Ghosts 'N Guns

My girlfriends and I sat in a circle in the finished basement family room at my friend Gail’s house on a summer day just weeks before ninth grade began.  Each one of us outdid the one before in relating a scary tale. Gail began her story, and suddenly in mid-sentence she stopped, took a sharp breath, and her eyes grew round as she stared over my left shoulder. Her sudden silence and wide eyes caused me to scream and jump right out of my chair. Her fabrication made my fear no less real.

That is what it feels like this week, another week of ghost stories, another week of shooting, this time near Texas A&M University. Five people were shot and three killed, including the gunman and a constable, who had knocked on the door to serve an eviction notice. What are we so afraid of?

How many more shootings will occur before we cannot tolerate the violence? When will we rise together instead of pushing apart to find a peaceful solution? When will we replace rhetoric and politics with compassion and safety for everyone? When will we ban assault weapons for civilian use? When will we finally say that the collateral damage rendered in the push to support the right to bear arms, the thousands of people who die each year by gunshot, is more precious and more important than the personal freedom to bear arms?

I’d rather deal with ghosts than the specter of human hatred and fear that drives people to want to kill others. And it isn’t just psychotic people, though maybe believing that makes it easier to swallow. There is something growing like a weed in our society. It grows unwieldy and strong on hatred, divisiveness, the quest for individual freedoms, and survivalist instinct. Instead of calling for everyone to disarm and preserve human life, more people are arming up and declaring their intentions to shoot and kill.

I feel like our whole sense of community and the greater good has been replaced by individual freedoms and the desire to do whatever anyone wants to do, no matter that it might harm others. Text while driving? Why not? Shoot someone just for walking through a neighborhood? Why not? Plan and execute a mass shooting to show utter disregard for humanity? Why not? Decide ignorance of another culture is reason enough to shoot and kill others to show one’s hatred and fear? Why not? Can’t pay your rent and take it out on the people who happen to be in your way when you decide to express your anger and frustration with a gun? Why not?

I am so saddened by the tragedies of the past few weeks.  But I know it is the ghost stories that are fueling this particular brand of fear.  The fear that whites will lose their position of power and wealth, as if we all had it to begin with and are more deserving and entitled than the rest of the world; the fear that America will grow more diverse as more people from different cultures and religions move here; the fear that gay unions and independent, self-actualized women will ruin marriage as we know it; and the fear that middle class Americans are quickly losing economic ground.

I was afraid of more than just ghosts as a child. I was also terrified of the dark; spiders; strangers; fire; cigarettes (Ma smoked); certain foods like condiments, beer (Ma drank), and seafood; and new situations. These were all manifestations of the real situation that was the basis of my fears – living in an unstable home with an alcoholic mother.

That’s how it is today. People’s fear is manifested in the form of minorities, terrorists, criminals, and gay couples. What everyone is really afraid of is that we are all losing ground and our lives don’t feel stable or safe.  Who do we blame?

The truth is that corporations, people in the eyes of some politicians, are telling ghost stories while sending jobs overseas and pocketing profits and bonuses. The truth is we were always diverse, and we need to acknowledge that fact and stop pretending some people are better and more deserving than others. The truth is that minorities in America, whether they are black, Sikh, Muslim, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, women, or gay, want the same things that the majority (meaning those wielding power and position in our society) wants – the pursuit of happiness, the right to live their lives, and the right to embrace cultural aspects of their heredity, for example, the way Irish-Americans celebrate St. Paddy’s Day, in relative safety. The truth is the institution of marriage is fast becoming irrelevant in this society where women are sexually objectified and men are just “baby daddy.” We’ve lost the sense of love and family that grows between two people who face the world as one and who help each other weather the storms life brings us.  We fail to recognize that gay couples are trying to preserve and participate in this institution, not destroy it. They may be its best hope.

