Report from Kenya #638 -- Responses to "An Anti-Racism Upbringing."
David Zarembka
Responses to “An Anti-Racist Upbringing.”
Report from Kenya #638 – January 15, 2020
If you want the URL for this report, contact me at davidz...@gmail.com
George Cummins on left and me on right when I spoke in Charles City, IA in 2013.
Introduction: I received a good number of responses to last week’s Report from Kenya, An Anti-racist Upbringing (see here). I have published, with permission, eight of the responses for this Report. I found them quite interesting and hope you do also. Dave
Jim O Anderson, Portland, Oregon
Great story, David. I read it from top to bottom & listened to the songs.
Now let me tell you a story. I was raised in western Kansas and eastern Colorado along the Arkansas River. I’m two years older than you. In 1958 or 59 our church hosted a college choir from College of Emporia, Emporia, Kansas. There was one black student who was put in our house for the night. Other students stayed with other families. After the concert I and the black student went home while my folks took care of closing the church (sorry I don’t remember that student’s name). There was nothing going on at home, we didn’t have a TV. I suggested we “drag Main Street” which teenagers did. After seeing that there were none of my friends out I suggested we stop and get a cup of coffee and donut. One restaurant in town was very busy, so we headed out to the Port of Entry, where trucks coming into Colorado paid a ton mile tax. We went into the restaurant, found a seat in a booth. The waitress came over and asked what we wanted. I said, “Two cups of coffee and do you have any donuts?” “No, it is late in the day and we’re sold out.” “How about a plate of French fires?” “OK,” she said. This restaurant had a window pass through so the waitress didn’t have to go back to the kitchen all the time. I noticed that all the staff were watching us through that window. And I heard someone talking on the phone. Pretty soon, the waitress came out with the coffee and a glass of water each. And a little later she came with the French fries. After visiting and eating I paid the bill and left. Later, I got to thinking about this. Then my dad said, “All restaurants had a sign that said, ‘we reserve the right to not serve some people.’” Several years later, after I was in college, I was in that restaurant again at a counter stool and the owner came by to fill my coffee cup. I asked him if he remembered me bringing a black student. He did. He said, “It was TIME to end this foolishness of not serving blacks.” I think I helped integrate the restaurants in Lamar, CO that weekend.
Later my wife and I joined Wycliffe and were sent to Kenya, where we lived for 17years, Nov. 1986 to Sept. 2003. Working with languages I often asked Kenyans which language they are from. Even the area you are living in is probably one of the 17 Luhya dialects, maybe Bakusu.
*****
Nancy Birge, St. Louis, Missouri
Thank you for sharing your Anti-Racist Upbringing story. I do hope that these attitudes will continue to spread. It has indeed been a slow process, however. Thank you also for including the music links. Harry Belafonte could probably be considered my first celebrity teenage crush. I listened to his music as much as possible. I do not know if he would have been on TV because my parents were, like yours, and we did not have a TV in the house. Also like your family, we attended the Muny regularly. The Robeson “Old Man River” was particularly beautiful and moving.
I am at present reading a novel taking place in the months just after the Civil War written basically from the standpoint of the freed slaves, so I am in the middle of experiencing vicariously the tensions of that time.
*****
Milt Lauenstein, my regular home is a retirement community in Exeter, New Hampshire, but because of the pandemic, I have been living with family members, currently in Beverly, Massachusetts.
Reading your latest was especially interesting to me because I grew up in St. Louis, but years before you lived in Clayton (I'll be 95 next month). Except for public transportation, segregation was absolute. I had no social contact with a Negro until I went off to Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. There I became good friends with a Negro student from Indianapolis. He was discriminated against in a number of ways, one of which I was able to overcome. We remained good friends until he died.
You mentioned that Soldan High School was Negro. It must have been changed since I was in high school (graduated 1943). My recollection is that when my high school played against Soldan, the latter team was all white. In fact, my mother (white) graduated from Soldan.
