Insight from one who remembers ... .

In writing that last post I was reminded of another statement that has become an element in my talks... but that begs for delving more deeply:

There's a place where I'm describing my introduction to the planning team of our park back in 2003, and learning about the importance of the Albert Kahn-designed Ford Assembly Plant which had been built between the years of 1929-1931 on state-owned land.  It was built on air rights, a concept only recently adopted at that time.   It was an important piece of the Home Front story because it had been constructed to assemble Model A Fords but was converted to outfitting thousands of tanks and jeeps for the war in the Pacific theater during WWII.

In my talk I speak of that PowerPoint presentation being the first time I was able to see the scattered sites that define the park, and instantly recognize them as sites of racial segregation.  I state clearly that, "I was the only person in that room who could see that, because what gets remembered is determined by who is in the room doing the remembering.  I was the only person who had any reason to know that.  There was no grand conspiracy to leave our history out, the real history was simply forgotten over time."

This morning as I slowly awakened -- just before opening my eyes to test the degree of still-darkness before sun-up -- it dawned on me that there must be many truths that only people of color are in a position to recall, and many more -- both black and newly-enlightened whites -- who care but are too young to have ever known.  There are important reasons why there are two Americas; if not more.

For instance, might there be less of a separation between black and white America if white America knew that when the Social Security System was created, two classes of workers were omitted; laborers and domestic servants?  It was the elimination of African Americans from that groundbreaking enabling system that brought stability to so many American lives and that created a permanent injustice that made the creation of wealth virtually impossible. We were locked out from the beginning by being forced to remain at the service worker level due to a lack of opportunity to rise above it. Discrimination in the work place would continue to be a barrier for decades, and in many places it still persists. 

The second was the GI Bill which guaranteed every returning veteran of WWII an education and a mortgage.  But the bill was administered locally instead of federally which enabled the local banker to control just who received mortgages and where.  The bill made possible the construction of the nationwide suburbs which were created for "whites only".  They were off-limits to non-whites through covenants written into the deeds of all new housing construction.

Nor could a returning black veteran use the Bill to enter college or graduate school unless said institutions were open to people of color.  At that time such institutions were few and far between and often involving traveling great distances from black population centers.   Have we forgotten that the illustrious Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall financed his law school education by working as a Pullman porter?

It was then that older properties within city limits were made available to blacks as white flight took effect.  The inner cores of the cities became home to non-whites as more and more such properties were abandoned by white owners who could now rent out those homes as absentee landlords to renters without the financial means nor the stability to purchase property; a known pathway toward the building of personal wealth.   Instead, the payment of those rents provided mortgage payments for absentee white landlords who were already receiving government subsidies through the G.I. bill.  Only those black veterans who bought homes in red-lined districts could benefit by the bill because bankers sat in smug approval.   The practice would insure that housing would remain racially segregated, as would the schools in such districts.; and we all know how well that worked out.

Over time, commercial interests and services followed them out of the cities into the more affluent suburbs until today there are few banks, fewer food markets,  other service agencies within lower-income neighborhoods.  There are far fewer job opportunities with the disappearance of local retail businesses.  Low-skilled low-paying jobs that had always served as the first steps on the economic ladder for the young have all but disappeared.  Remember when there were paper routes and gas-pumping to do?

Are those the kids we see on city street corners, kids who have had to create their own underground economy fueled by the drug trade in order to survive?  This has proven to be one of the few alternatives to a minimum wage job at MacDonalds or Burger King, with little if any hope upon which to build a future.

Today there are fewer overt forms of racial restrictions on properties, but they still exist, informally.  The messages are encoded and the suburbs where Mel and I raised our children are still only about l% non-white, though that's gradually changing in some areas due to the gradual upward mobility of non-whites, but it's still minimal.

For those well-meaning and more enlightened folks (and Bill Cosby) who find themselves wondering just why those black folks can't get their act together, these now-forgotten truths may provide some understanding.  The problems are structural.  The effects of those errors in judgment have been costly, and by now there are few leaders who have lived long enough to see how damaging they've been, not only to black Americans who have been tragically under-served, but to society as a whole.  Tell that to those who see black America as over-advantaged and seduced into laziness by an undeserved sense of entitlements!

I was reminded yesterday as I watched the CSPAN coverage of the president's town meeting with folks in West Virginia -- worrying through some answers to the national drug abuse problem ... and the fact that, only now that the scourge of deaths by heroin overdoses has penetrated into White America, can we begin to entertain the notion that it may not be a problem of criminality after all, but an issue that must be addressed as a public health crisis.

... and how many young black and brown males had to idle their lives away behind bars or die violently in the drug wars before this could become visible to the powerful? 

Is it because we've forgotten these critical truths, or, that we've never known that such problems would bleed into all of America unless dealt with where they were most clearly visible? 

Is this the ultimate effect of Daniel Moynihan's ill-conceived concept of Benign Neglect in practice?

Daniel who?

Google it.

Strange how the mind works ... .

A few weeks ago I was interviewed by one of our interns, a college-aged student just entering what she hopes will be a career with the National Park System.  Allison wanted to have the interview as her contribution to an online blog, and since we share office spaces with other rangers at the headquarters in Richmond's Civic Center, it was an easy request to grant.


On that day we met in our conference room for a conversation that she would record, and that would serve as the basis for her assignment.

The chat was wide-ranging, covering a lifetime of starts and stops on my way to finding myself at 94 an active 5-day-a-week park ranger which is, in itself, a pretty startling story for the uninitiated.

This morning Allison sent her draft for my approval and/or corrections prior to submission.

In reviewing it I was curious that the point she highlighted in her sensitive and well-written paper was one that was almost an aside among what I might have considered far more dramatic vignettes from a pretty colorful life.


When I read the few sentences about an encounter I'd had some years ago with an African American woman from the community as we stood in line at the supermarket, I suddenly found myself in tears!  The few sentences were in response to Allison's questioning about just why it was that I'd made a statement in one of the radio interviews about why it is that I value the wearing of my NPS uniform as so important.   

"I was on my way home from work and had stopped for a few items for that night's dinner.  As we stood quietly together in line waiting for the cashier to check out our purchases, she asked politely if I worked at the prison?  (San Quentin prison is just across the bridge from Richmond.)  I answered with some chagrin since it was clear that this woman's frame of reference at seeing a uniform rose from such an unexpected place.  I remember feeling slightly amused (smug?) at how much her question exposed of her limited experience.  I should have guessed that this would come back to haunt me someday." 

That was then.

Since that time we've all lived through Ferguson, Baltimore, New York, and a constant stream of police actions resulting in the deaths of many unarmed young black men; the upsurge of media accounts of a failed justice system; the out-of-control mass killings; and meeting and interacting with Wanda Johnson, mother of the late Oscar Grant of the tragic and fatal Fruitvale station incident.

The depth of my understanding of that small incident in that supermarket took on epic proportions.  Maybe Allison read more into it than I did at the time, much to her credit.

with Sculptor Mario Chiodo's Remember Them

Today I'm tearful because -- after trying to connect the small audiences that I'm able to reach through my work -- I can see clearly that my unknown friend in that checkout line has experienced generations of conditioning that has created for her a reality that is counter to that of the "other" America.  It's not dissimilar to how we see police in those two divided Americas.  For her and for those with whom she shares lives, the justice system has always been a threat to our very survival, while to the other America -- it and the National Rifle Association exist for their protection in an increasingly dangerous world.