Politicians tell ghost stories, too, or they repeat ones they’ve heard. They make people feel desperate and scared, and they like it that way. If you are afraid of ghosts, you won’t have time to look at what they are really doing, like the Republicans (I’m a proud liberal) who hope to take away your stable retirement income and the health care that you have paid into since you started working. They pretend you won’t be part of the group losing these entitlements, but you will be, and they hope you won’t notice because they’ve made you afraid of the “others,” the ghosts who are unknown and unseen but that you begin to surmise who they are based on who looks or acts differently than you.

There are reasons to be afraid. Life is hard and bad things happen to good and bad people. Not many people live a life without sadness and struggle. But we need to be afraid of the right things, the things that can really hurt us, and take the right action, the one that does least harm.

As a child I had ways of dealing with my imagined fears – I sprayed spiders with hairspray or ran screaming from the room. I slept with the covers over my head. I avoided strangers and strange places. I repeatedly washed my hands if I came in contact with the foods or cigarettes to which I had such a strong aversion. I had panic attacks that stole my breath and dizzied me.  I paced the floor and imagined different and better times. But none of those things fixed the thing that really frightened me – Ma’s alcoholism and all the bad things that came with it: the arguments between my parents; Ma threatening to leave or to commit suicide; and my sense that I was not worthy of a mother who loved me enough to want to stay. I was but a child and couldn’t have fixed it anyway nor did I understand that Ma had her own fears that overwhelmed.

And that’s what we need to understand about everyone today. We each have our own fears, real or imagined, that we must contend with. How can we do that without harming others? How can we do that with respect and recognition that we are individuals in this collective we call America, and we all have a right to be here, no matter how we got here in the first place or where we came from or how we identify ethnically, religiously, and culturally.

We held a pretend séance when I was around ten. I led the parents and younger siblings into the neighbor’s basement and offered them chairs. Then I stood in the back, my face stern, and my arms crossed over my chest. When no one was looking, I pulled the fishing lines attached to objects to make them levitate. My neighbor David was the medium, and he sported a golden turban as he summoned the ghosts. My brother Rocco hid under a tarp and spoke through a length of garden hose to make his voice sound otherworldly. In our imaginative play we exorcised the spirits with an audience applauding our effort.

I wish we could exorcise the ghosts that plague us today and be rid of some of our imaginary fears, the ones that motivate some people to arm up with the intent to shoot and kill. Maybe then we could face the things we really need to be afraid of and find a way for everyone to live in safety.

Marilyn Monroe, President Obama, Me, and the New Violent America

I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.

~ Marilyn Monroe

My mind spins, twists and flits. Sometimes I can’t focus on a single image or idea. So I just close my eyes and let my mind loose. I am at my best when I relax into the process.

Life is like that, too, and this past week was chockfull: Transitions in the lives of our daughters; worries about elderly parents; and friends visiting from out of town. On top of all that, I was glued to the television watching the Olympics, staying up each night until midnight and yawning my way through each workday – the experts say productivity dipped markedly in the workplace during the week as more workers than I were enamored by the games. I celebrated the American teams’ diversity. Gabby Douglas made me so proud, as did all the athletes. I felt joy and sorrow for every person who participated, no matter what country they represented.

 This weekend was President Obama’s fifty-first birthday and the fiftieth anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s death. I was going to write about Miss Monroe in this post. Then another shooting occurred on Sunday at a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. The Sikhs, a pacifist religious order, have faced constant discrimination here in America since 9/11. Because their religion requires the men to wear turbans and not shave facial hair, some Americans perceive them as terrorists. It’s as true as the bandied about lies that President Obama is neither an American nor Christian. But the truth has little sway when haters want to justify their hatred and the actions that hatred inspires.

Seven people, including the gunman, were killed at the temple, and three are critically injured, including a police officer. The FBI has deemed the shooting domestic terrorism. The gunman has been identified as Wade Michael Page, a forty-year-old army veteran who was less than honorably discharged and who had tattoos that suggested ties to a white supremacist skinhead group.

I’ve been talking about gun control since, well, since I became an adult. But the Aurora tragedy brought it to light again. I thought these occurrences would remain rare, but already, here is another one. Is one’s right to bear arms a more important personal freedom than the right to live our lives and engage in the mundanity of every day life in relative safety, without threat of gunfire raining over our heads?

