Because the subject came up during an interview after my talk last week, I find myself thinking about feminism -- and why my coming to terms with it was so late ...

... but with some background, maybe my case can be made.

When the women's movement began to hit like a juggernaut in the suburbs where I was living in the late 60's through the 80's, it tended to skip our address.

My world was peopled by middle class and upper-middle class wives and mothers of absentee upward-mobile husbands, and the air was filled with bitterness and resentment as the controversial book, "Feminine Mistique" hit the market.  At the time my attitude was much as it is when Rosie the Riveter is mentioned in my world of today.  In my life it was simply a non-issue; a white woman's story having little to do with my life.

Truth was that the oppression I experienced was not coming from the men in my life (father, uncles, husband) who were living under the same oppression as were we.  And ours was from the white world; and mostly from white women.   I'd had little occasion to interact with white men.  Neither did my mother nor my aunts since their roles in life, historically, involved working in private homes and being supervised by white women.   Our uncles and fathers were of the service worker generation with few if any positions open to them above that level, so racism was a strong factor in their lives.  Ever since slavery this had been true.  As women we were aware of the degrading hoops our men were forced to jump through in order to support their families.

This being so, the memory of the Sixties civil rights revolution was marked by black women being sensitive to the plight of black men and at that time there was a resistance to stepping up in front of our men or to compete for power in society where we might be called upon for leadership.

I remember that in the late Sixties while attending a national black power conference in Chicago the opportunity to become a part of a national board upon which I would be the only female -- and that I refused to accept the role while feeling that I was more than qualified to do so.  It was the Black Caucus of the Unitarian Universalist Church, an organization that had gathered together about 500 black intellectuals -- mostly humanists -- from throughout the country to struggle for equality within the predominantly white denomination.  I'd gone there with the full support of my local church which funded my participation though I was one of only 3 black members at the time, I believe.  At the time the conflicting goals of racial integration and black power were under intense scrutiny, and I was right in the middle of the debate.

The second year we came together in Cleveland where the Black Caucus was registered at the same Hilton Hotel as the general annual conference of UU's, but we were not meeting with the full body while making our claims for political and denominational power.  We met separately for several days, with our black men negotiating behind closed doors with the general body and bringing back reports of their progress to our caucus.

At the final plenary session our issues had been successfully negotiated, and our caucus was to open to celebration.  Mind you, black caucus women had participated in few if any of the negotiations up to the time, and were busy doing the behind the scenes "grunt" work and planning the caucus celebration in our self-segregated separate-but-equal hotel suites.

The hour came for our victory party.  We found ourselves sitting in small groups chatting nervously whatever nonsense came to mind as the clock ticked mercilessly on as we anxiously waited for male friends, co-conspirators, and husbands to join us.  I remember the heavy unspoken feelings of embarrassment as the ice melted in the punch, the brie began to melt into formless blobs, and the icing on the brownies grew sticky and stale ... .  Unfortunately, our men had opted for the "white" parties in other places in the hotel where the young white women they'd charmed during the week were waiting.

The evening just before leaving the conference I participated in an encounter group session called by the emotionally-bruised women.  There was a highly volatile confrontation with the men.  It was one of the most intensely-charged meetings I've ever experienced.  I cowered in a dark corner next to my friend, the late Henry Hampton (of Blacksides Productions that produced the highly-acclaimed Eyes on the Prize for PBS) who, along with several other men, shared the outrage of the tearful sistahs.  The men were petulant, defensive in the face of the brutal honesty of the women, and on an ego-centric high from their conquests.  Little of value was achieved that fateful night, and it was a prelude to the many break-ups of relationships and marriages over the following decade.

Long into the years after the women's movement was formed, memories of that evening continued to fester.  I was aware that -- as we'd stood aside to make room for our men to gain their rightful leadership roles in the workplace and in society as-a-whole -- it was often white women who unknowingly stepped into the leadership vacumn we'd deliberately left unfilled.

Early in the Movement, as white women began to crash through the glass ceiling, black women were hired to take care of the newly-abandoned households and children in order to enable former housewives to take their places around corporate boardroom tables, so there was a lag between white and black women's ability to access economic and political power.  It was eventually noticed  that black women were slow to enter the Movement and that far fewer were hired into domestic roles, as those roles were gradually and systematically taken over by undocumented immigrant women who were willing to work for less in exchange for the promise of eventual sponsorship by their employers. Despite the fact that this was a different cohort of black women, this meant that the low-skilled jobs previously filled by poorly-educated black women were no longer available with huge economic impacts to their families and communities; effecting all black lives.  Black women, in general, were again pushed to the bottom rung of the economic ladder for reasons beyond their control.

Today, with such a high percentage of black males being caught up in the underground economy fueled by the drug trade and imprisonment (and those not being claimed by Kardashian women), they are far less likely to be candidates for marriage.  Black women have had to achieve financial independence through continuing education and greater job opportunities.  Many have successfully done that, are becoming accomplished in every field, and are single mothers by choice in order to live a more complete life. 

The case for a delayed entry into Feminism may be the main reason that I'm so turned off by the identification of my role in the home front story as a "Rosie the Riveter."  I believe that there is still some residual pain that has persisted into these years, and that continues to prevent a full-fledged alignment with the cause of women's equality though, intellectually, I see the need for achieving those rights in order to have a more fully balanced society.

As long as white women are seen as the generic woman and all the rest of us continue to be seen as "somethin' else", my personal view of that reality will probably remain unresolved.

During the Q&A on Saturday, a visitor asked if the warfare currently underway in the Middle East doesn't take priority on our list of things needing direct action?

Without hesitation my response was, "no, climate change must be acknowledged and accepted before anything else can be addressed."

I found myself wondering on the short drive back to my apartment if this is what I truly believe?

It was then that I realized how enured I've become to the horrific violence we're living with every day, and how desensitized I'm becoming.  Maybe we all are falling victim to an acceptance of a level of inhumanity that not too long ago would have been unthinkable.

Not only on "the dark continent of Africa," but in our own streets against the homeless; against young black and brown men by police who have become our para-military forces; on television in a constant stream of crime shows; stories of unsolved "cold" cases; an airliner with a young depressive at the controls crashing into an Alpine mountainside; helpless young people gunned down on a faraway college campus; young women being kidnapped and sold into sex trafficking never to return; so much, so awful, so endless ... .

Is this the way of the world that has always been and that we're only now -- through the insistence of technology -- unable to escape knowing about?  Are we being de-civilized at an accelerated rate?

... then I found myself admitting that the foreground of my life; and maybe all of our lives, doesn't reflect that reality at all.  That my days are made up of good friends doing great things, kind thoughts and pleasurable prospects ... while in the background there is world misery that is almost too much to incorporate without being threatened with the onset of soul-searing depression of the kind that shared the controls with that young mentally disturbed pilot!