Unlike yours, my parents were segregationists. In fact, even when she was quite old, my mother told me that if a black person were to move into the apartment complex where she lived, she would move out the next day. I don't understand what happened that made me turn out to have such a totally different attitude. Throughout my adult life, I've been involved in civil rights activity in one way or another (but not in leadership roles) and I have had black and Asian friends. We also have a "Chinese daughter" as part of our extended family.
One reason that may have contributed to my sensitivity to discrimination is that because of my name, I have repeatedly faced discrimination by anti-Semites.
My wife and I were raised as Protestants. None of our four children married a Protestant. Our family is quite close. In fact, for months my wife and I have been staying with our daughter and her husband who is Sikkimese (Indian).
In race relations, we have made enormous progress, but still have a long, long way to go.
*****
Margaret Katranides, St. Louis, Missouri
You were lucky. In my small town, 30 miles west of Boston, population about 2000, there were no Black families, two Jewish families at two different times, but no kids at my grade level, and most of the families were of English descent. I did have one friend whose grandparents had emigrated from Italy, and there were a few of Finnish descent who actually kept the language alive in their homes. I have recently learned that one of my schoolmates was descended from Lithuanians, but I didn't really know him in those days except as an upperclassman who played baseball. Anyway, when I got to college and was assigned a Black lab mate in chemistry, I saw her as somehow foreign, and being shy I didn't know how to talk with her, except about the experiments we were doing. She probably felt the same about me, although she was from a city and may have had a more cosmopolitan childhood than I.
In 1954 and subsequent years, I didn't understand how people could be segregated on the basis of skin color. Then I went to Turkey, where it wasn't an issue, and Greece, and eventually landed in southern Indiana, where it was endemic. It took me a long time to begin to feel how divided people were in their feelings. Today's Post-Dispatch has articles comparing the treatment of BLM demonstrators last summer, and that of the Trump insurgents this week. First time I remember a mainstream news source really addressing the issue. Maybe I should take hope from that. When we adopted Peter in 1968, I thought by the time he grew up we'd have these things sorted out. Hope takes longer than expected to come to fruition.
*****
Judy Lumb, Decatur, GA, USA and Barranco Village, Belize.
This is just lovely! I, too, had an interest in Africa. In the Model UN I was the Rep from Ghana. The only difference is that I grew up in a small town with no blacks so didn't have any of those opportunities for interracial experiences until college. My family was not that deliberate about any of those issues. I did see Tarzan movies, at least one, without any realization of that issue. My only opportunity was when I visited my Grandmother in Washington, DC. I went to work with her once when I was about 5 years old. We rode a streetcar and a Black woman sat down next to me. I gasped because I thought she had been burned. Grandmother asked her to show me the palm of her hand and touch her so I could see that her skin was the same as mine. Then she whispered to me, “They don't like to be called niggers, you have to call them colored people.” I had never heard either term. It just didn't come up in Charles City, Iowa. We, too, did not get TV until late so I wasn't aware of any of the Civil Rights news. ... Until I went to a church camp at age 16 and they made the whole week as a role play of integration of a school. We were all white, of course, but were assigned roles. I was in the Jewish youth group. We supported the blacks because we were discriminated against, too. I essentially grew up as a blank slate, at least that is what my black friends and colleagues at Atlanta University used to say. But I had the interest, taught my whole career at an HBCU (Historical Black Colleges and Universities), and then moved to a black country. In the early 1980s a group of us in Atlanta Friends Meeting were working on racial issues and wrote our racial autobiographies, which is what you just wrote.
I don't know about "from" but say I live in Belize. It has been a year and a half since I have been to the U.S. and I don't have any plan to go. I had thought maybe April, but it looks like I am going to be able to get the vaccine here around that time, so now I am thinking maybe November. I have an empty apartment in Atlanta at a Senior Center.
*****
Elizabeth Cave, Ealing, West London, England.