Are we going to make ourselves feel better by calling Wade Michael Page crazy? Will we feel better when we buy more guns? Will this shooting, that was placed on page 10 of my local paper,  be forgotten because the victims were Sikhs, and there is a pervasive hatred among some Americans for anybody who is non-Christian and non-white? Will that hatred continue to fuel the violence that is fast becoming normalized in our society?

As fast as I can write this, arson at an Islamic mosque and community center in Joplin, Missouri, the second time in a year, is in the headlines. Domestic terrorism is here to stay in America, unless we change.

An article in last week’s local newspaper described a new video created by the city of Houston to teach people what to do during a shooting. The six-minute video recommends a “run, hide, fight” response. Danny Davis, director of a homeland security graduate program at Texas A&M University said the video was useful. “You’re not going to turn a civilian into a commando with a short video, but at the same time you can at least put in the back of their mind the possible options,” he said.

He thought the video lacked information about using a weapon and called it a “glaring shortcoming.” He suggested someone could have stopped the Aurora shooting had any of the moviegoers carried a weapon. I disagree. I wrote about that in my last post Playing with Weapons.

Who are we afraid of?

I’m afraid of the people who feel they need to arm up. I’m afraid of Americans who believe that America is only for white people. I’m afraid of the people whose hatred runs so deeply that they lie, blame God, incite and perpetrate violence against others, and feel self-righteous as they spread their hatred against President Obama, gays, women, people of color, immigrants, non-Christians, etc.

I have to think, or at least I want to think, the people spreading these lies, feeding these fears, and responding with violence, are a minority, but their message is louder and more urgent than the messages of tolerance and unity.

Tell the truth. You are afraid of change. You are afraid of people who are different than you. You are afraid of becoming irrelevant. Let’s work together to help you understand and allay your fears and to make this world safe for you and all the rest of us. Lying is not the answer. Going backward is not the answer.  Violence is not the answer. Arson is not the answer. Buying guns is not the answer. Terrorism is definitely not the answer.  When Americans engage in terrorist acts, they are the same as the  terrorists who blew up the World Trade Center on 9/11. How is it any more acceptable or right? It isn’t.

We live in a global community. Our country has open borders and invites immigrants to come work, go to school, become citizens of our country, and other countries allow us to do the same. We have to find ways to get along or at least live in proximity without killing one another.

President Obama’s birthday had briefly lifted my spirits on Saturday. I remember him at the Charlotte rally in 2008. I shook his hand. I still think about how he looked that day: relaxed, confident, presidential, intelligent, warm, and engaging.  He looks older and tired now, but  just as I thought on that day four years ago, he is the best hope we have for this country. He’s our best chance for all of us to recognize who makes up this country we call America – we are diverse, and that is our strength. We need to let him do his job. I wish people didn’t hate him.  I can understand if they don’t agree with his policies, but it is so much more. It’s sad and frightening. I wish Marilyn Monroe could have been there at his birthday celebration to sing Happy Birthday, Mr. President as she did for President Kennedy. Maybe she would have made him smile.

Marilyn Monroe makes me smile, too. She was fearless about her femininity in a masculine world, yet she was wracked by insecurity and neediness. I wish we could have experienced her wit, intelligence, and beauty a little longer. She let the world see into her soul, as painful as it was for her. She showed us her humanity in all its imperfection and in all its beauty. I see it when I look at photographs of her, her eyes showing both vulnerability and hope that the world would accept her just as she was. I was five when she passed away, but her movies still make me laugh and cry.

Maybe in this world, where people think guns and arson are the solution, hatred is spewed in venomous tirades, and videos must be made that teach us how to react in a mass shooting; we have to cling to our humanity and the small things that make us happy, like spending time with family and friends, watching old movies, or celebrating our best athletes at the Olympics. We have to hold on to our own vulnerability and recognize everyone else’s. We have to acknowledge the worst in us so we deserve to experience the best in all of us. 