Maybe it's the result of the fact that in ancient times only the catastrophic (earthquakes, wild fires, and other natural disasters) would extend beyond the borders of our villages until a crier from the other side of the mountain brought news weeks and maybe months after the fact.  We were protected by the isolation of the times in which we were living.  That no longer is possible.  If ISIS invades Syria within hours we have not only a count of the casualties, but the most horrific details of the actual methods used to vanquish their perceived enemies.

... and the most dire of all fates tends to pale in comparison with the immediate dangers -- that most dire threat of all would be the now-impending destruction of the planet due to man's effect upon the living environment, and the destructive denial by a few of the most powerful among us who fail to see any way to profit from planetary protection.  Until they can decide among themselves just who can lay claim to the Sun, itself, we may have to stand by helpless against their all-consuming greed.

How does one mere mortal attempt to balance all that without losing any sense of control over even one's own destiny?

This is a time when I'm so aware that there is but one Life, and that we're all sharing it. 

As if having the Secretary of the Interior Jewell pay us a surprise visit last week weren't quite enough ...

... The Today Show announced through our superintendent that their crew would be visiting on Wednesday, April 15, to film my next public bus tour! 

I'm trying desperately hard to not allow myself to even think about what lies ahead, and today is Easter Sunday and I've no exciting plans to take up my thoughts and calm the anxiety so my mind is now leaping ahead with a noticeable tightening of every nerve and sinew in my body!

There are ten days until that happens, but by the time our park visitors begin to gather at our front doorway to board the bus on that morning -- I may be ready for the Looney Bin!

One would think that all of this would be routine by now, after all it's been almost two years since the governmental shutdown happened, and the public exposure that has become such a major part of my daily existence.  But for reasons I cannot explain, I'm suddenly feeling crowded and vulnerable ... and there's that familiar sense of unworthiness... this, even at a time when I'm feeling so effective in my presentations, and deeply aware that I'm doing good work that is being recognized widely.

I suspect that -- as I feel the now familiar surge of adrenaline each time upon entering the little theater and that rush of whatever-it-is that brings such closeness between me and those faces that makes for such a feeling of intimacy and that graces the room with each experience -- so it will be as we board the bus for our tour of those scattered park sites.  So it will be, hopefully, when those cameras are rolling ...

Will let you know when it will be shown.  And, as is customary, that crew will spend 4 hours with us to capture 3 minutes of air time!  So why should this seem any more than what we've been through before with these media teams?  Since the next week is National Parks Week, it's probably safe to assume that it is for this that this piece is being produced, and then life will return to whatever we deem is our new normal.

What more can lie ahead?

We keep "max-ing" out!

The question comes up occasionally during the Q&A, and I don't think that it's being answered as completely as it should be ... .

"You are obviously well-educated, Betty, what college did you attend?"  Usually asked by someone who then goes on to add, "... your vocabulary certainly reveals that."

There is usually a pause of a few seconds as I weigh just how to respond, and it may interest you to know that there is some discomfort -- uncertainty -- an awareness of what I've always seen as a deficit in my education.  My education didn't extend beyond high school, so to answer with what feels to me as a reminder that I'm among the unwashed ... .

It occurs to me that what we have here is a lack of complexity that doesn't allow the truth to be revealed; my answer should be nuanced.  It is this:

My education took place when the California public school system was the envy of the known world. This would have been prior to the enactment of Proposition 13 which started the dismantling of that system.

Also, because there were so few African Americans living in the State or the Greater Bay Area before WWII, there were few reasons to have anything but a great general education for everyone, so I escaped the handicap of being squashed under the crushing weight of low expectations that now becomes the fate of disadvantaged children of color.  For whatever it was worth, I was receiving the same training into the same culture as those around me.

Not only were my influences Jack London, Mark Twain, Willa Cather, the Bronte Sisters, Rudyard Kipling, Louisa Mae Alcott and Edna St. Vincent Millay, Alfred Noyes, James Whitcomb Riley,  and Eugene O'Neill, but by fifth grade I was singing the operatic works of Giuseppe Verdi, and Sibelius's Finlandia with our glee club!

Richard Wright's Native Son and the poems of Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, and Gwendolyn Brooks I would not be exposed to until young adulthood. By then my racial designation would have become hyphenated by the experiences of WWII on the Home Front and the Civil Rights Revolution of the Sixties.  Before then I was simply a youngster being educated to the majority culture.

Of course, one might say that I was missing the black artists, authors, and scholars, and that is true. But I was being educated for the state and nation I was growing up in, and being acculturated at the same time -- which would serve me well over time.  The fact that, eventually, I would be exposed, in depth, to both black and white cultures has been a gift to be cherished.  Maybe that would be the ideal for us all.

In high school we performed Maxwell Anderson's Winterset in my junior year drama class, and I read and analyzed Shakespeare in English Lit as a senior.  The training received in Mr. Bill McLaughlin's public speaking class is still with me in our little theater every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.  "Stand straight with weight on front foot -- take a deep breath, and start the first word on an exhale, etc."  The ability to analyze material, debate issues, and defend my positions was nurtured by what happened in that exciting class where kids could differ and grow.  Where questioning was encouraged, and cynicism rewarded if rational.

And I can still hear those oratorios screamed in the thin treble-clef voices of children before the little silver pitch pipe and waving baton of full-bosomed and bespectacled Mrs. Edith Reiniger whose great passion for Giuseppe Verdi's il Trovatore fed our little souls.  No I've been working on the railroad or My Darling Clementine for us!

... and at this point it matters not that throughout my childhood and into my adult years I still remember that California was first settled by Father Wanna-pera Serra!  (How on earth did that young teacher ever get out of school without learning how to pronounce Junipero?)  But nothing's perfect, right? ...  not even the greatest educational system in the world in its day. 

"I didn't go to college," then is probably only half true.  The fact of when I was educated says it all, I think.  I'm guessing that those students who shared those years with me received what would be seen today as at least two years of learning in any community college or higher.

This all happened, of course, before the systematic dismantling of public education began in this country, and before charter schools would be even dreamed of.  And those, you remember, were the years of the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), joblessness and bread lines, and my mother turning up at "Sally Ann's" (the Salvation Army store) early on Thursday mornings when the trucks were unloaded -- to get first crack at whatever books (for 25 cents) were among those discarded by the "Haves".

"I didn't go to college," are words that simply don't cover my educational experience.

Not even close.

I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto ... .

... and the Yellow Brick Road looks unexpectedly familiar.  Though there have been rough places and demons to do battle with along the way -- little here is surprising.  And I blush to admit that so unashamedly.  It's not that I don't see the specialness of it all, it's just that the miraculous aspect of everyday life is something I'm tapping into more and more these days, with a growing sense of wonder that we tend to walk through the miracles each and every day without fully appreciating this life as it unfolds before us in whatever ways it expresses itself.