Thank you, Dave. I've much enjoyed this. My experience was far from yours. I don't remember seeing anybody who wasn't white during my childhood, apart from one Sikh girl at school.
I remember my father, who'd lived in the US from 1920 till 1937 and whose grandfather made his money as a ship owner running the blockade for the Confederacy from Nassau, teaching me the terminology - presumably theoretical - of quadroon and octoroon.
My parents were very miffed when my best friend at college was Jewish. Mind you, my mother thoroughly disapproved of my first boyfriend, a Londoner, because his name and ancestry were Welsh!
*****
Sam McElwain, Eugene, Oregon.
I have been wanting to write about my family and how I grew up. My father comes from Slippery Rock, Pennsylvanian. He was born in 1929; my mother from Beaumont, Texas was born in 1932. Their families came from mostly Irish emigrants; one side went north the other south. My dad's family history was basically poor farmers. My mom's on the other hand were slave owners. Growing up I heard stories of a harsh childhood for my dad. My mom had a good childhood as my grandfather was a sheriff and a firefighter.
As far as I know my father never saw anyone different than himself until he left at 17 and hitchhiked across the U.S. He was put in jail somewhere in the south (a very minor offense, selling magazines without a license) and, while he was in jail, he witnessed a black man being beaten to get a confession. I think it was a real eye opener for him growing up in an all-white world.
And to my amazement when in 1978, I went back to Pennsylvania to visit relatives. One of my aunts asked me, “What are black people like. I have only seen them on the TV?”
My mom of course growing up in the south grew up around a more diverse group but segregated people. My grandfather did pay a black woman to come to their home from across town to clean and cook. My mom told me stories about her and I could tell she liked her a lot. One story was about how they never ate together. The maid would always wait to sit down and eat after they had left the table. But one time after my grandparents got up, she sat down next to my mom (I think my mom was around 8 years old). My mom turned to her and told her to wait so she got up and waited. I know my mom felt bad about that by the way she told the story. Another story was an incident when it got dark while the maid was still at their house. The KKK came to the front yard and was going to take her out but my grandfather stood on the front porch and would not allow it (I believe he was armed).
I really enjoy reading your letters and I want to tell you some stories from my upbringing in Burbank, California. It feels completely opposite. So let's fast forward to the 60's.
As I wrote of my dad's overnight jail story, officers were beating a confession from a black man. As I think about the story, I don't remember him telling me how wrong that was or any negative feelings toward the police. I can remember from around 7 or 8 years old working on our car or house remodeling projects side by side with my dad and his friends. There were racial comments in most conversations.
Stories about my mom's family were abundant because my grandmother lived a few houses away. I can remember my grandmother telling me that I was better than other people. My mom complained a lot about whatever ethnic group seemed to be moving in to the area.
I was born in 1959 and started school at Miller elementary in 1964. Here are some of the things I remember about school. Most kids seemed the same until around 1967-68 when Cathy Woo came to our school. I liked her and would walk home with her. Soon there was a small group of kids that were labeled as the Mexican kids. They were treated badly and I don't remember anyone getting in trouble for it. I did feel bad for them but never said anything to anyone.
In middle school I met Gilbert. He and his brothers and sister were born in the U.S. but his family came from Mexico. We became best friends and later (much later) I actually married Janet, his sister. In school there were fights among students; there were surfers (white) and lowriders (Mexican). Gilbert and I avoided the grouping thing. We had bb guns and I had a mini bike so we would target practice in the backyard and ride my mini bike up and down the alleys.
During the summer our neighbor Sidney had his nephew Bart from Tennessee. visiting for a couple weeks. Bart and I were the same age so we hung out and I would go over to Sidney's house. While I was there Bart and I were watching TV and no one else was there so he showed me that in Sidney's closet was a white KKK robe. I remember asking my mom about it and she explained that the KKK started like a neighborhood watch that got out of control. So later in life these memories I was questioning if it was true or my imagination so I asked my sister and she confirmed it was true. Later that summer I met Ronnie who lived down the street. One day we got into an argument that turned into a fight that I lost. When I got home, I heard my mom say that he was a Jew so I ran out and yelled at him "Ronnie's a Jew". I was able to out run him but it sure made him mad and I didn't even know what a Jew was.