Playing with Weapons

I think about all the victims in Aurora, and I realize there are many more than originally counted. Think about all the people in the theater who were not physically injured but who are mentally and emotionally wounded. Think about families and friends of the victims – they are suffering, too.  The suffering is like the rings created in a body of water after an object has broken the surface, moving out wider and wider.

Sales of guns have risen in Colorado since the shooting.  My home state, with 10% unemployment, didn’t have a spike in sales but a spike in interest in purchasing guns. I say, smart thing, pay that mortgage or buy some food instead. That will help you survive better than buying a gun.

I asked Ronald what he thought would have happened if other people in the theater were armed. Remember, he is a certified pistol safety instructor. He said, “A lot more people would have died.”

Visibility was almost zero. People were running and diving in all directions. The noise must have been deafening. Holmes wore riot gear. In such a situation, who would have been able to pull off a shot that hit the one vulnerable area, the neck, of the assassin? No one but the best-trained sniper, a rarity, could have made such a shot. But someone else with a gun might have shot wildly into the crowd and killed even more people.

Another “joker” was arrested for threatening his boss and employees in Maryland. He was going to be terminated from his job. He made two threatening phone calls and the company contacted police. They found an arsenal in his home.

“If you asked me who the Joker is, I’d say a face card or a character in the Batman comics,” Ronald said as we were eating breakfast yesterday morning. “Why do people use something like that to hold up like a banner?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and I really don’t. I watch all the superhero movies and the action/adventure movies, and I have never wanted to hurt a single person. I can’t understand why people need arsenals or why they want to shoot people. I see shooting as a sport, target shooting or hunting, though I am not a fan of hunting just for the sake of killing. My husband shoots at circles, not silhouettes, and he doesn't hunt. Today’s paper had a column about gun control and featured a photo from a local shooting range. The photo was of a shooter at the range aiming at a life-sized photo image of a man. Many people buy assault weapons, and they talk about shooting people.  See my post about my husband’s experience as a pistol safety instructor Profiling Fatality 3 and last week's post on the Aurora shooting: Tired World.

Gun violence is mainstream and accepted. People are afraid so they want to get guns, and they want to use them. What are we so afraid of?

A four-year-old was shot and killed in a park in the Bronx by a stray bullet. A person on Facebook wondered how a parent could have let a four-year-old out to play at 9:30 in the evening. 

I know why that child was out in the park. When we still lived in Syracuse, I remember driving through the poor sections of the city on warm nights, and everyone was out – the streets were teeming with people. The houses and apartments were not air-conditioned and were stiflingly hot.  That’s why fire and police personnel check on the elderly during heat waves. They can’t get out, and the inside temperature can be twenty or thirty degrees higher than outside. The inside temperature can be deadly.

That child was out because that was better than being in. That mother couldn’t have known that a group of teenagers who were playing basketball would be armed and willing to use their weapons.

Mental illness is stigmatized and access to mental health care is difficult even for those with health insurance. Even if an individual is seeing a psychiatrist, as Holmes supposedly was, it is difficult to predict when one might descend into thoughts of harming oneself or others. Already people are predicting that Holmes is mentally ill, but we don’t know for sure. Maybe that helps people make sense of the senseless violence. We have to be able to explain things, even the seemingly unexplainable.

Here’s my explanation: we live in an increasingly divisive society that tends to isolate individuals instead of creating community. The rich are getting richer while everyone else is getting poorer. Everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else. It is making us a fearful and violent society.  The push for personal freedoms has caused people to act on those feelings. Many people feel isolated and disenfranchised, not a part of mainstream society. I wonder, is anyone really part of the mainstream or are we all islands in the ocean?

There is so much we need to do to calm the situation. The first thing is to take assault weapons and riot gear off our streets, except in the hands of qualified and trained police and military personnel. Why is it easier to buy an assault weapon than it is to register to vote in some states?

The second thing is to stop this trend where most of America, the 99%, is plunging into poverty. We are a better country than this. Corporations have to be better stewards of the people who live where they do business. Our government needs to step in. It’s not socialism, it is the right thing to do, and it levels the playing field for everyone.