Wish I could figure out how to share the great video piece that ran throughout the Department of Interior on their weekly "This week at Interior March 27, 2015" but you can access it on YouTube.com if you wish.  I can't figure out a way to link it, or, to even fix it so that you can copy and paste, and today is Sunday and I'm at home without the benefit of being able to have our graphics person, Luther Bailey, walk me through it.

Suffices to say that last week's visit to Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park of not only the Secretary of the Interior, Sally Jewell, but Jon Jarvis, National Director of the National Park Service, and, regional director Chris Lehnertz, as well, spent Thursday afternoon with us, and a warmer more congenial group I've rarely experienced.  What a time!  Sally Jewell is someone I'd find it very easy to love.  What a charismatic and lovely woman is she!

That they were truly impressed by what we're building here was clearly obvious.  That we're layering back in the nuances and complexities of the Era of WWII at a time when those lives and times are so often compacted into bumper stickers is being appreciated by Washington.  It is clear that those whose work guides our ability to do that are fully aware of our challenges and small victories.  I don't think I've ever felt so affirmed.  So surrounded by enablers.  We all did.  

The day ended with a quick drive home to change out of uniform and into more glamorous civvies to attend a reception at Alumna House on the UC Berkeley Campus -- held in honor of the dignitaries gathered here for consideration of plans for the upcoming National Park Service Centennial year 2016, and to tackle the vitally important environmental questions that are before us as a nation and a world.

... it was during the reception in that lovely tree-shaded gracefully designed building that I felt the first pangs of being completely awestruck by the unexpected turn my life has taken in recent weeks.  Upon arrival I entered the room where there was not a single familiar face.  Having outlived most of my contemporaries, I'm now facing a re-peopled world.  I'd arrived far too early and before the others came.   But standing nearby was the UC Board of Regents Chair, Janet Napolitano, and just beyond, historian Douglas Brinkley.

The world of the Academy was alien to me, but reminiscent of the years spent as a faculty wife, Mrs. Dr. William F Soskin, Ph.D., research psychologist connected with Tolman Hall on this very campus.  I'd never quite fit into that Betty's shoes, and the ten years we spent together hardly made a dent in that insecurity, though they brought new opportunities for learning previously not open to me, and re-cast my known world with new friends and possibilities.  It was those years that launched political Betty.

This time I'm the grownup!  These are the kids.  I've attained an eminence over the years through  unsubscribed and unintentional ways but it doesn't really matter at this point.

The game's almost over ... and just when I'm finally beginning to understand the rules of engagement ... .

What a week this has been ... !

The Department of Interior's piece was released to social media, and in one fell swoop I'm big news across the whole country!  Can you imagine?

When released it was re-Tweeted by the White House (have no idea what that means), but my imagination is running wild -- and I imagine the Obamas reading about this lil' ole lady ranger on the West Coast (crazy!), and wondering if the National Park Service has lost its collective mind!  A somewhat overripe but still-functioning park ranger let loose in the system -- and at a time when any other elder with an ounce of common sense is retiring into RV travel and registering for burial insurance!

I'm more and more convinced that -- at a time when contemporary culture would have us producing more and more Botox commercials and anti-wrinkle solutions; when public television is running fundraisers on "Aging in Reverse.  When we're being treated to a full season of television based on thugs and low lifers at all levels and in all ethnicities and races; with real life crime shows almost impossible to avoid; with frequent Amber Alerts and car chases feeding our need to be charged up, emotionally.  With racism and brutality on the rise and government response inadequate to the new challenges due to partisanship and short-sightedness, especially on environmental issues that grow more terrifying with each day, maybe we're searching for relief in new lifestyle possibilities.

Maybe we're just starved for relief from all of it and, as it was during the government shutdown, the sight of a real grown-up on the media (me!) serves to provide a false sense of security.

Maybe natural grey hair and well-earned wrinkles appear less to be feared.  Maybe someone who appears to have found a way to get through life without succumbing to all that can offer an alternative to the adulation of youth model.

I've not reached this place unscathed; this journal reveals some of that, but overall I seem to have come to terms with Life, at least if one doesn't look too closely... .

There is so little in all this that seems personal to me.

I don't think that I'm being overly modest.  I know that I've done and am doing good work, and am grateful that this is being recognized, but it feels excessive at times, and it's difficult to be the hottest thing in the supermarket checkout line when you're wearing mismatched socks and no makeup -- a perfect right of any lil' ole lady whose supply of shredded wheat and prune juice is running low ... .

Besides all that the plain truth is that the secret of my success may be that I discovered by sheer accident -- if I do it just right -- putting my ranger hat on, that is.  I raise my brows as if caught by surprise -- and start by setting the front edge of the brim in place on my forehead -- then while applying gentle pressure as I set my hat in place the effect is that it gives me a $1200 nonsurgical brow lift!   Problem is that everything falls when I remove my hat ...

... but you can't have it all.

 This link should take you to the Department of Interior article ... .


http://www.doi.gov/employees/news/womens-history-month-an-interview-with-93-year-old-national-park-service-ranger-betty-reid-soskin.cfm

I think you have to copy and paste this link into your web browser.

Will keep trying to get it into a hyperlink.

18 with a long life ahead ...

The significance of my work of the past few days is only now beginning to dawn ...

About ten days ago I received an email from our superintendent saying that he'd had a request from the Department of Interior for an interview from me.  He forwarded the information with his response which had been, "here is Betty's information and you may contact her directly."


This being Women's History Month, it seems that the Department has decided to profile the National Park Service's "Oldest Park Ranger," and -- since I'm involved with a number of engagements already calendared and waiting -- this was just another such.  It's kind of "what I do." I hold a unique position of being an original source with the responsibility of sharing historic information when and where appropriate to the community, service clubs, agencies, educational institutions, on site, as needed.  This appeared to be within the area of my "expertise" and little more.

Now that I've completed a lengthy Q&A and had several brief phone conversations with the editor, it's beginning to be obvious that this is a bit more than out of the ordinary.

52 and counting ...

It wasn't until our deputy superintendent brought it to my attention (when I gave her the draft that had been forwarded for corrections) that this was not the National Park Service, but for the parent agency, The Department of Interior.  That the editor, Donna Margelos, was spending the major part of her work week reading and re-reading my blog; listening to video interviews that exist online; viewing DVDs and scanning my entire life as it exists online every day.

At my end -- between spare moments in my schedule of events -- I was finding myself searching out photos to send that span my entire existence since my 20th birthday!

This is big!  How big?  I have no idea, but it feels awesome.

The editor asked at one point, whether anyone at the National Park Service is capturing my blog -- and I had to admit that it had never occurred to me that anyone needed to ... that it was written as a way to process life as it whizzed by -- and -- since I'm really in conversation with my family and myself (mostly), and since I only write on my days off or late evenings ... it is strangely still a personal document.  It just never dawned that anyone else would see any value in the thoughts of an aging woman ... .