The National Park Service uniform held no meaning for her; it was beyond her sphere of recognition.  The prison system was something with which she has had lifelong experience, probably through no fault of her own -- but accepted as inevitable in life as an entire people have known it to be; how tragic!

The tragedy is that we've allowed ourselves to be segmented by such differing realities that we're no longer living in the same America, and neither America appears to be aware of it.  Our words have different meanings, and our lives are so differently defined by very real fractures in the foundations of an evolving society.

The wearing of my uniform is so much more than -- as I expressed it in that interview -- "upon being seen on the streets, in an elevator or escalator, I'm announcing a career path to children of color".

Tears may be a start, but in a very real way, it may mean that I'm being forced to look far deeper into the meaning of my work for ways to begin to knit together what is needed to bridge the divide.  That means putting my tiny pieces together with those of others toward creating a pathway leading us out of the wilderness of separation.

Could it be possible that -- of all the governmental agencies -- the National Park Service is best positioned to help us through to that "more compassionate future" that I so glibly have claimed over past months?

Or am I still not looking deeply enough?

It suddenly dawned -- shortly after I'd posted a complaint on Facebook about television programming... .

... that today's programming pales beside the real life adventures in my everyday world!

Sure would have been nice if the World had seen fit to deliver some of the magic when I was in better shape to receive it.  Why on earth would I meet a governor for the first time after I've stopped needing a resumé?

Sure would have been lovely had I known that the world would come calling at some point, or that it would place a microphone in my hand and put me on a soapbox and really listen to me now that the major portion of my allotted days on the planet are behind me ... .

This week a colleague pointed out that a photo of 20 year-old Betty was included in the National Parks uniform catalog on the pages devoted to hats.

What is surreal about it is that I'm finding my 94 year-old self competing with my far younger self for public attention!  

Governor Jerry Brown and moi

Who would have ever guessed the likelihood of such a happening ... .

The Rosie Trust informed us that Governor Jerry Brown -- with about two days notice -- would be signing the Fair Pay Act on our park site on Tuesday.  The setting was the magnificent cathedral-like Craneway of the historic Ford Assembly Plant.  What a scramble!  This meant that the governor and his staff would be touring our Visitor Education Center for the first time, and that the women of the California State Legislature -- both Assembly and Senate -- would be descending upon us for the ceremonial signing of the strongest equal pay statute in the nation.

It was a glorious day in every way.  Weather could hardly have been more pleasant -- and if we don't get some unpleasant weather soon to end the drought -- the State will be in serious trouble.

It was a day of reunions with those with whom I shared a political life as a field representative over past years prior to my joining the National Park Service; former Assemblywoman Dion Aroner who was my employer at the time that the legislation forming the park was introduced by now-retired Rep. George Miller and enacted with the support of our Senators Boxer and Feinstein.  And, of course, in the audience was another dear friend and our current City of Richmond mayor, Tom Butt.

with Mayor Tom But and Dion Aroner

The bill was authored by Senator Hannah Beth Jackson of Santa Barbara and was a great victory for feminists everywhere.   Her bill is the strongest bill of any put forth in the nation, and will be hailed as a huge step toward full equality for women as other states move to adopt similar measures.  How appropriate it was that the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical park would be chosen as the place where this bill should be signed!

What a time to be alive and a part of the women's movement!  I was a late-comer to the cause of feminism, but maybe that's not as important as the fact that -- over time -- I've been able to rise above my race to the gender issues that I share with the rest of those who help to hold up our half of the sky.

... and what a great way to enter the beginning of my 94th year. 

And Betty's ... .

About the time that my distant cousin, Paul, was searching out his family history on Ancestry. com I was engaged in the same process on the West Coast where I'd grown up in an extended family of Creoles of Color, re-settlers from the early days in the Tremé of old New Orleans.  My own family had been uprooted by the great floods of 1927.  Unlike Paul, who had access to records left by his grandfather, Joseph Numa Charbonnet, my search had abruptly ended upon reaching the bewildering and forbidding slave curtain somewhere in the mid-1800s.

Though there were surely ancestors before those years, I'd hit a psychological roadblock caused by self-imposed prohibitions -- something nearly every African American has experienced in attempting to trace their beginnings.  The thought of trying to connect my family with their white ancestors simply didn't occur to me.  My history ended with my great-grandfather, Dorson, for whom my father had been named.  It was as if his had been a virgin birth.  I didn't even allow myself to wonder past his birth or who his parents might have been.  It seems curious now in retrospect, that I wouldn't have been curious to delve into his mysterious beginnings.  The word illegitimacy would hardly have come up except in those early conversations spoken only in that patois of French the grownups resorted to when necessary to protect family pride.  So one just didn't go there, even as I grew to adulthood.

Eduoard's signature and Celestine's "X"

It was at this point that I closed the books and returned to exploring my maternal line which offered little more.   The earliest record unearthed from the Diocese of Baton Rouge was the marriage certificate of my enslaved great-great grandmother, Celestine "of no last name"; the paper  that radically changed the nature of her relationship to her owner, Eduoard Breaux, in 1863 (a story for another day).  Both my maternal and paternal lines ended somewhere just after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.  Notice that their marriage papers were written in French, an official language both of the State of Louisiana, and the Catholic Diocese at that time.

I was satisfied that both ancestors of color would have to serve as the beginnings of my story, that is, until I received a message from this stranger, cousin Paul, reaching out with warmth and acceptance from the white side of our family.  He was seeking to identify a list which held the names of my father's siblings.  This would become the onset of the possible coming together of the great American Charbonnet family narrative that would unite black and white relatives after centuries of separation.  Our story is America's story -- a story lived by most of us as the result of a still unprocessed history indelibly marked by slavery and the cruel national tragedy of the Civil War.

Our standing together at the burial place of our ancestor-in-common, (white) Amable, closed the circle with us both inside.  That moment still stands as one of monumental importance in a lifetime of incompleteness, a feeling that I didn't recognize until it was gone.  I'm still adjusting to the exalted feeling of being whole that was born that incredible day as we stood together beside Amable's beautiful marble tomb in St. Louis cemetery.

Paul's story:

This is Betty Charbonnet Reid Soskin, my 4th cousin 3x removed. We met over the internet as I reached out to distant cousins to begin building my Ancestry Family tree.  Betty is enchanting.  We both grew up in New Orleans but we have been separated by an age difference of 26 years, 3,000 miles, and racial boundaries.

Yet, Betty and I were sealed by our common stories of Out of France and St. Dominique.

We descend from my 7th great grandfather who lived in Southern France. His two sons left for  Louisiana about 1760.  Antoine became a successful sugar cane planter in Louisiana, but Jean raised his family in the French Caribbean island of St. Domingue, now Haiti.  The slave rebellion of 1802 and Jean's death in 1803 motivated family evacuation to Louisiana.  I descend from Antoine.  Betty descends from Jean.  Our conversations uncovered generations of relationships and warmth that neither of us had understood as children, but that now we are able to connect.