The third thing is to accept our diversity. It is our strength, not our weakness. We can come together, if we would just be more tolerant and more accepting of our differences.

Here’s the latest story from the golf range:

This week Ronald climbed the stairs to the front porch after hitting balls. He figured he’d spend a little time chatting with the white guys on the porch. He keeps trying to get along, because they are the people in his social sphere.

The golf club repair guy said, “You want that driver fixed, you better get it to me.”

“Not [Jacob],” Ronald responded.

“What? He thought you were [Jacob]?” I asked. I remembered that Ronald had told me [Jacob] had broken his driver the week before.

[Jacob] is a half-foot taller than Ronald, about ten years younger, very dark, and thin as a rail. The two men couldn’t look more different.

“Oh,” the golf club repair guy said, “I don’t see that well.”

“And he wants people to give him their golf clubs to repair?” I asked, laughing. I was still incredulous.  Let me remind you that Ronald’s been going there for five years. [Jacob] covers the shop for the owner sometimes, and he is there hitting balls almost as often as Ronald. How could the man not be able to tell them apart?

Then I remembered that back in Syracuse, Ronald and his friend Michael, who also played golf, were often mistaken for one another. Ronald had about three inches on Michael, and Michael had that small, long-muscled gymnastic body – he was a gymnast for Syracuse University back when we were students until an injury knocked him off the team. Michael’s eyes turned up at the outer corners and his nose was pointed. He wore glasses. This was in contrast to Ronald’s large, round eyes and broad nose. Yet people used their names interchangeably.  After it happened often enough, both men gave up and answered to either name.

Not only did they get mistaken for one another, but many times in the almost twenty years they were club members, they were reported at the pro shop for “sneaking onto the course.” One day a new white member marched into the pro shop and demanded someone get the black guy off the course. The club pro, who jokingly referred to Ronald as “Walter Hogan” because of his accurate drives, said, “Ron’s been a member for a lot longer than you have. He should have been in here asking about you.”

Change is very slow. But we need to try harder. We need to fight against social isolation. We need to see one another clearly. We need to stop being so fearful. We need to make people feel part of something greater than just the individual, and we need to include all Americans and celebrate our diversity.

Diminishing Racism One Granite Countertop at a Time

Race is in the news again this week. George Zimmerman was released from jail on a $150,000 bail and is awaiting trial.  He apologized to Trayvon’s parents in court, and many people believe the gesture was opportunistic, though I’m not so sure. A North Carolina judge, Greg Weeks, tossed out the death sentence of inmate Marcus Robinson because he ruled the trial was influenced by racial bias.  It was the first ruling under the 2009 Racial Justice Act. Two black men filed a discrimination lawsuit against TV shows The Bachelor and The Bachelorette for the treatment they received during a casting call. They believe the shows intentionally screen out people of color.

What side you fall on in each of the above events doesn’t matter. What matters is that they happened, and they happened because racism, bias and discrimination still exist.

Marcus Robinson, a black man who killed a white teenager in 1991, deserved a fair trial and to be judged by his peers, but the prosecutors rejected qualified black jurors and stacked the jury pool with whites.  It may have been a fair trial in every other way, but even so, because bias was used in jury selection, we’ll never know for sure. That uncertainty was enough to throw out the death sentence under the 2009 Racial Justice Act. This law was passed in North Carolina (Kentucky is the only other state that has a similar law on the books) because of the number of black inmates on death row in comparison to white inmates.

The judge’s ruling stated, “Race was a materially, practically and statistically significant factor in the decision to exercise peremptory challenges during jury selection by prosecutors,” and that the disparity was enough “to support an inference of intentional discrimination."

Cassandra Stubbs, one of Robinson’s attorneys, said, "For over 100 years, jury selection in capital cases has been plagued by racial discrimination against qualified African-American citizens. Today’s decision offers promise that change in this area, long overdue, is finally coming.”

The two men who filed a lawsuit against the popular reality series said that they were treated differently than white applicants. One was asked why he was even at the hotel where the casting call took place. The suit claims that TV programs assume "minorities in lead roles and interracial dating [is] unappealing to the shows' audience."

