We need them both if we are to live any kind of full life. At times our curiosity is so intense that we simply must have that closer look, that peering into areas not easily seen - to bring the distant view up close. At other times, we need to save our sanity by looking the other way. Knowing we cannot change what is happening right before our eyes but also not having the intestinal fortitude to watch it, we purposely set our emotional virtual blinders to narrow and trudge ahead.
Either of these approaches can also be abused and cause us to suffer in the opposite directions of our intended use of the binoculars or blinders. An extreme of the need to see more, to bring the distant or hidden view close, could morph into the tendency to become a Peeping Tom. The abuse of the blinders can result in our stepping over and around the wounded of our society and not bending to help where we are needed.
The balancing act is hard to pull off and over a lifetime, we often fail to manage it .
A new acquaintance on the golf course yesterday seemed a pleasant enough fellow. Seemed like someone whose easy-going company I could enjoy, for that day's round and maybe future golf outings. But his need to talk out loud about politics, beginning with a veiled racial slur, ruined it all. And this man revealed a devotion to blinders to a degree I didn't realize was possible. He actually said that if I thought Bush had been bad for the country, that apparently I had been watching something he wasn't aware of. My friend stopped us before we came to blows!
This warped and weird conversation took place within a few hours of my having learned of the death of my older brother back in Kentucky. It was some of that same kind of blind and uneducable approach that this particular brother exhibited, the reason, I suppose, that we were not close. Many other factors were involved, but this one thought struck me of the way blinders can prevent cordial fellowship among folks - even siblings.
Happy Halloween!
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
Reticent Racism
So many of us Anglos don't know we are tacitly accepting of racism. I get it. Racist feelings (except for those that are blatant and ugly) are shyly staying in traditional mental closets. The problem applies to me in spades; oops! Oh, give it up, you might say - that phrase comes from the old game of bridge, not from the popular reference to blacks. True? Probably, since the expression "made in spades" would rather obviously apply to naming the trump suit in bridge and having an advantage because the suit of spades carries a higher power in that particular game. But the very word spade grew to common (and derogatory) usage in reference to black skin because the ace (or suit) of spades is black. This reference began probably around the time of the war between the states, fought mainly over slavery. Yes, the slaves were technically emancipated, but people with black faces were hardly relieved of any of the domination exercised by whites. And the fact remains today that the playing field of life is not yet level.
The current new book that could begin to allow us white folks to look inside the problem with more potential of actual understanding is titled Gather at the Table. It should be widely read but I hold little confidence it will be read by more than a tiny fraction of us white folks. Probably the vast majority of the readers of this gut-wrenching book will be from the African American side of our populace. Why would I guess this? Because we Anglos really don't want to face head-on any possibility that we are guilty of racist thinking. We would rather assure ourselves that racism is practiced by skin-heads, ku klux klan types and others who are actual proud racists; that we are ourselves free of such attitudes. We can sometimes engage subconsciously in racist thinking and wouldn't know it unless something brings it to our attention.
For most of my teens and adult life, I actively engaged in something similar, glibly repeating jokes that often exhibited rank racism but simply choosing to call them funny. People do that all too frequently today. After all, if you're only joking, isn't there an automatic license to say things that one may not mean? May not even have any real acceptance in one's everyday way of thinking? I certainly made that argument silently to myself when carrying on with others in laughing and repeating jokes aimed at Polish people during a long era of the Pollock joke popularity. In fact I was in love with a Polish girl and eventually married her, so how could I be guilty of doing anything out of line in joining the fun with great jokes? Finally, in my forties probably, I stopped myself from joining that crude circle of humor at the expense of a race or group of people, but I wasn't entirely successful in escaping my own weaknesses. For years I have continued a small attachment to that joke-license theory, adapting and continuing to propound what I consider just good fun by changing any joke that could be changed to use hillbillies as the brunt of the joke. This I felt was, in the Jeff Foxworthy mode of telling redneck jokes, acceptable because I was from that background myself. And I am still not above laughing at some of these jokes.
So am I capable of harboring old racist attitudes without knowing it? No doubt I am. It's utterly amazing that a deep and ancient ethos can resist expulsion from the heart no matter how strongly the conscious mind rejects it. And my conscious mind vehemently rejects it!