Antoine stayed in New Orleans as have many of his white descendants.  Jean’s son, Amable, evacuated to Louisiana about age 10, joining his uncle and cousins in New Orleans. There he met a lovely young slave.  Through Ancestry, we believe we have her bill of sale to Pierre Beaulieu  in St. James Parish (another full set of stories).  She took her owner's last name as her own.


Amable had a son, Dorson. By law, Dorson was a free man. White father’s of those days rarely acknowledged their mulatto sons, but assumed the obligation to school them in the military or
apprentice them in a skilled trade. Amable married a wealthy French woman and he died a relatively
young man. His white son, also named Amable, left Louisiana and returned to France with his mother . . .we have not yet connected with our French cousins.

my grandfather, Louis Charbonnet's, business card

Betty grew up in a strong, professional, mulatto community, Her father and my grandfather were builders of homes, churches, schools, mills, and offices.  The highly-skilled mulatto craftsmen were well paid in Uptown homes under supervision of my father and grandfather.  In exchange, my family worked with Betty's to obtain land, permits, city improvements, legal matters,and financing for less expensive homes built in the 8th and infamous 9th wards along Charbonnet Street ... but that's another story.


In 2012 at age 90, Betty spoke at the WWII museum in New Orleans and stayed with us in our home.
We had a goal of locating the tomb of Amable. We learned from Ancestry that he was interred in the St.Louis #1 Cemetery in the French Quarter. After a hot day of searching, the cooler evening descended in the cemetery. On our last turn, along the wall, we found Amable resting with his young daughter, a victim of yellow fever.

Leaving the cemetery, Betty introduced me to her cousins, Louis and Armand Charbonnet, operators of the Charbonnet-Labat Funeral Home a few blocks away. The two Charbonnet brothers are well-known for staging the Jazz funerals. Despite having spent their lives professionally in the business, both were unaware of the link to Uptown Charbonnets, Amable, who rested nearby in a beautiful, well marked, Parisian tomb.

Through Ancestry, Betty and I have linked the two branches of our great Southern family. Times have
changed. Ancestry calls us to build family ties even when we have to reach beyond the boundaries of the past.

Upon hearing that the country's demographics are showing a surprising new trend ...

... it occurred to me that this probably deserves our attention.

The assumption  has been that the nation's fastest growing minority would be among our Mexican and South American brothers and sisters; the "Brown" folks.  Recent polling would suggest this is no longer true.  The greatest growth is in the "Other" category; those who are now of mixed parentage, crossing the lines of racial separation in its many variations.  Small wonder that we're seeing the polarity in this country harden as those who are frightened by that possibility are increasingly alarmed.

As a member of that group, and knowing so many others of mixed race, this had the ring of truth.  And, I'm guessing that we're living proof that miscegenation may indeed enhance the human gene pool and not befoul it as some might have you believe; an interesting possibility, though eminently debatable, of course.

A day or so after I read that surprising statistic -- by coincidence -- I received a request from distant (white) cousin, Paul Charbonnet, inviting my participation in an Ancestry.com proposal with him.  It would entail our (together) submitting our truncated family story in a recently announced Ad campaign.  Paul lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and I'm far away on the Left Coast here in California.  It would have to be done by long distance without comparing notes except sketchily and through cyberspace.

A few days later he sent along his first draft of the result of his years-long research with the invitation that I submit my version for his son to combine into a single story to submit for consideration by Ancestry.   This happened only last week, and the first drafts have been exchanged for approval (each by the other) before submission.

I enlisted the help of one of our staff who could do the technical work and with an improvised background we prepared a short video as requested, with me reading a hastily-prepared 400-word script.  It was fun -- probably because it was a first draft and would probably undergo several edits before being entered into competition with others.

Both Paul and I have felt that the Charbonnet saga was worth, at least, a mini-series simply because the history is so colorful and so "American."  Though we'd only spoken about it in jest, and never with any serious intent.  But this kind of nibbled at the edges of that silent speculation that we both pretended didn't exist.

I'll post both scripts (one pagers) here so that you can see how one family -- separated by the racial barriers -- has begun the act of unification after more than 20 generations of only tacitly acknowledging the relationship on occasion over many decades.

I suspect that ours is a colorful example of many American stories, and that by sharing it here, others might see themselves somewhere between the lines ... .

With Amber Butts and Wanda Johnson

Served as a panelist for the Women's Center at St. Marys College in Moraga on Wedneday evening ... .

... and was reacquainted with a lovely young poet, Amber Butts, and Wanda Johnson, the mother of the late Oscar Grant who was one of the many unarmed African American young men slain by police in the  nightmarish recent past.

I'd been hesitant to accept the invitation since the theme of the evening was a local response to the Black Life Matters movement, and -- though I'm passionately supportive of this freshening of the Civil Rights struggles of the past -- the fact that I'm approaching my 94th birthday suggested to my aging mind that nothing that I had to say could possibly be relevant to a new generation facing into the winds of a change that has now moved past my own.  What on earth could I say that anyone would want to hear?

After running it past my supervisors, I was finally convinced that there might still be some juice in the system, and that Sharon Sobotta, director of the Women's Center and a respected journalist, was certainly aware of the issues that I'm still struggling with.  Perhaps there is still some relevance in the sharing of that earlier history with these students.  At least -- since they'd invited me to join their discussion -- they were open to exploring the connections.

After all, I was being asked as Betty Soskin, private citizen, and with none of the weight of representation of a federal agency.  We retain those rights, even as we stand as federal employees with Hatch Act limitations.  This would be one of those times.  I would be introduced and would participate in this panel as my private self.

I felt out of place and out of context for just the first half-hour, but after hearing Oscar Grant's mother, Wanda Johnson, share her story with its tie-ins to the tragic Trayvon Martin's, Freddy Gray's, Michael Brown's and the other's untimely deaths -- and of her selfless dedication to taking the time out of her life to travel coast-to-coast in support of those bereaved parents and dedicated attorneys -- the human-to-human, woman-to-woman compassion kicked in, and I was at home in that room among those vibrant young faces.  The distance between generations simply quietly evaporated without leaving a trace.

Except that I wondered after the fact if -- in our Afrocentric orientation we may be sacrificing our larger American interests?  I know.  That sounds like a cop-out in a way, but I can't help but feel that the larger issues of the militarization of our police needs to be addressed even as we struggle to make Black Lives Matter.  The powerful control being wielded by the NRA over those who legislate our laws. The proliferation of guns without legal restraints and regulations were equally causal in the Newtown kindergarten classroom as it was in Mother Emmanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

If anything stood out that evening it was the fact that the young college students are still at the place where they're working on personal reactions to often clumsily encoded disrespectful racist statements at a time when so much more direct and in-your-face responses are called for.  Perhaps it is Black Lives Matter that adds the exclamation point to an otherwise bland and relatively futile process.   I sense that in the new voices and poetry of black artists like Amber who now practice their craft with a bolder new edge that holds more promise and less fear than before.

... but maybe that would best be described as the impatient attitude of one approaching the end times with a sense of urgency that won't come for this generation until long after the time when we might have saved ourselves ...  .

 

Find myself uncomfortable with a question raised in the Q&A yesterday after my talk ...

... and -- as I law awake long after going to bed last night -- hesitant to end my day with unresolved feelings -- I realized that the question has been hanging in the air for many years.