In high school Gilbert and I liked the shop classes building things, fixing up cars. That's where we fit in. We were cool with all the shop kids and we thought that the kids in the drama class were real geeks. But the funny thing in Burbank is where all the movie studios are and Tim Burton [a successful film director] was in our class and was probably one of those so-called geeks. I should mention that during high school diversity grew when we had one black student.
I have had conversations with my sister about our up-bringing and we talk about things like “Did we learn about civil rights?” No, not really, as we had a very white education.
I don't think my parents were bad people I just think that progress is slow. When my mom was growing up the KKK was active in her neighborhood. I grew up with the KKK next door but I never knew of any activity. My children are biracial and learned about civil rights. I learned some very valuable lessons from my parents and I could write a lot of good stuff, like they absolutely loved my wife and always treated her with respect.
I don't write letters but really wanted to share these things, I'm not sure why. I hope you enjoy it.
May God bless all that you do, Sam
*****
George Cummins, Charles City, Iowa
Growing
up in lily white Iowa, I had little contact with any blacks. My two
grandmothers lived in nearby Union, Iowa. During the depression, a number of
people from Yadkin County, NC, came to the Union area as farmhands, settled and
prospered. Many retained their Southern "drawl" and attitudes towards
race. The Hobsons were good friends of my Grandma Elda and I occasionally overheard
conversions about "nigrahs”. A Union friend had a pet black terrier named
"nigger". Union still observes Tar Heel Days each summer.
I had no black friends in high
school or college. In the fall of 1960, I walked on to the freshman baseball
team at Iowa State. We shared a locker room with the freshman football team
members. One afternoon a football player came in all upset. He was a black
lineman named Eli Strand from the coal mining area of Appalachia. I asked him
what the problem was. He said he had flunked an English theme. It had to be written
during class and not written by a ghost writer and handed in. I asked what the
required topic was. He replied that it was something I thought generic like
"My Home Town" or "My Family". He said he drew a blank on
what to write and in the last few minutes had scribbled a few lines on
"When the Angels Sleep at Night". I agreed that that would be a tough
topic to write much about. I never knew his major but assumed initially he was
"undeclared" and just taking some basic classes.
His sophomore year Eli blew out his
knee, dropped off the football team and out of school. I have always wondered
what happened to him and others like him that are damaged goods. Listening to
some of the athletes who declare early for the pro draft give interviews, I suspect
poor academic performance is a factor.
Peace Corps (PC) in Tanzania was my first
experience working and living with blacks and several other ethnic groups. One
of my PC roommates in Tanga was Doug Daniels, a black from Chicago. We have kept
in touch over the years and he taught in the Black Studies Program at the University
of California, Santa Barbara.
Steve Mcknown and Jim Crawford were
a white and black PC teaching team teaching just west of Dar es Salaam in
Tanzania. They hosted a number of dignitaries as poster boys for PC. For some
reason I was invited to their termination celebration. Jim seemed a bit
melancholy and withdrawn. I later found out he was from the deep South. His
father was a Baptist minister and in college he was attracted to the Black
Panthers. Feeling he wasn't accepted in the USA and not wanting to embarrass
his father, he joined the PC. After 2 years in Tanzania he didn't feel he fit
in there either. The nagging question was where did he belong and where would
he be accepted? I heard that Steve died several years ago and that Jim ended up
in Montana. He did attend the 50th PC anniversary reunion in Washington, D.C.
in 2011, but I didn't have a chance to visit with him.
After PC I got drafted. My basic
training unit was at Ft Leonard Wood, Missouri. It was half blacks from East St
Louis and half rednecks from the South - most all drafted because they didn't
have "bonespurs" or someone with an in with their draft board to
exempt them. The military molds people with different backgrounds into
"teams" working for a common goal.