It goes on to say, "The refusal to hire minority applicants is a conscious attempt to minimize the risk of alienating their majority-white viewership and the advertisers targeting that viewership. Nevertheless, such discrimination is impermissible under federal law."

George Zimmerman’s bail hearing made headlines. When he gave his apology in court, Trayvon’s parents were stoic. The prosecutors called the gesture opportunistic, but Zimmerman insists he wanted to apologize to them in private but was advised not to. He also stated that he thought Trayvon was older, but he didn’t say specifically what caused him to follow Trayvon or what made him suspicious of him.

Here’s the thing about racism or any ism: most times it is a subconscious reaction. It’s ingrained. It’s a lens through which we process and interpret what we experience and see. We have to work hard to alter that lens and accept other possibilities. But first we have to acknowledge that our biases exist and that we operate under their influence without question.

“Why bother?” some might ask. “What does it have to do with my life?”

I have heard that question many times in my life. Once I participated in a work sponsored diversity workshop, and I shared some of the situations Ronald and I had experienced. Many people expressed shock, even sorrow, that such things still occurred, but one white man just shook his head.

“What do you expect me to do about it?” he asked, sounding disgusted. “I don’t have anything to do with it, and I’ve got my own problems.”

Then he said, “What do you think of your Louis Farrakhan? He’s against interracial relationships, too.”

That was the first time I realized some people considered me non-white, perhaps even black, because of my relationship with Ronald and because I bore his children. That proved to me conclusively that race is a social construct because it appears one can move back and forth between races depending on who is looking at you. President Obama has suffered this bias and so have my daughters.

Before I could respond, one of the other white women stood up. She had something important to say and wanted to make sure she was heard.

“I’ve known Dianne since she was a college student,” she said. “I can vouch that she is a very nice person.”

Her comment was meant to diffuse, but instead I was upset that she felt my character needed defending, as if she were saying, “Okay, you’re right, she made this terrible choice, but she’s still likeable.” Yes, yes, I’m a nice person, but is that the only reason someone should care about the discrimination I’ve experienced by being in an interracial relationship? Even nasty people deserve equality and fair treatment.

Another white woman in the workshop said, “You should consider yourself fortunate, because interracial marriage used to be illegal. At least you were allowed to marry.”

That comment made me angry. As if I needed permission to marry and should be happy I received it from some anonymous source. Just ask any gay couple if they are waiting for permission to legalize their relationship. They don’t want your permission; they just want equality and fair treatment.

There aren’t many houses without television or the Internet these days. I admit to watching TV shows with regularity and passion in some instances (I can feel my anticipation for Mad Men escalating as Sunday evening approaches). I have my favorites. But I notice the lack of diversity in most shows and that is disappointing.

Ronald and I watched Full Metal Jousting for each of the eight episodes. It is a reality show that resurrected the ancient Euro-centric sport of riding a horse toward an opponent, dressed in armor (both the rider and the horse), and carrying a large lance that is aimed at the opponent in an attempt to unhorse him. The show highlighted a competition that ended with one jouster being the overall champion and winning $100,000. There was not a single black contestant or trainer on the show.

“I’ve noticed there aren’t any black competitors,” said Ronald while we were watching one of the first few episodes, “but I still want to watch it. I wonder, though, did any black guys audition or were they not drawn to the sport?”

I had noticed, too. I can’t imagine that there are no black horse trainers or black theatrical jousters or black rodeo cowboys (or Asian or Hispanic ones, for that matter). Those were overwhelmingly the backgrounds of the all white competitors. Then again Cara, Mackenzie and I used to go to the Renaissance Faire in Sterling, NY, and there were very few black actors there and not many black spectators. Even Ronald fought us for years about going, thinking he wouldn’t like it, but Mackenzie and I convinced him to go last year, and he had a great time. I digress.