The woman who raised the question in a heavy French accent put a new edge to the issue:

"I didn't even know you were African American, or why it is so important.  Why is that?"

I mumbled something that might suffice until we could move on, but can't even recall what those words were.  Did I hesitate taking her query head on because she was an obvious visitor to this country for whom the overlay of innocent curiosity could be excused?  It surely wasn't because I was ducking the issue out of ignorance or simple avoidance of the obvious.

My racial ambiguity is a factor, of course, one that I've had to evolve through life experience.   Though I unquestionably identify as Black, though my cultural background is provided by a rich Cajun/Creole New Orleans ancestry. And my black identity rises from the fact that I did not grow up in New Orleans, but on the West Coast where those ethnic beginnings were eventually overlaid by a purely western culture.  I lived the Post WWII black experience which brought with it the black activism of the Sixties and throughout every decade since -- at a time when the nation was sorting out its racial attitudes and forming a new definition of itself -- one that would permit us to elect a president of color in 2008 after a stormy and perilous journey through the latter half of the 20th Century.

I increasingly see myself as an evolving person in an evolving nation.

Part of the national conversation that prevents us from re-visiting that history -- that won't allow us to process the slavery era even today is this:

It was in 1807 that the importing of African slaves came to an end in this country, though smuggling continued unabated for several decades.  The buying and selling of human beings would not end until the Civil War was fought and the Emancipation Proclamation signed in 1865.

When one goes through the slave records from the years following the official end of the slave trade, most of those who show up in slave accounts are very young.  They were chattel, "livestock".  They were family assets who were passed along through wills and sold as property for many more years.  They were used to pay off gambling debts, etc.

But the most shameful truth is the fact that -- once there was no new "stock" being imported into our ports, slave owners used rape in order to produce and increase their slave holdings.  The fact that African Americans today are born with every skin color and hair texture, every facial feature, body shape, has to do with that cruel history of the beginnings of our ancestors.  During the early and mid-19th Century,  white American slave owners were quite literally selling their own children.  That's the ugly truth that remains unutterable.  Though many of us were born to free blacks, most were not.

It is no easier for us to speak of that painful history than it is for the descendants of slave owners to own it.  But that ugly truth still hangs in the room when those skin color differences are noted, as it was yesterday.  Our "otherness" has as many variations as there are races and cultures on the earth.  I'm no exception, but bear the appearance of those who preceded me on the earth by whatever practices that prevailed under that cruel economic system.  Yesterday, the French woman's innocence allowed her to raise the obvious, but awareness of that awesome truth smothered my voice in my throat, and I let it slip by with the realization that this was not the time nor the place to take that on.

But after a day of watching the debate about the de-funding of Planned Parenthood, the alleged "dismemberment of babies in the womb to harvest their stem cells," occurring in the Congress by the descendants of slave owners and their unknowing co-conspirators so piously was disheartening;  hypocritical.  That the Pro-Life movement would have its greatest strength among the evangelical southern Christians where the remnants of white supremacy still prevails is frightening. 

If not now; when?

Wish I'd taken the time to give voice to the unspeakable yesterday. 

Little Known Black History Fact: Betty Reid Soskin | Black America Web

Little Known Black History Fact: Betty Reid Soskin | Black America Web

This is an NPR interview that I've just discovered a link to.  You can listen to it if you'll use the bar at the bottom of the article.  It's about 30 minutes, I think.

A week has past since my last post, and I've lived through another crisis ...

... but this one clearly took its toll on my morale and general sense of well-being.  and I'm noticing that recovery is no longer as fast as before.

Yesterday I learned that -- over the next several months my work will be documented on film, so that will bring a new edge to my presentations.  It will bring some new elements in that may take some getting used to.  It means that things like lighting and sound will become more important, and all those things that fall under the heading of "production" will move to the forefront.  I've never had to think about anything beyond the telling of my story and silently choosing the faces in the audience that I will speak to.

I've become fairly used to noticing people using their cellphones to document my talks for (I assume) personal use, and over time that's become a non-issue.  I've had reporters and writers of one kind or another slinking around the theater taking their shots, but -- surprisingly -- once I'm into my story they become a background blur and fade away out of consciousness.  Maybe being filmed on the job will fade into my new normal as with everything else, and it will be alright.

The importance of having my work go on when I'm no longer able to do it myself is now moving into prominence, with my 94th birthday coming up within two weeks.  I'm becoming so aware of legacy, and the need to respect that for those who will succeed me both in my immediate family and in the National Park Service interpretive staff.

The radio interview on PBS's Forum show with Michael Krasny brought in a great number of new visitors, and this week there was a feature story in Travel & Leisure, a national publication, and the article in Triple A's VIA was finally published.   That release was originally intended for the November/December issue for last year, so it was a not expected after so many months.

I still marvel at how long it took for the world to notice me, and I find it a complete mystery that I've been noticed at all since I sense nothing new in either my behavior or my affect -- yet there's something familiar that is reminiscent of the attention I received long ago when I was singing.  I've listened to some audio tapes and can hear nothing vaguely resembling 'greatness' or any arresting kind of quality in my voice, but I'm aware that whatever the magic is, it seems less related to what I do than to what I am.   But having said that, I have no idea what that means ... .

Maybe it has to do somehow, with power, or charisma, and I wish I had a better handle on the why of it.  I seem to recall that there was an element of fear and a reluctance to have that kind of power over others -- for whatever reason.  That was surely an element in my drawing back from the edge early on, and refusing to enter the life of a public figure, or an entertainer.  But that was when I was a young mother and more vulnerable, I suppose.  At this advanced age, I'm far more daring, and risk-taking is not so scary, and with so little time left ... .

There was that time (I believe it was in 1965) when I introduced my original song, "Sign my name for freedom" in a concert at the Berkeley Auditorium.  The song had been written in honor of the brave souls in Mississippi who dared to fight for their right to register to vote as full citizens.   I was a participant among many in a "Hootnanny" produced as a fundraiser for some social cause. The house was full to overflowing, and as I was singing I was aware that that great mass gathered there was breathing in unison -- tied to the ends of the lines of my song -- and that I could hear them exhale as one as the song ended.   The applause was thunderous!  I remember staying behind at the end of the concert until everyone was gone so that I wouldn't have to meet anyone who might break the spell -- maybe so that I could live in that feeling as long as possible, maybe ... ?  I've wondered since -- when I allow myself to think about it -- if that isn't the seduction of being a stage performer?  This, then, is probably what one gets addicted to in that world, and what I retreated from so long ago ... without regret, but then ... .

Maybe that's why I don't tarry at the end of my talks; that thing that I can't wait to get away from -- and rush toward home; to get lost in traffic and from far away from what might have been ... .

Had my car broken into in our parking lot -- and the culprits appear to have taken more than the briefcase from my trunk ... .

the briefcase contained my IRS records for the past several years, so my identity is unquestionably compromised.

I'm totally thrown and can't seem to function at all since it happened on Saturday morning.

Discovered the theft Saturday morning as I got into my car to head for the Visitor Center on the shoreline. I immediately shut the implications out of mind in order to get through another impossible day.  On my schedule were two one-hour presentations in our theater; one at eleven and another at two o'clock.