Would that this book, which has the potential of allowing Anglos to see inside their inherited proclivities, become a true best-seller. I firmly believe that if all whites in the USA were capable of actually releasing and rejecting their reticent - but still damaging - racist attitudes that their new untarnished view on the world would utterly shock them. For one immediate huge improvement, they might all see how plainly ridiculous it is that our intelligent and capable black president is experiencing even a minimal challenge by someone totally unfit for the job. If subliminal racism were suddenly completely overcome, there would be no way our electorate would replace a strong and proven leader with someone who would likely only further destroy the fabric of our society.
The current new book that could begin to allow us white folks to look inside the problem with more potential of actual understanding is titled Gather at the Table. It should be widely read but I hold little confidence it will be read by more than a tiny fraction of us white folks. Probably the vast majority of the readers of this gut-wrenching book will be from the African American side of our populace. Why would I guess this? Because we Anglos really don't want to face head-on any possibility that we are guilty of racist thinking. We would rather assure ourselves that racism is practiced by skin-heads, ku klux klan types and others who are actual proud racists; that we are ourselves free of such attitudes. We can sometimes engage subconsciously in racist thinking and wouldn't know it unless something brings it to our attention.
For most of my teens and adult life, I actively engaged in something similar, glibly repeating jokes that often exhibited rank racism but simply choosing to call them funny. People do that all too frequently today. After all, if you're only joking, isn't there an automatic license to say things that one may not mean? May not even have any real acceptance in one's everyday way of thinking? I certainly made that argument silently to myself when carrying on with others in laughing and repeating jokes aimed at Polish people during a long era of the Pollock joke popularity. In fact I was in love with a Polish girl and eventually married her, so how could I be guilty of doing anything out of line in joining the fun with great jokes? Finally, in my forties probably, I stopped myself from joining that crude circle of humor at the expense of a race or group of people, but I wasn't entirely successful in escaping my own weaknesses. For years I have continued a small attachment to that joke-license theory, adapting and continuing to propound what I consider just good fun by changing any joke that could be changed to use hillbillies as the brunt of the joke. This I felt was, in the Jeff Foxworthy mode of telling redneck jokes, acceptable because I was from that background myself. And I am still not above laughing at some of these jokes.
So am I capable of harboring old racist attitudes without knowing it? No doubt I am. It's utterly amazing that a deep and ancient ethos can resist expulsion from the heart no matter how strongly the conscious mind rejects it. And my conscious mind vehemently rejects it!
Would that this book, which has the potential of allowing Anglos to see inside their inherited proclivities, become a true best-seller. I firmly believe that if all whites in the USA were capable of actually releasing and rejecting their reticent - but still damaging - racist attitudes that their new untarnished view on the world would utterly shock them. For one immediate huge improvement, they might all see how plainly ridiculous it is that our intelligent and capable black president is experiencing even a minimal challenge by someone totally unfit for the job. If subliminal racism were suddenly completely overcome, there would be no way our electorate would replace a strong and proven leader with someone who would likely only further destroy the fabric of our society.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Bloodless Decapitation
Otherwise known as incapacitation.
I haven't yet taken the time and effort to look up many words relating to this kind of cap. Several are devoted to anything concerning the head, whether of the individual body or of a collective body. The headquarters of a government is at its capital. When we capitulate, we surrender or give up control - lose the leadership or headship of the affair. A ship is guided by its head officer, the captain. If the ship capsizes, it turns upside-down.
Someone's capacity is a measure of his/her intelligence, talent, wits and function. For my dear friend who is soon to be eighty-eight years old, it is the function part that is practically gone. His superior intellect is still churning out thoughts and a desire to disseminate knowledge and ideas to the whole planet, but alas, he can no longer even type easily on his computer and has failed recently in the simple function of sending me emails. He is almost totally unable to function on his own. He needs help to do basically any physical movement, and is now at times even unable to go to the bathroom alone. But this is still not the worst of his incapacitation. He knows clearly that soon all that remains of his functioning will be gone. The brain has come under attack.
His expression, delivered with what's left of his massive good humor - now gallows humor - is that he suffers from deja-vu, over and over again. Sadly, this has progressed almost to the point that he doubts every word he is about to speak because he assumes he has just said it already and he will be revealing his incapacity while also boring his listener. Following long pauses of the type highly intelligent people often use for arranging completely clear and cogent remarks, he now often has to toss up his hands in defeat. He tries even still to give it a light-hearted turn by saying, "Sorry - I lost my head!"
That is precisely what he has done and soon his head, that former capacious brain of almost immeasurable I.Q., will give up its tenuous control on life. His body is already communicating to his head that it's time to say enough.