S. F. Giant's Game Day
90, and almost there ...

I'm hardly aware of any other readers, though on occasion (when someone asks) I try to check the numbers, but they're unimpressive at best, so for the most part outside readers are not my audience.  Leaving a record of my life for my family has always been the objective.

Some time this week The DOI project will be released -- where or how is still a mystery.  Ms. Margelos said something about "social media," and "a new young audience," but I know little beyond that.  It was just another assignment from superintendent Tom Leatherman, and that's about as far as it went.

Fortunately, the national attention has been incrementally growing, and each assignment (last week it was,Tom Bentley, a writer for the  American Scholar," the publication for the Phi Beta Kappa Society which has an interest in my blog; the week before it was Steve Early, Labor writer, who has a new book in process in which I'm included.) Early had been on board for two of my recent bus tours, and attended several of my afternoon presentatioins.  Until the Department of Interior's far more detailed piece required some work on my part, I really took it all in as just "what I do."

But it's far more than that, obviously.

The future is still opening up and the portals are widening even as we speak ...

What a week this has been -- so memorable ...

... among other things -- on Wednesday I finally got to Alcatraz Island, and the Ai Wei Wei exhibit.  It is so moving ... so important.  It will close in April, which is much too soon.

Learning about how it was executed -- with the artist still confined under house arrest in China and unable to participate in the installation except by long distance, and with the involvement of local artists who used his designs through detailed instructions to fabricate the disparate pieces into reality.  They're astounding! The Kite; the Wing -- the stories that came to us through interpretive Ranger John Cantwell and his 28 years of working on the Island ... .

There was a moment when standing among the reproductions (in Legos) of a worldwide collection of images of political prisoners -- when I felt a sensory overload and had to momentarily withdraw -- to remove myself from that place into myself and away from the present by turning my back on the exhibit to look out of one of the multitude of windows toward the beautiful Golden Gate ... .

The experience was beyond surreal.

Alcatraz has a visitation of 5000 tourists a day; one million per year.  Ferries are boarded at Pier 33 in San Francisco; 300/trip, and tourists from every state and nation arrive every half hour throughout the day, with every boat trip sold out.  While my friend, Ann, and I were being guided by Ranger Cantwell, there was a brief exchange with a group of four young people who were visiting from Sweden; a reminder of how far-reaching is the influence of this work of Wei Wei and the long arm of the National Park Service which has enabled this remarkable cultural exchange.

I was not prepared for the beauty of the site that is not as overwhelmed by the desolation and decay as one might expect.  Though the evidence of its lengthy Armed Forces history plus the 49 years of life as the nation's infamous maximum security prison are clearly dominant, the beautiful historic gardens and Mediterranean-like site is much as one might have expected to find somewhere in Italian waters.

And, as we boarded the ferry for the scenic trip back to Pier 33 the captain allowed me to take the wheel for a while and guide the vessel back to shore -- with 300 unsuspecting tourists on the decks below!

My "famosity" (yeah, I know that isn't a word -- yet) may be getting into the way of my work ... .

... this great cover for the in-house Geico publication arrived on my chair in the headquarters offices yesterday.  I vaguely recalled doing a phone interview early in the year, and that I'd referred the caller to our superintendent because this was one of the many media inquiries resulting from the governmental shutdown last year -- and, yes, they're still coming. Unlike most that had come from other agencies and/or nonprofits, this was clearly a commercial enterprise and might be subject to different protocols.  After all, we're a federal agency and there are regulations to cover such things.  Since such decisions come at a far higher level than mine, we needed clearance, but eventually the go-ahead came and the 30-minute interview took place, but was quickly forgotten in the busyness of daily life.

Yesterday when I reached my desk at park headquarters in the Civic Center, there was an official-looking manila envelop on my chair with the return address of the office of the superintendent of  Mount Rainer National Park in Washington State.  In it was a brief note from his secretary, Donna Rahier,  stating that this had been dropped off at their office, and that she was forwarding it hoping that it would reach me.  The envelop held this cover page and the inside article (great!) that was brief and accompanied another photo.  This was the first I'd seen it, and only then did I remember this interview ever occurring.  I loved it and her thoughtfulness in getting it to me.  I might never have known ... .

... but what it brought up for me was the fact that much of this media attention might be rising from the need of the up-coming and aging Boomer generation to have role models for later life ... could be. The old models of avoidance and denial of the aging process may be finally dying, and in its place this generation of my children may be developing a hunger for meaning of a different kind.  Maybe we elders who continue to hang in and thrive are creating hope for a generation tiring of the adulation of youth model and are searching for something more meaningful to hang their hopes on.

Do you suppose?

It seems clear that I've aged into a place where I'm receiving kudos, trophies, and certificates of honor for simply being able to tie my own shoes!  It defies explanation; and though I feel affirmed and flattered by the attention (who wouldn't be?), it's difficult to feel worthy of being singled out for such tributes.

... but whose complaining?

... with the awesome spectre of non-existence in the fast-approaching future --  I'll take it!

Black History Month has now faded into the past, and it's on to Women's History ...

... but before we do that there's March 3rd, Naturalization Day, to get through, and at the invitation of the Department of Homeland Security, I'm to give the address welcoming new citizens and their families and friends on Tuesday in the Craneway Pavilion of the historic Ford Assembly Plant.  This important national event is co-sponsored by the National Park Service, and is staged at many national parks throughout the nation.

It's an honor to have been asked to do so again this year.  I gave the speech two years ago, and those upturned faces -- so filled with emotion -- as I looked down from the platform ... I wonder if anyone remembers a word of it?

I know that the feelings in me as I delivered my words were almost overwhelming.

I'd spent days before trying to justify being the deliverer of those words of welcome.  How could I possibly be asked to give assurance to these new arrivals that the land they were entering would live up to their hopes and expectations?  Especially since my personal history contained generations of pain and anguish of those enslaved in a political system still struggling to overcome its violent past. To have survived into the present under decades of Jim Crow and broken promises offered little comfort.  Could I do this without yielding to hypocrisy and denial?  Was this what my great-grandmother, Leontine Breaux Allen, would have wished were she alive today? Would she have preferred retribution?  Could I do this while remaining true to myself?

The answers arrived at two years ago came about after many hours of tossing and turning, doubts, and sometimes tentative and temporary affirmations.  Those few words that found their way to the paper were arrived at after days of slash and burn editing and tears of frustration. I'd assumed that this would be a one time experience, and that, ultimately, the act of thinking through my position on such an important subject could serve to reinforce a commitment to my work as a federal employee operating inside the circle.

In the end, the speech evolved into a simple but honest statement of my beliefs and a believable declaration of my patriotism.  My sincerity had been sorely tested.

Several weeks ago -- when the request came to be the keynoter for this year's program, my immediate response was, "oh NO!"  I could not go through that again.  No one should ask that of me.