In early January, 1968 I arrived in
Washington, D.C. on a Friday morning before I was scheduled to report for Army
Combat Engineer Officer Candidate School (OCS) early the next week at nearby
Ft. Belvoir, Virginia. I checked into the downtown YMCA and headed over to Peace
Corps headquarters. I had a brief reunion with several PC/Tanzania staff
that I had worked with who had now assumed fairly influential positions in PC headquarters.
Brenda and I had worked closely together supervising the Tanzania XII PCVs who
were initiating a pilot agriculture training program into the elementary
grades. We had lunch together.
She indicated she had a couple of
hours of afternoon work to finish and then was headed to her apartment to pack
for an evening bus to her home in Baltimore. She invited me to join her for supper
so we could continue our discussion of the progress and surprising success of
the Tanzania XII volunteers we had worked with. She needed to get to Baltimore
to start making arrangements for her wedding to Dick Schoonover, a Foreign
Service officer we had served with in Tanzania. After supper she asked if I
would walk her to the nearby bus station in downtown D.C. which I readily agreed
to do. She got her ticket. I carried her travel case to the bus, gave her a
peck on the cheek, and wished her well in her upcoming marriage. As I turned to
leave I realized I was the center of attention – a white GI in uniform kissing
a black girl with a traveling case getting on a bus. There had been
considerable racial unrest in Washington, D.C. and I was the only white in the
bus station and one of the few in the neighborhood where the YMCA was located.
The by-standers probably assumed Brenda and I had a business relationship and
their glances were hostile. I hurried out of the bus station, jogged to the
YMCA, and locked my room door behind me. It is one of the few times in my life
that I have been scared and feared for my safety.
I spent 14 months with the 11th
Engineer Battalion at Camp Stanley which was halfway between Seoul and the DMZ.
I was the Battalion Adjutant for 10 months and
a Company Commander for 4 months. As Company Commander, my 1st Sgt and the
majority of my NCOs were very capable blacks, several of whom had already
served in Vietnam. My company was about 1/3rd white, 1/3rd black and
1/3rd Korean Augmentation to the US Army (KATUSA). We were building an
East-West Road about 10 miles south of the DMZ with curfews and ROK patrols
thru our area each night looking for infiltrators. Race relations were/are a
common problem in the military, but were not a problem as our unit as we kept
busy working for a common goal.
My last 10 months were spent as a
Courts and Boards Officer back at Ft Belvoir playing lawyer on low level courts
marshals. The big problem at that time was the growing anti-war demonstrations
in DC. They were relatively peaceful compared to the insurrection at the
Capitol on Wednesday.
One question I like to ask white
female PCVs that served in Africa is, "What did your parents think when
you told them you were headed to black Africa?" I know some of my white
PCV friends were told by their parents not to bring a black, brown or yellow
wife back to lily white Iowa. When I was in high school we had Friends,
Lutherans and Catholics as classmates. I never considered dating a Catholic. A Methodist
friend, Erwin Johnson, was told by his mother, "Don't bring home a
Catholic wife" when he went off to college. After college he spent 4 years
in Laos as an IVS [International Voluntary Service] volunteer and USAID
employee. He met and married a Japanese stewardess (Buddhist) named Yoshiko.
Last year they celebrated their 100th wedding anniversary. They got married 50 years
ago in Laos and a month later 50 years ago in Japan. They calculated concurrently
rather than consecutively. He honored his mother's advice and didn't bring home
a Catholic. Yoshiko maintains her Buddhist practices but has also taught Sunday
school in the rural Friends Church they belong to. She is a neat lady, an excellent
mother and doting grandmother... an asset to our community.
Enough stories for tonight. There's
more where these come from...many of which are true. Stay safe and keep in
touch. We look forward to your future Reports.
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David Zarembka
Email: davidz...@gmail.com
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David Zarembka
Thanks to allHow long will it take for us to be blind to other ness
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