The eleven o'clock was totally filled (48 seats) and there was simply no time to put in a police report since having them come to the Visitor Center would raise public attention in ways that I didn't want to deal with.

Because another article on my work appeared in the AAA's VIA magazine on Friday, the weekend audience was unprecedented.  We'd put in a numbering system in order to not go beyond the fire department regulations.  One hour before my talk visitors are given tickets so that we can know that we haven't exceeded our capacity, and for the two o'clock talk every ticket had been distributed within the first five minutes -- everybody had to be turned away after that!

And the compartmentalizing I was doing in order to retain my sanity was threatening my stability, and I can't imagine that I got through it all without totally freaking out!

But I did.

It's just that from the moment I returned to my apartment until now (two days later), I've been only half-conscious, I think.

Last night I finally sent my attorney an email seeking help, and first thing this morning he responded. We're meeting this afternoon.  I've still not filed a police report.  I suspect that it's out of a sense of uselessness.  This is the third time my car has been broken into in the past several months.  Twice in my carport, and once just outside City Hall where our headquarters office is located -- in Civic Center Plaza.  Both times I made police reports.  Both times it took many hours for an officer to respond.  And the experience only led to my feelings of helplessness because there is just no real defense against such incidents, and I knew it.

I mentioned the break-in on Facebook and among those who responded with wishes for recovery and assistance was a message from our police chief, offering to do whatever he could.  For that I was grateful, not so much for his official offer of help as for his friendship.  Chris Magnus is my friend, and I know he is sincerely  concerned.  But it didn't cause me to act on my own behalf, but just to give up any hope of a solution ... .

This afternoon I will have an appointment to meet with my attorney.  He's warm and caring, and seeing Steve may serve to break through the ennui and sense of helplessness that I'm sill not able to recover from ... .

Spent much of this afternoon doing something I rarely do ... .

... read back through random posts in this journal, and was soon lost in time.

Such a long and varied life I've lived.  Some of the accounts of the days of struggling toward recovery of our little business were unbelievably difficult and stressful -- and I had forgotten how fearful I was so much of the time, but certainly courageous.  I must have become softer with age, because I'm certain I could not live through such times now.  And this was a period of life that followed 20 years of being an upscale suburban housewife, and a second marriage into the life of a faculty wife on the University of California campus.

South Berkeley during the Seventies was much like Ferguson, Detroit, Chicago,  Baltimore, and other troubled areas in many parts of the country today.  It has now gentrified out of that identity, and the former low-income black residents have been displaced through being priced out of residency by economic forces.  Berkeley has lost its racial diversity over many years.  'Tis the pity, I think.  I'm far more comfortable in Richmond these days, where the diversity is rich, volatile, edgy, cantankerous, and warmly engaging.  I've grown to love Richmond. 

I remembered that when my embattled black businessman husband complained to the police that our store was being broken into about every 3 months, and that we were without adequate police protection in the community.  Since we'd parted, and before, he'd taken to sleeping on a cot in the back of the store with a rifle at his side.  The police explanation was, "... we like to have neighborhoods like this.  When something happens in other parts of town we know where we can most likely pick up the culprit."  They were using our neighborhood as a catchment area.

Of the nine halfway houses for addicts in recovery and returning former prisoners, seven of them were placed in our neighborhood by the City.   The neighborhood was ground zero for the drug trade, and those high risk people were cynically set down in the middle of the "candy store" where they were expected to live where recidivism and relapse into drug abuse would be most likely be inevitable.  Children in such areas are put at risk of their lives as time has clearly shown.  The sound of gunfire now so common had not yet become a problem, though -- over time -- I saw 4 young black boys/men gunned down within 500 yards of our store.  One Saturday afternoon -- with several customers leisurely browsing record albums -- a bullet came through the storefront window from police activity across the street -- whizzed past just over my son, David's, head and settled in the wall!


I've outlived the cynicism that had to be developed in order to withstand the quiet terror that had to be lived with every day, and that so many have had to survive while retaining enough scar tissue to serve as protection from the effects of having to spend our lives as 3/5th of a human being.

... and there were fine and upstanding folks living in that corner of South Berkeley; folks caught up in a dehumanizing system caused by poverty and degradation.  We took care of each other as far it was possible to do so.  My lot was cast with those around me, and we all made the best of it.  Despite all, I look back fondly on those troubled years, and find that I'm still spinning off lessons learned.  That period added a richness and depth to my life that continues to serve as grounding for today's small victories.

In the archives there's a good record of those years -- starting in March-April of 2004.  Use the little white search bar on the left side of the screen above the banner.  You can just check on the dates in the archives list, of course. 

 

Gone, Gone, Gone!   I'm free of vertigo and up and runnin' again!

Betty Reid Soskin: A World War II Homefront History

August 16, 2015 - 1:30pm-4:00pm 

Central Library Community Meeting Room

Come hear Betty Reid Soskin recall Richmond and the Bay Area during World War II.  This exceptional speaker and homefront hero will show a short movie of Richmond during the years 1942-1945 and follow it up with an inspiring talk that you must experience.  Betty is currently a park ranger at the Rosie the Riveter WWII Homefront National Park in Richmond, and was once employed in the Richmond shipyards during World War II.  Her talk will move you.

Event Category: 

Movie, Just for fun, Special

I'm also back at the wheel, and "Old" will just have to take a number and wait in line.

Just showered and dressed for a presentation at the Berkeley Main Library at 1:30 this afternoon, and expect to see old friends in that audience.  Having lived in Berkeley for many years, I've left a mark on it as we all do in those places where we've shared lives -- and it surely has left its mark on me.  I never thought I'd be happy living anywhere else, but I'm firmly planted now in Richmond, and think of the city as home.  But maybe home is wherever the heart is at any moment in time.  If so, I've had many, and this is only the latest version.

That 20 years in the suburbs -- painful though it was at times -- probably provided the greatest and deepest growth, and friends with whom those years were shared left their mark on my life as in no other period.  Strange.  Maybe that was the take-away in exchange for the confidence and security acquired as the result.  The pain may have been well worth it.  I'm still spinning off those years.  They've given me the needed balance to continue building on the foundation provided by the early years of woman-building that started when I was six, with Papa George as mentor.

These recent years of connecting the dots and knitting together decades of experiences -- having retained enough accumulated wisdom to articulate that -- is something I could never have anticipated.

But then, maybe that book has been thoughtfully written, and I've not yet discovered it ... .  

Well, that was short-lived ... .

Saw the neurologist today.  He administered the magical Epply maneuver and, voila!  Dizziness disappeared in one fell swoop!

It could not have been more dramatic had the genie stepped out of that bottle and chanted his magic oath.  The cure was immediate.  It took less than 10 minutes, and the world stopped spinning and I came in for a landing.  "Sleep with 3 pillows tonight; about a thirty degree lift to your head, and ... .  " ... If there is any further dizziness, give me a call," says the genie.

I'm not going to let myself wonder why this wasn't done 3 months ago ... but we won't go there. 

Blood pressure higher than ever, but it was taken after I'd been through a wild ride through rush hour traffic to the Oakland Medical Center -- and I'm the quintessential passenger-seat-driver -- and it was horrendous!  My son did the honors, but only with invisible help from my imaginary brake pedal.  We were late for my appointment -- and I hate being late -- so it was a perfect storm.