... then it dawned that this would be a totally different audience of new Americans, and that the agonizing is now in the past.  I'd lived through this test of my patriotism; no one was asking that of me.  I remembered that I'd posted that speech on my blog at the time, and that all that was needed now would be to copy and paste it into readable (double-spaced text), and we were good to go!

(Go to the search bar -- top of the left side of the screen, above my picture and the banner, enter Naturalization Day and the speech will pop up after scrolling down.)

A day with the Richmond Police Force turned out to be a day of confusion that ended magnificently!

I'd heard nothing from our Chief Magnus.  He's not turned up at any of my programs over the weeks since he'd presented his invitation for me to participate in his staff training, despite my insistence.

I'd checked with our superintendent to see whether anyone from our NPS staff would be sharing the experience with me, and that he'd had a follow-up conversations to confirm the Chief's invitation.  He'd assured me that they'd had a phone conversation, and that everything was in place.

On the day before, on February 24th as I was watching the six o'clock local news, I heard a segment referring to a "Day of training in the City of Richmond that featured Dr. Lori Fridell and which had police chiefs from nearby cities ...", and suddenly I panicked.  Had I not written the right date on my calendar?  Was the workshop on Tuesday instead of Wednesday -- the 25th?  Had I missed the commitment altogether by some error?

After an almost sleepless night I woke to face the day that might be an embarrassment for me and for our park.  What on earth could have happened ... ?

By nine o'clock I was at my desk hoping to solve the mystery -- but the answers were not forthcoming.  Sent out emails to my supervisors and to our superintendent, who knew as little as I did.  Nothing would clarify the situation short of driving to the Richmond Police Department for a talk with Chief Magnus.  That would mean facing the fact of my embarrassment at being a no-show for yesterday's training.  Met with a staff person who could answer my questions, but he seemed unsure of the needed answer that would solve my problem.

"Chief Magnus is in Southern California today, and is not available."  Something had come up and He'd apparently delegated the entire event to someone else, and there was no follow-up on the original arrangements.  I envisioned that, once he'd left town, his officers told themselves, "we don't need no history lessons; I was born and raised in Richmond, no one can tell me about this town!"  My heart sank as I waited for the day to unfold.

And, no, I hadn't made an error in listing the date.  The workshop had been broken into a two-day experience, and Dr. Fridell had done her training on Tuesday.  And, yes, my workshop (on Richmond's history) was scheduled for Wednesday, and, no it would not be happening in the cavernous Craneway of the Ford Building, but 24 sergeants would be arriving at the Visitor Education Center of our park at 2:15 today (Wednesday).

Of course, no one had thought to update us about the changes as they occurred, and it was necessary to immediately go to the Visitor Center to confirm that it was available for the training to occur at the time they planned to arrive.

Promptly at 2:15 they arrived in plain clothes (for which I was grateful), and -- together with several members of the public -- I gave my usual three-times-a-week theater program complete with Q&A.

It was magical!

They were rapt, engaged, and eager for the history and clearly open to the experience.

I'm looking forward to their return in the near future, with friends and relatives in tow, to share the exciting Visitor Center experience.

... and I think I've figured out just why our presentations seem to be so well-received.  I believe that the fact that most professional trainers in racial tolerance tend to deal with the subject behaviorally while we use the material in a causative way.  This is a new thought and I'm not sure how to better explain it at this point, but over time I'll better understand the concept and will let you know where it takes me.

It's challenging but also exciting whenever I have this feeling of breaking new ground in the understanding of my world ... .

 

I'm finding myself experiencing doubt and uncertainty at a time when the audiences are engaged and open ...

... wondering if my message of hope isn't misguided and overly optimistic?

As I recall, this also happened as the result of last fall's trip to Tuskegee and Selma; a time when I was just becoming aware that my talks were shifting toward insisting on the inclusion of black history into mainstream American history, and moving away from separating our stories from the great American narrative.  That trip into the deep South awakened in me something that my western upbringing hadn't prepared me for -- how different is the Black psyche and just why that is.

Last night before going to sleep I read an astonishing speech by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves, one of just two African Americans to  ever serve as federal judges in Mississippi:

Excerpts from National Public Radio:  "He read it to three young white men before sentencing them for the death of a 48 year-old black man named James Craig Anderson in a parking lot in Jackson, Mississippi, one night in 2011.  They were part of a group that beat Anderson and then killed him by running over his body with a truck, yelling "white power" as they drove off."


The speech is far too long to try to incorporate here, and deserves that you look it up and read in its entirety.

Several things stood out and made sleep impossible for painful hours of tossing and turning in the night.

In Without Sanctuary,  historian Leon Litwack writes that between 1882 and 1968 an estimated 4,742 blacks met their deaths at the hands of lynch mobs.  The impact this campaign of terror had on black families is impossible to explain so many years later.  That number contrasts with the 1,401 prisoners who have been executed in the United States since 1976.  In modern terms, that number represents more than those killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom and more than twice the number of American casualties in Operation Enduring Freedom -- the Afghanistan conflict. Turning to home this number also represents 1,700 more than those killed on Sept. 11. Those who died at the hands of mobs, Litwack notes, some were the victims of "legal" lynchings -- having been accused of a crime, subjected to a "speedy" trial and an even speedier execution.  Some were victims of private white violence and some were merely the victims of "nigger hunts" -- murdered by a variety of means in isolated rural sections and dumped into rivers and creeks.  "Back in those days, according to black Mississippians describing the violence of the 1930s, "to kill a Negro wasn't nothing.  It was like killing a chicken or a snake."

Public lynching in Omaha, Nebraska

I'm reminded that -- when the Congress attempted to pass a bill against lynching in recent times -- 20 members voted against it and prevented passage.  That we have never enacted that bill remains true to this day.

WASHINGTON -- The Senate officially apologized Monday for something it didn't do -- take a stand against the lynching of thousands of black people. By a voice vote, the Senate approved an apology for failing to enact anti-lynching legislation. At least 80 senators signed on as co-sponsors.  Between 1890 and 1952 seven presidents urged Congress to end lynching. Nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced over that period.  But the Senate, with Southern conservatives wielding their filibuster powers, refused to act. With the enactment of civil rights laws in the 1960s and changes in national attitudes, the issue faded away.

(Washington Post - June 15, 2005)

This most recent lynching took place only a few years ago, and the attitudes that still under-gird such hate crimes is still present in the culture.

I suppose that -- as a woman of color -- I see little difference between the horrific burning alive of a Jordanian man by ISIS in this latest atrocity, and those devastating photographs of charred castrated black male bodies hanging from the limbs of trees in this country as the carnival-like crowds of onlookers, including young children, grin with pleasure below.

This, folks, is who we were not so long ago, surely in my lifetime.  For us to react in shock and horror at the inhumanity of our Middle-eastern brothers in today's horrenduos conflicts may be ludicrous.