He recently asked me to transport him over the 450 miles and nine hours of travel so he could have a last visit with his dear lady companion of two decades. Family locales and necessary living arrangements have separated them during the last year. He managed the trip in good condition due to his high spirits and delighted anticipation. Upon our arrival, his lady was overwhelmed and almost speechless with appreciation. She is now ninety-one and actually more able to function physically than he is. She walks far more energetically and even talks with more animation and wit. However, she cannot remember anything for more than a few minutes. That is, she cannot remember the small stuff; John, she remembers well. The love between them still flourishes and the expressions on their faces made the entire expedition well worth any effort.
His thoughts and philosophies that once rolled freely from his deep well of intellect can still be seen at his website which may soon go away. I don't even know who is supporting it or whether I might be able to help it continue on his behalf. I do know that he still hopes to "clean it up" and add new ideas. Amazing. And humbling.
I haven't yet taken the time and effort to look up many words relating to this kind of cap. Several are devoted to anything concerning the head, whether of the individual body or of a collective body. The headquarters of a government is at its capital. When we capitulate, we surrender or give up control - lose the leadership or headship of the affair. A ship is guided by its head officer, the captain. If the ship capsizes, it turns upside-down.
Someone's capacity is a measure of his/her intelligence, talent, wits and function. For my dear friend who is soon to be eighty-eight years old, it is the function part that is practically gone. His superior intellect is still churning out thoughts and a desire to disseminate knowledge and ideas to the whole planet, but alas, he can no longer even type easily on his computer and has failed recently in the simple function of sending me emails. He is almost totally unable to function on his own. He needs help to do basically any physical movement, and is now at times even unable to go to the bathroom alone. But this is still not the worst of his incapacitation. He knows clearly that soon all that remains of his functioning will be gone. The brain has come under attack.
His expression, delivered with what's left of his massive good humor - now gallows humor - is that he suffers from deja-vu, over and over again. Sadly, this has progressed almost to the point that he doubts every word he is about to speak because he assumes he has just said it already and he will be revealing his incapacity while also boring his listener. Following long pauses of the type highly intelligent people often use for arranging completely clear and cogent remarks, he now often has to toss up his hands in defeat. He tries even still to give it a light-hearted turn by saying, "Sorry - I lost my head!"
That is precisely what he has done and soon his head, that former capacious brain of almost immeasurable I.Q., will give up its tenuous control on life. His body is already communicating to his head that it's time to say enough.
He recently asked me to transport him over the 450 miles and nine hours of travel so he could have a last visit with his dear lady companion of two decades. Family locales and necessary living arrangements have separated them during the last year. He managed the trip in good condition due to his high spirits and delighted anticipation. Upon our arrival, his lady was overwhelmed and almost speechless with appreciation. She is now ninety-one and actually more able to function physically than he is. She walks far more energetically and even talks with more animation and wit. However, she cannot remember anything for more than a few minutes. That is, she cannot remember the small stuff; John, she remembers well. The love between them still flourishes and the expressions on their faces made the entire expedition well worth any effort.
His thoughts and philosophies that once rolled freely from his deep well of intellect can still be seen at his website which may soon go away. I don't even know who is supporting it or whether I might be able to help it continue on his behalf. I do know that he still hopes to "clean it up" and add new ideas. Amazing. And humbling.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Comforting?
Following the death of a long-time neighbor who was a long-time sufferer of diseases, too many and too illusive to name, there was a memorial service. These gatherings are events I typically circumvent whenever possible. I long ago paid my dues to those traditional superstitions that force people into church pews. But due to my concern for the widower and how he might view a friend who will live next-door for perhaps decades yet ahead, I went to the service. And of course, I hated being there. It was held in an ostensibly non-denominational church, though the speaker slipped up and mentioned they were Baptist.
The same speaker, perhaps a lay minister, certainly not a trained orator, repeatedly used the objective pronoun him as half of the compound subject of sentences. "Him and Marie were happy together." "She and him always helped others." "It was where him and Marie first met." "Marie and him invited folks into their home." Drove me a bit to distraction, which was really helpful to me. Distraction was a welcome relief against the droning of the obligatory service.
The second speaker, the important one who intimated that he was the one tapped to bring the message, was more polished but no less offensive. His nice dark suit, the only suit in the room where we had all been told to dress casually, probably gave him cool confidence. His shop-worn scriptural references naturally gave him that solid ground for sounding confident and smooth in his comforting of the bereaved. Personally I felt somewhat fortunate that much of his text was from the old testament book of Isaiah, and while he droned on, I was hearing in my mind a beautiful musical score by George Frideric Handel. Most of those biblical passages being read in a hushed monotone were utilized in Handel's oratorio, The Messiah, which I had learned and performed back in college.