Blood pressure was off the charts upon arrival, and when it was taken again when the doctor had completed his work, it was one point higher!

On the drive home, I was in no better shape, but now I'm aware of an elevated score, so I'm ready to cash in and give up the ghost.  Even silently considered retirement ... .

Within an hour after arriving home my primary physician called to inquire about how my appointment had gone --he was aware of the (alarming) rise in my pressure, and asked me to come in tomorrow at eleven to have it taken again.

I told him that I would need to arrange for a ride (remember, he'd ordered me to give up driving), and you can imagine my surprise when he answered, "... you can drive yourself.  Now that the vertigo and dizziness have been taken care of, there's no reason why you can't do so."

Go figure.

So, I guess I've been reprieved until further notice, and will return to work on Tuesday as planned.

Now I need to seek out a treatment for whiplash!

A life changer, maybe?

After 3 months of persistent fluctuating blood pressure, and dizziness caused by the concussion suffered in May, I'm having to face the fact that -- while not yet being advised to retire or to cut back on my work schedule by my doctor -- I have been advised not to drive until further notice.

Tomorrow I will see the neurologist for answers to just what is causing continuing vertigo.  Much will depend upon her findings.

These last two weeks have been spent resting, but on Sunday afternoon I will do my presentation at the Berkeley Main Library.  I'll have a driver.  I'm looking forward to getting back in gear, and on Tuesday will return to my regular 5 day/wk work schedule.

I suppose I should be getting ready to face that "...whatever are we going go do with the old lady" conversation.  Whenever I've asked my supervisors if it's time ...  up 'til now, it has always been, "not yet, Betty."

But the handwriting may be showing up on the wall, though dimly ... .

I've always wondered if I would know when it's time to leave the stage ... maybe I'm beginning to suspect ... .

Whenever the time comes, it will be in the middle of my movie.
 

Caught enough of Krasny's Forum show this morning to have it dominate my thoughts over the past hour ... .

The subject was the situation in Ferguson as those old wounds have been reopened, and the violence returned.

Just last night I watched coverage on CNN and learned of the continuing "ticketing for profit" practices that are still going on, adding to the festering of those old wounds.  But I also noticed the presence of a diversity of races on those streets and was reminded ... .

One of the most valuable lessons learned during the earlier versions of the Civil Rights struggles was -- I suppose because I was experiencing those struggles from the position of a middle class black living among enlightened white liberals in an otherwise hostile white community -- down through history there has always been good folks tryin' to get it right, and often at the risk of their own lives.

 One might start with the Quakers,  abolitionists, and John Brown.

In this morning's discussion there was a representative of Black Lives Matter -- the current version of the struggle -- and she was articulate, and clearly disheartened by the lack of progress being shown in the clashes between the black community and the police.  She defended the actions at the Bernie Sanders rally, and made the point that in the aftermath he made his first clear statements on the state of the persistent racial problems in the nation.  Attorney Eva Patterson, one of my all-times heroes, was her clear and present -- wise and gracious self -- giving voice to the voiceless.

The call-ins that joined the debate had one thing in common.  They were from people sympathetic to the cause of justice, but clearly expressing concern that the wrong tactics were being used by the Movement ("... why Bernie Sanders, he's one of the good guys'), and suggestions for how it should be done.  May I suggest that all responses -- if coming from a place of moral intent -- are needed.   There is not one correct way to respond to unreasonable and crippling injustices.  Corrective measures have many faces, and will draw many responses depending upon countless variables.

Maybe it's my age, but I find that my eyes are ever searching the television coverage for the racial makeup of the street demonstrations.  I see hope in the fact that the diversity is growing, and that here are the folks who, historically, have always been "tryin' to get it right," and in the chaos there is a lot of democracy being built.  There always is at such times.

Every generation has to rebuild democracy in its day.  We have a constitutionally-protected right to be wrong.  We also have a constitutionally-protected right to protest those wrongs in the belief that what is right will prevail.

Democracy is a process, and every citizen has the right and responsibility to participate in that
process in order to actualize it and keep it vibrant for the next generation.

That can be ugly at times if we neglect our duty to maintain an informed electorate, but it is the price we pay for freedom.

Building and keeping a coalition of those "tryin' to get it right" is of critical importance.  Our black lives may well depend upon it.

We cannot do it alone.  It is an American problem fueled by white supremacy, but mistakenly seen as a problem based purely in black inadequacy and criminality.  Until we recognize it for what it is, we'll continue to fail to find answers.

If my Sixties experiences have any validity at all, then I have to believe that those racially-diverse street demonstrators are doing the right thing by simply being there together showing that Black Lives Matter for the nation and the world to see.

Call came from the editor of a publication in which my life story will be included in September  ... .

... she wanted to fact-check a few things, and her first question was -- "I was a bag lady for the Black Panthers!"  Of course I said, yes, that I'd said that (probably in the Bancroft Library oral history at the university), and it was technically true, but didn't come close to telling the whole story.

What was being referred to was the fact that I raised funds among my friends and church members in order to help to fund the work of the Panthers, and delivered them to Kathleen and Eldridge Cleaver at their San Francisco apartment on Oak Street.  What I did not say was that I'd been driven there by our late  Rev. Aron Gilmartin, pastor of the Mt. Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church.  He didn't hesitate picking me up in his little Volkswagen to make the delivery.  That was life in the Sixties.  You were either a part of the problem or a part of the solution, and we took that very seriously.  I'd drive into the city to march with the Panthers on the Alameda County courthouse steps many a day in order to fulfill that self-imposed obligation.

This was in my pretty little brown Doris Day with the faux wood-paneled station wagon period, and I faithfully lived up to the image.

I'd decided that -- though I was living in the suburbs at the time -- far away from the action -- with the Oakland hills dividing the flat lands of the inner city from the "(sur)real" world, there was a role to be played by the black middle class (of which there were few where we lived).  White liberals who were stirred by the struggle as it was being played out on the streets of the Greater Bay Area, and with whom I had credibility, were asking me for information about what was going on beyond the hills, and as long as that was true I needed to be informed.  I had access into the Movement, and they didn't.  I saw it as my duty to drive to where the action was in order to tap into the power that I had access to where I was.  It was those same great friends and allies who would support me through the next decade -- sometimes at the national level.  We were all being educated through my involvement.  It was a heady time, and some of the lessons learned in those years are what fuels my work today.

by Dorian Reid - 8/8/2015

No one was going to grant power to a black man standing on the corner with a brick in his hand, but I was choking on it.   I could be a conduit to power, and I knew it. At that time some of my friends were among the most effective of those in political leadership.  The mayor of the town, Doug Page, was a member of my church, and I could probably have parked my car on the City Hall lawn and not been ticketed.

And,  I'm probably living proof that the Black Panthers were, at heart, non-violent.

I recall one of those demonstrations when -- dressed in my beige pleated skirt with cashmere sweater with pearls and tawny hip-length suede jacket --  I was marching along passionately while loudly yelling, "Free Huey Newton!" with the rest of the crowd when the chant turned unexpectedly into, "Off the Pigs!  Off the Pigs!"  Appalled, I marched straight up to the front of the demonstration in my spiffy alligator pumps to where some of the leaders were gathered and loudly announced, ".. if you don't make them stop yelling those awful words right this instant,  I'm going to leave and never come back!"  That someone didn't make quick work of me right on the spot showed unbelievable restraint on the part of the black-leather-jacketed brothas, and proof that those awesome Black Panthers were not without a sense of humor!