We must go back in time and own our own violent past in order to learn to forgive ourselves and, eventually, others who emulate such terrorism.  Only in that way can we influence the world -- by example -- toward positive change.  To pretend that we are not a part of a human race capable or such horrors is destructive to our need to move forward, together, into a more compassionate future. 

We're now deep into Black History Month events ... 

Dr. Lori Fridell

... and the upcoming week holds some challenging assignments:  On Wednesday, February 25th I'll be participating as a presenter for Richmond's Police Department in the Craneway Pavilion at the invitation of Chief Chris Magnus.

Since posting about this recently I've learned that I'm responsible for 90 minutes of a workshop on the city's  history as it was lived during WWII.  The time limit on this portion of the history is mine since this is the period that is relevant to my work with the National Park Service, and before that time there are good records of the times of the city's founding in 1905 up through 1941 in the Richmond Museum of History.  It was during that time that the city's population rose from 23,000 to 130,000 over the course of the war.  This means, of course, if one counts the city's birth as 1942 --the City is at least 20 years younger than I am!  The current population figure is 107,000.  The social changes embedded in those figures are staggering!

The reason for the workshop lies in the fact that Chief Magnus (in these days of "All lives matter") is wanting to have his force further sensitized in race relations; though -- under his leadership -- they're one of the most sophisticated in community policing strategies in the entire country.

That's one part of the workshop; the other is another 90-minute segment on race relations that will be led by a specialist in the field.  After learning her name I went to the website that listed her bio, and found myself with many questions ... may be foolishness, but nonetheless I find myself wondering ... .

Dr. Fridell is an attractive blonde who holds a doctorate in her field.  She comes from the world of law enforcement, so is part of that establishment, and probably has broad experience dealing with that population.   I have none.  However, I find my interest heightened as I try to imagine how a white professional in the field of diversity deals with questions around race before a force that is made of up a significant number of men and women of color.  Does she approach the subject from the point of white privilege?  That surely is the angle that successfully guides the work of one of my heroes, the brilliant and wry lecturer, Tim Wise of World Trust.  If not, then how do you suppose she handles the subject?  How will her presentation be received by such an audience?

As a black woman, my own work is so subjective, so personal, and so embedded in my treatment of that WWII history, that I'm wondering how on earth those two 90-minute periods will blend, if they do at all?

When Chief Magnus invited me to participate in this first of its kind workshop in this city, I clearly asked that he try to sit in on one of my talks so that there would be no surprises.  He agreed, but has not turned up thus far.  I suspect that the invitation came as the result of positive hearsay, and that he has no idea of the content of my talks, or of their effect upon audiences, or how they will interface with the other presenter.

I'm effective as a speaker, and my audiences are clearly moved by those presentations, but will they fit into this format?  I'm planning to simply do my Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday programs before this larger audience combining with the 15-minute film on Richmond's WWII history called "Home Front Heroes," then do my usual commentary and call for a Q&A.

I'm wondering if I shouldn't contact Dr. Fridell with a friendly warning so that she won't be unpleasantly surprised ... .

But then maybe I just worry too much.

... and then maybe I'm simply concerned that a presenter who comes from outside my world of color may deal with the race question not experientially, but in the abstract, and just how does that work in this context?  Maybe I need someone to convince me that this is possible -- without losing something of importance to the predetermined goal of establishing a greater understanding between the races.   Could it be that she will be really addressing the white officers, and that the officers of color will find little of relevance despite the good intentions of everyone involved?

One would think that -- at this advanced age I'd not be still developing questions, wouldn't you?  But the learning continues, and the answers remain just beyond reach ... as always.

      

Trying to stand back to get a better view of the present landscape ...

with students from the HAAS School of Business, University of California, Berkeley

... and finding that the busyness is clouding my vision, and causing at least some confusion.

Over these past years -- as my dance card became hopelessly crowded with names spilling into the margins --  the feeling of disbelief grew right along with it.  Try as I might to re-direct the attention to other members of staff, it has become painfully clear that this just hasn't worked as well as one might hope, and that I've managed to attract far more eyes and ears than one small elderly woman might be able to easily manage:

... but January, February, and March, are the months when my services are in greatest demand (Dr. King's birthday month, Black History Month, followed by Women's History Month) and this year is no exception.  I will do events for the Alameda County Transit Authority; the Department of Agriculture; an invitation from the Department of Homeland Security and the National Park Service to be the keynoter for this year's Naturalization Day for brand new Americans; an "honoring" by the local branch of the national organization of 100 Black Women at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco; a talk for the Labor Archives in San Francisco; the training in race relations for the Richmond Police Department; plus my regularly-scheduled 3 times-weekly one-hour talks in the Visitor Education Center and two 2-and-a-half hour interpreted public bus tours each of those 3 months!

I've never thought to put my work into such a list, and I'm almost sorry to have done so here.  It seems foolhardy to even think of carrying such a load of activities at my age, doesn't it?

When I experience it incrementally, one day-at-a-time, it has been manageable.  In retrospect, it looks and is impossible.

I'm certainly being given every opportunity to cut back to something more manageable, but I'm reluctant to say no because I'm being driven by the realization that this might well be my last year of service as a primary source.  My generation is fast drawing to a close.  The deaths of my contemporaries are a constant drumming in my ears and a drain on my emotions, and my sense of urgency grows with each day.  Another of those stalwarts was memorialized a week ago, and it was held on a day when I was too busy to attend ... .

Fortunately, since I don't work from a script so have no need to prepare in any way -- except to just show up with memory intact -- it's fairly easy to just drift from activity to activity without too much stress.  My keynote speech for the Naturalization Day event (the only speech I've ever written since joining the staff of National Park Service) was created two years ago (it's available here in my blog by using the search bar above the banner on the left side of the screen -- scroll down to entry for March 5, 2013).  Since this will be a new audience, I'm guessing that this speech may still serve the need without revision.

... otherwise, I'll just go on showing up and taking my chances with the hope that the words will do likewise!

Introductions are in order!  Meet my first great-grandchild, Patrick Kayden Hebert!

... weighing in at 8 lbs 13 ounces,  and from this photo, the resemblance to his late great-grandfather, Mel, and his grandfather, David, is clearly evident. 

It's at a precious moment like this -- within the first 12 hours of his birth to my eldest granddaughter, Kokee Amanda Reid -- "Ms. Hermione Ginglehopper",  and her partner, Patrick, that I find myself wondering if we've prepared a proper place in the world for this brand new little American -- another young black male -- at a time when we're still sorting out whether or not there is room in our world for new males of his race and generation, and whether or not our justice system -- so riddled with imperfections -- will be better able to accommodate them than we've been willing to do over the past century?

On February 25th I've been invited by our truly remarkable Police Chief Chris Magnus to conduct a 90-minute workshop on race relations for his department.  This, as a followup to the continuing street protests occurring across the nation related to Ferguson and New York questionable police shootings. In my acceptance of this great honor, the not yet born Patrick played a major role.  Just maybe -- in this fast-changing young West Coast Bay Area (re-awakening?) city it still may be possible to play a small part in the making of those critical changes to our justice system that may effect little Patrick's destiny over the next decade.    Now that would be a significant legacy, would it not?