In my quest for diverse television, I find myself gravitating to HGTV. Seems ridiculous, right? But the shows are quite diverse – all kinds of couples and singles looking for housing, in all price ranges and geographic locations, to buy or rent. Seeking housing can be an equal opportunity endeavor as long as the seller, the landlord, or the realtor isn’t biased, as was the case when we purchased our first home. Perhaps the cameras prevent such bias. After all, who wants to be caught on camera being a racist unless that person is a member of a racial extremist group?

Watching people of every ilk engage in the search to fulfill one of the basic human needs, shelter, is in some way comforting to me. The universality of the need normalizes the process and breaks through cultural and racial differences. Right now it seems everyone, no matter race, gender, sexual orientation, age, or socio-economic level, wants granite countertops and stainless steel appliances on their home wish lists. How mundane is that?

In many ways TV and the Internet cause us to have more shared experiences and shared aspirations, like those granite countertops, for example. The needs are created by ad men (like in the 1980s when minivans became the must have for people with children), the message is spread via television and the Internet, and the fulfillment of that created need is equal opportunity, as long as there is economic access, but even then, you can buy granite-looking Formica or granite tiles at Lowe’s or select a high quality, unique piece at a granite yard, depending on your budget.

Where the disconnect happens, and where the situation can turn ugly, is that now, as we begin to congregate in the same places, to want the same things, to do the same things, and to share the same experiences, those biases and social constructs crop up and get in the way.

The solution is to keep questioning ourselves; to realize no one needs to give permission to anyone else to be who they are; to understand that bias and discrimination of any sort hurts everyone not just the targeted person or group; to acknowledge that the lens through which one views the world is not the only lens and does not afford the only picture of things, but is just one view out of billions; and to speak up when bias is evident because even if it doesn’t seem to affect you, it does. It affects all of us. We need more sharing of experiences and aspirations, like those granite countertops, so we can see the commonality in all of us. Then perhaps race won’t be in the headlines every week.

The Face of America

If I asked you to imagine an American, what would the person look like? Do you see President Obama as the face of America? Oprah Winfrey? Tiger Woods?  Jennifer Lopez? Marc Anthony? For many people, the face they’d envision would be a white face, probably a man, someone of European descent. Yet the 2010 Census shows ethnic minorities are growing. The Hispanic population grew 43 percent since the 2000 Census. Hispanics constitute 16 percent of the US population. The Asian population also grew by 43 percent, and they represent 5 percent of the US population. African-Americans represent 13 percent of the US population. Nine million people, or about 3 percent of the population reported being more than one race, or mixed race.

Texas, California, the District of Columbia, Hawaii and New Mexico are states in which there is a majority-minority population, where more than 50 percent of the population reported being from a minority group.

Yet most people still picture Americans as white. White is more of a mindset, a social construct related to power and privilege, than a race or ethnicity. Many white Americans don’t feel culturally connected to their countries of origin.  Mainstream culture, though often influenced by the cultures of ethnic minorities, is often assigned “whiteness.” Yet many things uniquely American were originated within ethnic minority cultures in America – jazz and tap dance are the most well-known examples.

Some people are calling for a colorblind society, and I hope for it as well, for an acceptance of everything and everybody that we are in America. It is a different way of viewing the concept of the melting pot. Initially it was thought immigrants would assimilate into mainstream culture. But the new, progressive view of the melting pot could be the sharing, acceptance and acknowledgement of all the cultures that contribute to making mainstream American culture unique.

We are not there, though there have been attempts – the multicultural movement in the 1980s and 1990s, for example. Unfortunately, terms such as multicultural and diversity were often used incorrectly, only in reference to ethnic minorities. It was misunderstood that we are all ethnic and that is what makes us diverse, each one of us. Even for individuals who came from family that has multiple generations in America, their family origins were passed down to them through the food they eat, the legacy of migration or immigration, the stories they pass on to the next generation, the traditions they keep, and the way they celebrate holidays and rites of passage.

Until we recognize and acknowledge that each American has an ethnic origin, that the concept of white or black or brown skin is a social construct and has little to do with race, culture and ethnicity, we cannot live in a colorblind society. At this time in our history, colorblindness will mask the very real racism that is woven into the fabric of who we are. It is a part of our history, our institutions, and our collective sense of identity. Are you in touch with your ethnicity? Who do you picture as the face of America?