From that day forward I figured that my code name in the Black Revolution should have been Chicken Little!


... but as we can surely see, I've evolved.

note:  ... and apparently Dorian is also evolving.  She is showing political awareness that must have been acquired over the years.  Stephen Sondheim was right, "Children will listen."  These sketches turned up in the National Arts and Disabilities (NIAD) show today, to serve as a reminder of those days. For those new to my writings, Dorrie is my mentally-retarded daughter.

So much is happening  ...

First, received an email from cousin Paul Charbonnet this week that connected with recent events in an unexpected way.

I suspect that he was half joking, but underneath it fit in nicely with a new avenue of thought that's opened up due to a number of proposals that I've been considering of late.

Several filmmakers have contacted me inquiring about the possibility of our entering into negotiations for filming my life story.

At first I considered the inquiries frivolous, and after allowing the ego satisfaction of having anyone consider my story important enough for documenting -- I'd unceremoniously send them to the trash without much further thought.

Yet over past weeks I've begun to give that some serious thought, and once that happened -- all bets were off, and I'm now really beginning to look at my life through a wider lens.

Paul's email announced that he'd been in touch with the Diocese of New Orleans about the possible restoration and upkeep of Amable's tomb (1790-1839), and that he'd learned that -- for a fee -- that could be arranged.  I'd suggested in a recent email exchange that I might be interested in sending out word to my wing of the Charbonnet family to see if we could share the cost in order to honor our earliest ancestor's place in our creation.

Paul tells me that while he is not a direct descendant of our ancestor-in-common  (his wing remained white while mine crossed over through Amable's love, Melite Beaulieu -- a mulatto slave with whom he fathered my great-grandfather, Dorson) -- I am, and am therefore eligible to be interred in that tomb along with him, and his 6 year-old daughter, Emma.

Paul felt that this could make a fine and appropriate ending to our great southern American family epic, but I've got a commitment to pay off a 30 year mortgage, and I plan to honor that fully before leaving this dimension.  I'm figuring that I've got at least 15 more years before that gets done.  Let's see, next month I'll be 94 ... .

... and I've lived almost my entire life on the Left Coast, and someone who remained in New Orleans over the centuries should have that honor.

But it's worthy of an Isabel Allende novel, wouldn't you think?

Unfortunately, there was a post I'd written having to do with the persistent problem of black poverty -- and I somehow trashed it without intending to.

May try to rewrite it at some point, but as is the case most times -- once written I've used up all the energy and emotion that comes with remembering -- and I have nothing left to say ...

at least until someone or something reminds me of the subject at some later time.

So saying -- let's just move on. 

A woman in the front row of my audience yesterday brought back a memory during the few minutes before my mike was turned on ... .

She leaned in to ask in a whisper if I remembered her friend,  John Watkins.  Thought for a moment and the image of a small boy rose in my mind.  "Of course."  He was one of the Watkins twins  -- sons of Jack and Eleanor Watkins, the first black family to move into the Valley back in the Fifties.  They preceded our arrival by a few years.  Their home was in another area, I never knew where that was, but the lovely pioneering Watkins family and mine had been friends for many years back in Oakland; My older sister, Marjorie, and their father Jack's younger sister had been best friends.

I recalled the story told by my friend, Dorothy Fibush, of Lafayette:

When the Watkins twins were graduating and everyone was preparing for the prom, her friends had been training their daughters for weeks for the evening by giving them ways to respond when the twins asked them to dance (wouldn't want rejection to be rude, you know.  There are polite and humane ways to refuse).

That evening when the girls returned home from the dance their mothers asked how they'd handled the awkwardness.

Daughters answered,

"They didn't ask us!"

Last night as I was reviewing my day against closed eyes at rest..

... I knew what it was that I wanted to explore with that interesting group.  It was that I'd discovered long ago that it's the givers who grow.

Learned that just before leaving the University of California system back in the 70's, where I was coordinating the Four H programs for the State.  That program was one of the long time offerings through the Department of Agriculture, and was being conducted out of the University of California statewide offices in Berkeley.  I didn't last long.  If I were to choose one area of failure in my work career it would surely be that position. 

The Four H programs were created long ago at a time when the nation's farming community was where poverty was most visible.  It was in order to try to draw that community into the educational system that the original Land Grant colleges were formed, and Four H programs were used to attract children and their families into considering college educations and studying for advance degrees.

Of course, by the time I was hired as a 4H program representative, California's farms were nearly all  giant agribusinesses, and the State's small farms had all but vanished.  The children of the farming community were by then from some of the state's most affluent families.  There were private planes in many barns originally built for cows.

I managed two state conferences before I crashed and burned -- one at the State Fair in Sacramento and another on the University of California campus at Santa Barbara.

One day I found myself in a staff meeting where the subject under discussion was how to bring the children of farm workers into 4H programs.  For that meeting there were several Latino community organizers brought in from the San Joaquin Valley farm worker community to participate in the planning.

I was horrified to discover that the group was planning to introduce gardening projects for farm workers kids.  I'm not sure where it came from, but I saw this as comparable to bringing little African American children into programs where they'd learn to pick cotton as recreation!  No one else could see what I was so appalled by.  My communications skill left a lot to be desired at that point.

I tried to explain by presenting an alternative that went over like a lead balloon! This was after I'd seen a flyer that was being prepared for distribution for the Santa Barbara teen conference. It was advertising workshops bearing the titles listed below (fortunately I found a copy of this flyer in my files). 

The list reads:

Growing up Asian
Growing up Black
Growing up in a Broken Home
Growing up Chicano
Growing up Delinquent
Growing up Handicapped
Growing up Native American
Growing up Poor

 I fully understood the intent was to create sensitivity in 4-H members, but it missed its mark -- if the rising discomfort that it caused in me was any sign.

Mind you, these are all privileged white teens with nary a child of color among them.  I was appalled by their proposed program.  For me, a workshop entitled "Growing up Racist" might have been more appropriate. The over all feeling was this list, which equated racial identity with behavioral and physical deficits, was stupid and insensitive beyond all measure.

I drafted an alternative program that would have children of the high schools of Merced and Fresno in the San Joaquin Valleys -- where the clusters of Barrios with Latino children needing programs -- I would have those white kids bused in from the towns.  I'd have turned things around so that the children of color would be the teachers by offering an immersion experience in the Spanish language being taught by farm worker youth.  How great would that be?  I would turn the tables, making the non-white kids the givers -- the teachers!

My supervisors were underwhelmed by my "brilliance," and there were no takers.  The Latino organizers simply looked puzzled by my attempt at re-directing to a format where they could not see a role for themselves.  I left the program after several weeks of frustration, and I've never looked back.

But that concept of moving us away from allowing young white people always having their supremacy reinforced through serving as saviors to the under-served, and our kids always seen as being little more than creatures of need is damaging in ways still to be determined.  Maybe this is the stage beyond Peace Corps and AmeriCorp, both great service programs, but both providing growth for the givers and encouraging dependency in the takers.