There are ways in which I feel totally inadequate to what is being asked of me.  I'm clearly not a trained "trainer" in race relations any more than I am a historian, but a private person sharing an oral history with a public that seems eager and ready to go back with me in time to own the truth as it was lived, apologize for any wrongs as may be appropriate, and then to move forward, together, into a more caring and humane future.  The content of my 90 minute presentation will be simply a re-application of the program offered in our little theater at the Visitor Education Center -- but maybe that's quite enough.  It's what I know.  But if love and hope are firmly embedded in that work, perhaps it's the best I (or anyone else for that matter) can offer in a persistently troubled  nation and world.

If we each contribute what we can to this latest pulsation in the on-going struggle against racial-profiling, undeserved and often unjustified incarceration; and for fairness in the distribution of resources; etc., than could be offered to young black and brown males before now -- then I can't afford to underestimate the importance of any opportunity to effect how we move forward into this future that now holds my great-grandson, Patrick.

Patrick's birth cannot be allowed to be seen as that of a perpetrator!  He is entering life as a much-loved little citizen who is carrying the hopes and dreams of a family who needs the support of society in order to gradually unfold the gifts that he may have brought with him into our  deeply troubled world.

Patrick Kayden Hebert's life matters!

For weeks now I've been saving up my pennies toward the purchase of an IPhone 6 ... .

... a luxury, surely, when I have a perfectly adequate flip phone and -- these days -- except for calls from Dorian -- I'm rarely taking calls except at my office.   In a related case, after being frugal for weeks I've accumulated nearly enough to get myself down to the MAC store after being convinced that I owe myself this one luxury.  (Stupid, since next month I'll not owe myself anything.  The debt will be to my credit card company!)

However, on Friday I woke with the vaguely familiar tightening of the throat and a raspy voice and all signs of the onset of a fresh cold.  Called my physician who suggested that this may be just a common cold, but that -- since this is flu season and -- (despite the fact that I had dutifully gotten my flu shot in October), at my age we need to err on the side of caution.  "Come in and let me check you out and order up an anti-viral."

In a few hours, with prescription in hand I found myself before a pharmacist who informed me that the hospital was totally out of the drug, but that he would make some calls around to see where I could pick it up.  No luck.  Walked back down the hall to my doctor's office who then wrote out a prescription and told me to take it to my local outside pharmacy.  Returned to the hospital pharmacy to release them of the need to continue to try to locate a supply.  The manager took my doctor-written prescription and replaced it with a blue card saying, "you're going to be charged an arm and a leg, but since we can't fill this until another shipment arrives on Monday morning (there's a 48-hour window in which to act before it becomes ineffective against this year's flu bug) you need to present this card at Walgreens and then we can reimburse you the difference between the Kaiser price and that of an outside pharmacy."

Twenty-four hours later (after driving around for what seems an endless search) a supply was located at a pharmacy in the next town of El Cerrito.

Picked up the prescription yesterday, handed my credit card to the clerk, then stood in shock as I signed for the transaction,  $196.83 for ten 30 milligram tiny pills taken twice daily for a 5-day regimen.

My IPhone 6 would have cost $199.

For a few minutes there I considered whether I wouldn't just prefer to suffer the flu for a few days and drive down to Emeryville to pick up my new phone.  I opted to be sensible, but for a while there it was a toss-up.

What ridiculous choices we're called upon to make these days.

I can't remember a time when I've felt more conflicted ... .

... hardly sleeping since the cruel murder of those 12 satirists of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, and the others who were so tragically and needlessly sacrificed to ideological differences. 

As a native-born American deeply embedded in Western culture, the concept of Freedom of Speech is solidly ingrained in my DNA.  My evening ritual is to watch Jon Stewart defame all that we hold sacred on his show.  Along with many I, too, can claim to viewing much of my news through that Daily Show prism, and am grateful for the chance to do so by right of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.   I'm not sure I could live through some of the headlines we're subjected to without having that response shaped through Stewart and his troupe of "correspondents" pointing out the inconsistencies and foolishness in the behaviors of some of our leaders.  They make some of the blatant insults tolerable because it's obvious that others see them, too, and I'm not alone.  That's unarguable.

So what's the big problem?

The suspicion that somewhere along the line under those "rights," it's possible to drift across the line into hate speech.  After viewing online some of the drawings that were seen by some to be offensive enough to warrant being addressed by gunfire, I found myself wondering what would have happened had those offended been (as I am) African American, a people subjected to unspeakable cruelty and injustice over centuries -- would I have been able to tolerate the disrespect of my religious figures as an expression of someone else's right of free speech?  I'm not all that sure.   I find myself, (timidly) identifying with those offended.

Under that same writ -- I have the right to confront my offenders and/or find redress for grievances  and without paying a penalty for doing so.  It took a long time for social evolution to make that possible even in this country, though we've been moving toward that goal for many years.  That right is respected subjectively, and is still available only to those with enough courage and the resources to demand it.  In the Islamic world, many are not yet aware of or capable of adopting such a concept, and have little reason to do so without risking the destruction of their world as they know it. 

I suspect that the other side is weighted by an opposing factor, that of White (Western) Privilege.  I doubt if any of those satirists at Charlie Hebdo were from the Muslim community. Were that not so, some sensitivity may have been introduced long ago, and the carnage might never have happened. People rarely exploit friends or their belief systems where caring relationships exist.  One would never ridicule Great Aunt Harriet for falling to her knees and lighting a candle before her home altar in the hope of the blessings needed to face her uncertain tomorrows.

I fear that this case was tainted by western privilege, and a monumental lack of sensitivity, or it could simply not have happened.

Stewart is just as apt to hold up his own Jewish culture for derision, but in a loving way.   Aasif Mandvi is often found in an Arab-based skit that's delivered with both substance and wit.   And we're just as apt to laugh along with both in those instances.  The amusement is present when we're experiencing the satire from inside the circle and no one is having to feel laughed at.   Or, when the subject is able to see him- or herself satirized and learn from the piece something of value.  I've seen even our presidents join the laughter when appropriate, and later incorporate new views of themselves into their presentations.   The Daily Show rarely is mean-spirited, though it goes for the big laugh in ways that bite! The best of satire is most effective when it holds up for ridicule the foibles that we can all recognize as human.

Maybe we need to debate the issues and try to determine just when satire and hate speech cross over into something unspeakably cruel and irrational.  Our future may depend upon our ability to do just that.

Of course, nothing could possibly justify taking lives for the sake of political or religious beliefs.

... but then, as a wise teacher once told me long ago,

Every culture has beliefs for which it is willing to kill or die, but by which it refuses to live.  We are no exception to this maxim.

