielded to the temptations set forth by the recruiters in the inner city, and exemplifies the new "all volunteer" army. This will take more than whistling... .

Just a thought in passing (my computer):

Realized upon reading that last post that I'd coupled the name Vivaldi with Billy Strayhorne and Duke Ellington. Any reader might see that as odd, in a way. Surely these could not be seen as peers, or could they? In my world the answer is a resounding "yes!"

His daughter is a very fine musician who doubles as artistic director of a great chamber music group with which she performs. She plays viola, magnificently. Have attended her concerts and am struck by how disciplined and exact is European music; so unlike that which I've heard and/or participated in for most of my life. I was never serious musician, but surely possessed a knowing and educated ear with some small talent to match. I've been creating music since childhood, and performed with those with greater expertise than my own on occasion. Most of my own music comes from somewhere deep within; is not intellectual. Not learned. Simply "known." I'd always believed that what I knew, everyone knew.

For me, there is a clear difference between black and white cultures. White (European) culture seems to reward adherence to what has gone before. Faithful emulation of style and substance in the arts provides the measure of worth. The great masters have already made their brilliant contributions, and (like the bible to the Christian), are the paragons -- provide the template -- for what follows down through time. The "translations" are quite literal. Interpretation is subtle and can rarely be detected by the untrained ear, but only by those educated to the original presentation of a composition by the composer.

On the other hand, Black culture tends to reward originality,innovation, and creativity. We continue to set the pace in the arts (particularly music), and to create the road map for others to follow. Until recently, one would rarely hear any new black artist rise to prominence without having created some new sound or pattern or beat. The Billie Holidays and Duke Ellingtons and Charlie Parkers and Ella Fitzeralds each brought individuality (style) into the music, and set new standards for their imitators. It seems only since the world of black music has been effected by its commercial worth that this has changed. What can be "marketed" now dictates what rises to the top and not what is a strong new direction by some innovative vocal or instrumental artist. The marketplace is changing the criteria slowly but surely. But "the beat" within us will survive even market trends, I trust.

We're continuously creating and re-creating language from the streets, the music, dance, decade after decade, and having an effect upon the cultures of the rest of the world despite all. Hip Hop has replaced bebop and fusion of my time, and ushered in this worldwide phenomenon that the young people of every country now reflects back to us.

I cannot believe that any "great master" at any time in history could have -- as did choirmaster Terrence Kelly -- molded that choir at his illustrious father's funeral into the stirring "instrument" that could perform the thrilling soul-piercing original rendition of "Steal Away" that brought unshed tears that remained for hours afterward -- waiting for release and finding none. There are no words ... .

It's occurred to me in sitting in the audience in (middle American) Lafayette, that if my friend or his daughter has a deaf ear for or lack of understanding and appreciation of Jazz or Hip Hop they are seen as expressing their personal "taste" in music. On the other hand, if I have no ear for or understanding of chamber music or the symphonic works of Haydn, it tends to be seen as a cultural deficit -- a flaw in my education or training -- and surely indicates my level of sophistication.

This also may simply be associated with my declining interest in European cultures over the past several decades, since re-discovering more of African sensibilities. But it gives me some inkling into the distances still to be negotiated between worlds, and of my own need to continue to locate the bridges -- and cross them when possible.