My hope is that the National Park Service in its wisdom, will one day send white youth onto historically black college campuses on six month details -- where they can have the experience of  being in the minority in an all-black environment, among peers.   That would be a rare experience that white youth should have in their formative years, and unfortunately rarely do.  The park service is well-equipped to provide it. And black youth would be seen as providers, equally as rare.

In an odd way, the Hip Hop community over the past decades has accomplished that quite naturally.  The market doesn't give them credit, but JayZee and Dr. Dre et al are operating in that dimension, and they've gone beyond the possibility of having their talents and marketable skills expropriated.  They've been more than willing to share their expertise with anyone with the interest and the ability to use them.  That generation has moved black culture from being seen merely as raw material with which to enrich American culture, to a place where it's gaining respect and a place of its own in world culture. 

New experience -- met with a group of members of a National Park Service African American leadership staff in a conference call ...

For about an hour we participated in a Q&A that -- hopefully will serve as the beginning of a new edge to grow from.

The format -- with folks scattered from coast-to-coast and me sitting at my desk at the Visitor Center talking into a telephone with the voices filling the room on loudspeaker -- served as a great way to be introduced into the process, but left me somewhat frustrated at the notion of having to give bumper sticker responses to huge questions that required at least being seated in a lounge chair with a glass of sherry in hand, and preferably after sundown.

After cradling the phone I went on dialoguing for hours with them  ...  inside my head, and decided that I would try over the next few days to flesh out some of those questions and provide answers from a deeper place.  Or, maybe I've already answered them and can point those answers out in archived posts that are still available here by using the little white search bar at the top left side of the screen.

There has to be a way to do that -- and I have two weeks of annual leave saved up and won't have to return to work until August 19th -- and can  do a search.  I can't imagine that I haven't written such thoughts over the past several years ... .

At this advanced age, surprisingly little is really new ... .

 ... and I thought that interviewer was calling from New York ...

http://www.business.com.au/betty-reid-soskin-interview-2015-7 

Here's the link to the Business Insider Australia article that appeared today online.   (Copy and paste into your browser.)

The world has shrunken considerably, and I cannot imagine why anyone across the world would be interested in such a mundane story -- or maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture -- but it does seem to be much ado about nothing, or at least very little.

But then in a world where the Kardashians and Donald Trump command more ink than the Pope ... .

After months of acknowledging requests for interviews, photos, etc., then letting the pleasant feelings of being appreciated wash over me --  

... then unceremoniously hitting the trash button in disbelief!

Last week I spent several hours  at the Visitor Center as the subject of a photo shoot that will accompany an upcoming article in the National Parks Conservancy publication; another phone call in which a hopelessly young female voice announced that I'd been selected as someone's favorite ranger and could I answer a few questions for the readers of Pathways? Then a 30-minute telephone interview for a NY Business Insider magazine article.   I've lost count of those requests and now they're hardly recognizable except as items on my Google calendar with little meaningless notations as reminders that fail to remind me of anything due to the speed and urgency my life has taken on of late.

... I've become increasingly aware of the fact that there are out there, artists, writers, documentarians, videographers, poets, artists of various disciplines who have attended my presentations in our little theater over time.  And it's not just the "Polygrip crowd" as one might expect, but a cross-section of the community from near and far. They've become too numerous to ignore, and too insistent to brush off, and their message has finally penetrated through my resistance that the magical "something" needs to be documented.

That thing that happens is clearly not an accident, and has by now become part and parcel of my new "normal".  What I was assuming was a mere temporary "bump" in visitation as the direct result of the NPR Krasny Forum interview is growing with each day, and shows no signs of ebbing any time soon.

My presentations have been raised to 5/week instead of 3, and each event now runs at full tilt with every seat filled.  We're having to pass out numbers in order to not go over the seating capacity as ordered by the fire department.  Next we'll  have to go to a reservation system. Who knew?

And I'm now beginning to realize -- as Earth time is clearly winding down -- that there needs to be a way to capture on film or videotape those elements that make up my American Story since that piece will establish the way I'll be remembered when I'm no longer here.

That is becoming important to consider.  Any false modesty is beginning to fade away, and I'm finally admitting to myself that it matters to me.

My 94th birthday is only one month away.

Wish I hadn't trashed all those requests ... and could now give them the serious thought they deserved ... .

I've enlisted a small group of friends to act as advisers.  We shared a lovely dinner last night to begin to explore next steps.

I'm so grateful to have their counsel at a time when I'm no match for the incoming public attention.

In this final decade the insights come frequently and with the clarity of those that I experienced as a 6 year-old... 

... which should make them suspect, right?

This morning as I listened to the continuing coverage of the senseless and brutal killing of those marines last week, the insights came fast and furiously -- so much so that I almost called in to the station with what seemed so obvious.

They were talking about whether this should be classified as Terrorism or not;  what the motives of the shooter may have been; why ISIS was being so successful recruiting young idealistic foreign and domestic millennials; announcing that the FBI had confiscated his computers for removal and studying of his favorite websites; his family and friend's responses to questioning, etc., and all at great cost to taxpayers and aggravated fear of a deepening threat to our well-being as a nation.

When will we stop allowing the "enemy" to set the agenda; the Terms of Engagement?

By the establishing of a policy of shooting to disable instead of shooting to kill, we could eliminate the motivation of "Lone Wolves" who are deliberately bringing about their own demise in as dramatic a fashion as can be created.  They can count on our participating in the tragedy -- elaborately, in costume,  in armored personnel carriers, in great numbers, in all of the color and style worthy of a legendary Cecil B. DeMille or a D.W. Griffith epic!  These young assassins have the power to set all that off at will and turn our police protectors into executioners.

What would my alternative accomplish?

If announced as policy well in advance of the next strike we would rob these disillusioned young men the passage into oblivion after glory.  Instead of the cost of investigating every minute detail of their former lives and motivations, ambitions and associations, we would have a live perpetrator to question and/or rehabilitate (if possible).

Would this not be a move toward eliminating the ISIS promise of a glorified martyrdom?

If the potential Lone Wolf would have to consider the possibility of imprisonment and/or permanent physical impairment from the violence of the arrest, could this not serve as a deterrent to the recruitment and kill the "romantic" motivation of martyrdom?

May be worth a try.

And -- I thought of calling in to suggest to the experts just how they were on the wrong track, but   then cringed upon remembering how embarrassed I feel for the call-ins while listening to their cockamamie orders to "authority".

But -- after thinking about it over the past few hours -- I'm certain that our marksmen and women are expert enough to shoot the weapons out of the hands of a shooter, if that is what they intend.  I'm wondering why that hasn't been considered before now?

Even given the fury and chaos of such an event and the possibility of the shooter being killed in the melee, in my scenario, that death would be accidental and never intentional.  In a successful arrest the culprit would be incapacitated and never eliminated.  That life is needed in order to have the chance to learn as much as possible about the level of desperation of a generation that may see nothing to live for and little expectation for change in their lifetimes.  These tragic events have one thing in common; they're all intended as suicides. 

Maybe the greatest motivator of all is not ISIS at all, but the never-ending sense of helplessness ... .

.. but then where could we place blame?