Christian or Muslim, Jew or Gentile, Agnostic or Atheist, whatever one believes to be the fundamental Truth -- it is impossible to share the planet without the separation of church and State.  Theocracies lead us into No Man's Land, and work against the international unity we must continually re-create or risk international ruin.

An over-simplification?

Maybe, but it seems as I grow older that -- after due consideration -- truths are often elegantly simple, and as often as not -- are made more complicated by being over-thought.
 

Blessings ...

This amazing work was produced by my daughter, Dorian.  Though developmentally disabled, she is confirmed in her sincere belief that her full identity is that of "artist."

This piece measures 22" x 29" and is in pen and ink, black and white.  The level of expertise developed over the years is evident here in the depth, shading, layering of images, and deserves framing and a place on the wall of my living-room beside the work of the professionals that I've managed to collect over those same years.  She found her soul through the self-esteem acquired from exposure to the outstanding artist instructors (ceramics, textile work, painting, drawing, etc.) who've devoted their lives and careers to working with "outsider" artists who share life at Richmond's National Institute for Artists and Disabilities (NIAD). 

I'm off to the art shop on Telegraph Avenue to have it matted and framed  for posterity!

Were it not for such balancing features to life on earth, I don't believe I'd want to wake up tomorrow morning ... but with such blessings to be searched out and treasured ... we'll settle for at least a few more eternities!

Does aging give one the power to see the patterns of the past ... to connect the dots?

 ... or am I simply suffering from one of the delusions of the onset of dementia?  It all seems so clear to me.

In this most recent resurgence of yet another pulsation in the centuries-old struggle for human rights   being witnessed on our streets, am I the only one making the connection between our never-ending military adventures across the world and what is happening between law enforcement and a disproportionate number of young black men in our country?

Is it because we're not looking deeply enough at those connections?

Can we not see that for decades now -- ever since WWII -- we've been engaged in small and large wars across the world, and that we've systematically been turning our youth into killers?

And, upon their return to civilian life we've been giving our war veterans preferential hiring into our law enforcement agencies in every city in every state.  They've been seen as prize catches since they've been seen as pre-trained to the keeping of the peace in our cities, protecting privileged Americans from the perceived enemy -- young black males who've never been fully integrated into the greater society.  Many of whom have criminal records before they've reached their 21st birthday due to drug convictions or unfair conditions that limit opportunities for a good life.

In recent years we've been arming our veterans with more and more surplus military equipment, super-vehicles, uniforms, armaments, and turning them loose with many still suffering from PTSD or  perhaps insufficient retraining for civilian life due to a failing mental health systems.   

Given the systemic racial biases that have never been mitigated -- remember, we've never truly processed the Civil War -- which still dictates white privilege as the rule of the day, our streets in some communities have become war zones.  Our police forces have in a growing number of instances become executioners in relation to young black and brown males.

Deadly force is now the rule of the day.

... and has anyone noticed the irony in the fact that -- in this week's escalation of street violence those two young NYPD police officers died so tragically as victims of profiling?  Their humanity was overlooked by one too deranged to notice that these were fellow-human beings.  In his warped mind they were only dehumanized members of the hated uniforms so feared in black neighborhoods.

Is it possible to prevail as a self-appointed police force to the world by turning our children into killers and not risk what we're seeing now -- a frightened army of law enforcement young men and women who see their role as that of protecting the privileged from those they seem to see as the unwashed?

... and can we do that under a democracy that continues to be unclear about the concept of what constitutes torture?

All this at a time when American arrogance wastefully defends the use of our precious Right of Free Speech in a vicious racist depiction of the violent execution of the ruler of another country!  A comedic right?  I'm not amused.  And. yes, I do understand and appreciate the need to protect our freedoms to even insult the leader of another country -- but decry the insensitivity when doing so creates bitter resentment at a time of international instability.  Is common sense no longer an essential element in our troubled lives? And at a time when the Internet is rife with undeserving disrespect for our president and his family; for the office of the presidency itself,  and led by some members of Congress and the rich and powerful of this nation.  This risk is taken despite the fact that we're sending our youth off to fight for democratic principles that we're willing to allow them to die for but by which we stubbornly refuse to live!

There is hope in the fact that we're beginning to see real conversations occurring in our boardrooms, our educational institutions, and most importantly on the Internet between opposing factions.  That we're seeing people of all ages, races, genders, dealing with the hard questions, marching together on the streets of America -- wondering aloud about the direction of our future ... .

Maybe the only thing good about these troubling days is that dim glimmer of hope in an otherwise frightening world that clouds our reality with scenes of horror -- and wakes me from deeply troubled sleep.

Is the one prevailing hope that world peace must be at the top of our concerns if we are to cease turning our children into killers of other people's children, whether within our own borders or beyond?  The world cannot possibly be sustained in its current state which pits the use of conscienceless sophisticated drones against marauding bands of brutal men who commit primitive be-headings in an operatic exercise of testosterone-driven unspeakable cruelty!

Can we really expect to solve the civil disturbances within our borders if we don't actively take on the establishing of ...

Peace on earth and good will toward all?"

 

She was a tiny sparrow of a woman -- maybe 4'9" and surely not more than 85 pounds ...

She came to the Visitor Education Center with her granddaughter for my two o'clock presentation,  arriving early enough to introduce themselves.  The grandmother was visiting from Israel and knew only a few words in English which were used up within the first greeting.  Her granddaughter wanted me to know that she'd brought her at the older woman's request -- but she wanted my permission to translate during my talk and didn't want to seem rude.  I have no idea how this elder had learned about me or my work, and probably never will, given the language barrier.

I assured her that this would not be a problem, and quickly forgot about it and immediately walked away to greet the day's audience.

It wasn't until the end of the talk -- in the usual exchange of greetings and comments that normally follows -- that I noticed them again lingering at the rear of the theater.

The grandmother was smiling broadly, and the younger woman told me that after the first few moments there was a tug at her arm and finger to lips in the universal gesture of "be still!"  She did not want or need translation, but apparently simply wanted to experience the room and whatever it was that was being said and felt.  She was obviously pleased, and warm hugs were exchanged before their taking leave.

That was a week ago.

Yesterday as folks gathered for the two o'clock ranger talk, both turned up again, this time with  another relative in tow.  This woman described herself as an historian, but with what institution of learning she might be associated with never became clear.  There was no the time to delve any deeper.

"My grandmother is returning to Israel in two days and wanted to return to hear you again before leaving."

What in the world this 90 year-old  -- whose only language was Yiddish -- could gain from a repeat performance is a mystery.

Tomorrow she will board her plane for the long flight home, and I'll never learn anything more about her.

... that is -- unless her granddaughter stops in again at some future time and there will be some answer that might shed some light ... .

I've spoken about that magical thing that happens during these presentations, and I'm reminded that I've never quite found the answer to just what that is; and whether it's related to what I do, or, what I am?  Whatever it is is surely not dependent upon language.  Interesting?