Comfort ye my people was part of one of the biblical phrases and this comfort became the minister's key point. He was sure that we all were comforted by hearing (for the umpteenth time) about the travails of the Hebrews in captivity in Babylon. Surely many in the crowd were quite comforted in those few moments to not actually be thinking about the recent death of their friend. It's much less discomforting to dwell on a whole culture being conquered and abused by another.
He did surprise me at one point, however, by making an emphatic statement that everyone will face death and all will stand in the judgment day. His confident emphasis carried further in stating that it is so good that we all know we will not merely disappear into nothingness, that we will not become one with everything. And that we know we are not going to be reincarnated. He then offered that it is such a comfort to know we will be brought back to life to stand before our judge after we die.
Naturally I felt much better for having been there to hear this. Boy-howdy, was that judgment stuff comforting! And it was so good to find out what we know!
After opening that crock, he continued to unimpress me (and now the Handel music was absent), so I began to occupy my mind by thinking of things I would rather be doing than sitting there in hell. To be a good neighbor and a friend, being there was what I simply had to do, but it would have been far more comfortable for me to show my devotion to a neighbor in so many better ways. It would have been preferable to perhaps crawl under his house to look for a dead animal that was causing an odor. Or to help him weed his flower garden. Or repair his golf cart. Or scrub down his driveway. Or maybe clean up his vomit if he got sick.
There are many ways in which I can be comfortable assisting a neighbor; sitting in a church of any kind and hearing poorly spewed traditional ignorance is far from comforting to me.
The real comfort is simply that Marie is no longer feeling pain. Knowing the suffering she did and the years of worry her husband endured, I'm sure him feels that way too.
The same speaker, perhaps a lay minister, certainly not a trained orator, repeatedly used the objective pronoun him as half of the compound subject of sentences. "Him and Marie were happy together." "She and him always helped others." "It was where him and Marie first met." "Marie and him invited folks into their home." Drove me a bit to distraction, which was really helpful to me. Distraction was a welcome relief against the droning of the obligatory service.
The second speaker, the important one who intimated that he was the one tapped to bring the message, was more polished but no less offensive. His nice dark suit, the only suit in the room where we had all been told to dress casually, probably gave him cool confidence. His shop-worn scriptural references naturally gave him that solid ground for sounding confident and smooth in his comforting of the bereaved. Personally I felt somewhat fortunate that much of his text was from the old testament book of Isaiah, and while he droned on, I was hearing in my mind a beautiful musical score by George Frideric Handel. Most of those biblical passages being read in a hushed monotone were utilized in Handel's oratorio, The Messiah, which I had learned and performed back in college.
Comfort ye my people was part of one of the biblical phrases and this comfort became the minister's key point. He was sure that we all were comforted by hearing (for the umpteenth time) about the travails of the Hebrews in captivity in Babylon. Surely many in the crowd were quite comforted in those few moments to not actually be thinking about the recent death of their friend. It's much less discomforting to dwell on a whole culture being conquered and abused by another.
He did surprise me at one point, however, by making an emphatic statement that everyone will face death and all will stand in the judgment day. His confident emphasis carried further in stating that it is so good that we all know we will not merely disappear into nothingness, that we will not become one with everything. And that we know we are not going to be reincarnated. He then offered that it is such a comfort to know we will be brought back to life to stand before our judge after we die.
Naturally I felt much better for having been there to hear this. Boy-howdy, was that judgment stuff comforting! And it was so good to find out what we know!
After opening that crock, he continued to unimpress me (and now the Handel music was absent), so I began to occupy my mind by thinking of things I would rather be doing than sitting there in hell. To be a good neighbor and a friend, being there was what I simply had to do, but it would have been far more comfortable for me to show my devotion to a neighbor in so many better ways. It would have been preferable to perhaps crawl under his house to look for a dead animal that was causing an odor. Or to help him weed his flower garden. Or repair his golf cart. Or scrub down his driveway. Or maybe clean up his vomit if he got sick.
There are many ways in which I can be comfortable assisting a neighbor; sitting in a church of any kind and hearing poorly spewed traditional ignorance is far from comforting to me.
The real comfort is simply that Marie is no longer feeling pain. Knowing the suffering she did and the years of worry her husband endured, I'm sure him feels that way too.
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