(Excerpt from Chapter 5, Why You Gotta Be Jerkin’? Shades of Tolerance: A Biracial Love Story)

Dad looked gray, and he sat quietly in his chair. He laid the newspaper on the floor in front of him, and held his chest as he leaned over and read, just as he had when he had his first heart attack. This time he did not wait the entire weekend to go to the doctor.

Frank drove us to see Dad in the intensive care unit. I sat in a chair by the window, the sun falling on my hair, lighting it up like a red flame. Ma always told me she thought I would be the one to have red hair; she hoped for it, for a child that looked more Irish than Italian. But I was not that child.

I did not know what to say to Dad as he lay in the bed with tubes and wires connected to him. I could not think of anything to make him feel better. The hospital smells and the beeping of the heart monitor made me anxious.

“Your hair is red,” Dad said, “You dyed it, didn’t you?”

“No, it’s just the sun,” I said.

“Yes, you did. I can tell,” he said, laughing a little, but I knew he was upset.

“It’s the sun, Dad. If I move, you’ll see. I haven’t touched my hair.”

I stood up and moved to the end of the bed, away from the sun, so he could be sure.

I called Ronald the next day from work on the Watts line.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“No,” I said. I wanted to run back to Syracuse.

Ma started in on me minutes after Steve dropped me at home that evening.

“You were my princess,” she said.

“What?”

“I had every hope for you,” she said.

“Ma, I don’t want to talk about this.”

“You caused your father’s heart attack. You might have killed him.”

I stopped breathing. The room swirled around me.

“Ma, don’t say that!”

“You’ve thrown your life away!”

“Stop, Ma, just stop!”

“You’ve broken my heart! I want to die!”

“Ma, why do I have to choose? I’m happy. I love him!”

“Your children will be hated. You’ll be ostracized. My princess,” Ma said. She moaned. She began to sob, and I joined her. “Aunt Josephine cut you out of her will,” she continued.

“So what?” I said, “What’s that supposed to do? How would that change my mind?”

“You’ve cut yourself off.”

“Ma, what if I choose you?” I said, the words thick in my throat, “You won’t be here forever. You’ll leave me alone.”

I cried. Ma bawled. I pleaded. Ma accused.

The next morning, with no sleep, I showered, dressed, ate some breakfast, and left the house at 11:15. My eyes were swollen and dry – I had no tears left. I walked down Locust Park toward Central Avenue to the bus stop.

Steve pulled up beside me in his brown Pinto.

“Hey,” he called out the window.

“I feel like shit,” I said, “Ma and I fought all night.”

“Over Ron again?”

“Yes, I don’t have time to tell you about it. I’ll tell you later.”

“Want a ride?”

“No, I need to walk,” I said. He waved and drove off.

Steve drove me back to school that fall. We stopped at Peggy and Dawson’s house to visit her before Steve headed back to Albany. After her daughter Liza was born, we had found our way back to each other. I often babysat Liza at the dorm, letting all the girls on the floor dote over her as she played peek-a-boo with me in the mirror, her large, azure blue eyes with the dark ring around the irises surprising her reflection, her blond hair falling in sweet baby curls. I felt about Liza the way I imagined Peggy felt about me when I was little.

I told Peggy about my many arguments with Ma, about how difficult it was to see Dad in the hospital again, and how hard the whole summer had been.  I had been berated and chafed every day to make a choice.

“So maybe you should just stop talking to her,” she said, “then she’ll have to choose if she wants to lose you or be in your life with Ron as part of it.”

“How could I do that?” I asked.

“You just have to,” she said, “When they come up, I’ll have you and Ron over, so she can get to know him. That might make a difference.”

“It won’t,” I said, “She won’t change her mind.”

“She might. But either way, you have to be strong and live your life,” she said, hugging me, and I remembered how she took care of me when Ma couldn’t or didn’t.

I stopped talking to Ma.