First, read pt 1, because today is all personal.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Since people here like personal stories (they get more 4s than anything else) I'll start my story with an incident that took place back in 1970 - 35 years ago.
I was performing at a showcase in a local church in Brooklyn. I had never been inside the venue before. (It wasn't my place of worship, it was just geography - it was around the corner from where I lived - literally. 75 feet away.)
A number of my friends from outside the neighbourhood came along to support me. I was 15, btw.
The show was rotten. I tried, but, at 15, I still had a lot to learn. Nonetheless, my friends were supportive. I think the fact that I went out and performed at all was good enough for them. Afterwards, as the evening was ended and everyone was splitting up, I kissed my friend, Heather, goodnight. It was just a friendly kiss, but my parents, who had also attended, freaked out.
Heather was one of the prettiest girls I'd ever known. To this day I remember her grace, her intelligence, her sweet and absurd sense of humour.
I was shocked when my parents scolded me.
Heather and I remained good friends for another two summers. I loved making her laugh more than anything. To this day I have never met anyone who had the pitch of her laughter. It was the most pleasing sound, like you'd think an angel would laugh - like music. So I'd do anything short of tickling her to hear her laugh, and, I'd tickled her a few times, too.
The last time I saw Heather, a bunch of us were performing together, a lot of her and my friends. She visited, carrying her little girl with her, for she had married. She also wore a pale blue and white veil and matching outfit. She'd become a "black muslim" (Married to the Farrahkan Mob!!!) and while she could talk to her friends (and family) in our cast who were black, she knew talking to us, her "white" friends, unchaperoned was forbidden.
We had an awkward but oddly tender exchange - it was really nice seeing her and her beautiful child (who looked just like her - same broad forehead and bow-like lips).
Heather left soon afterwards in tears, pretty silently and to herself.
Her cousin, Juanita, an extraverted jazz singer and dancer, told me about it afterwards. She thought the whole separatist thing was nonsense, and confidently predicted Heather would get her and her daughter out of it soon.
I don't know if Heather ever did "get away". Maybe she found happiness and comfort where she was. Juanita never became famous. None of us did. Not in the way any of us would have predicted
I only tell the story because it was a turning point in my youth.
My parents, now in their 80s, have long since come around, and in a way that has reverberated all the way back through the spine of their lives.
They've remembered their friends and colleagues of color, their friend and colleagues of heretic religions - and suddenly woke up to seeing that the prejudices and fears of their childhoods and their neighborhoods were all just nonsense.
I think my innocent, adolescent kiss of a beautiful and very dark-skinned girl a mere 100 feet of the house, back in 1970, and the fight that followed, was a turning point for them, too.
Racism is, of course, a mask, behind which far greedier and more serpentine ambitions are enacted. That does not free the exploiters of racism of that racism.
They are a party to it and just corrupted enough (morally if not politically) to exploit it for their own gain.
I lived for twenty years in Ireland (from 1980-2000, more or less). During that time I made of point of getting to know people from the North and people involved with both sides of the Sectarian divide there. (The first time I met Hillary Clinton was in Belfast, on the Shankhill Rd, and I was a bit ashamed of myself as she didn't realise I was a journalist visiting from Dublin, but had shook my hand thinking I was a resident of that sad neighborhood - I was ashamed, actually, but a little thrilled, too)
I often tell people that every problem of the 21st century can be found in microcasm in the six counties of Northern Ireland.
Of course, the racist underpinning of the Northern Ascendency and plantation class are barely understood by most Americans.
BUT, the plantation class of Ireland was the SAME plantation class that settled the MAJORITY of the territories of the modern United States.
One of the quirky things I totally love about Savannah, Georgia, is that Oglehtorpe, when founding the city, forbid the practice of slavery within the city AND he also forbid the settlement of Catholics. LOL
Needless to say, Savannah, became one of the biggest ports of the slave trade AND a huge settlement for Catholics.
As Jon Stewart might say - a Zen moment.
It's the racism, stupid, pt 3 to follow....(And we'll alternate between the personal and the historical)
But this (RACISM) is the only issue and the one we need to talk about the most
And, I hope that what you gathered from my story is that Racism is a chronic failing that ALL races can indulge.
Indeed, history shows us that in the absence of obvious racial difference, synthetic ones can be created based on tribe, location, education etc.
As a good Catholic I should also point out that Racism is deemed an extreme moral failing in contemporary church thinking. Since Benedict has already signaled the Church's disdain for the immature ruminations of the Intelligent Designers, I hope he will soon speak out against their racism.
Perhaps that is too much for a former Nazi Youth?
(Oh fuck, and now we another indefensible Vatican position and another new diary for someone to start)
RACISM will remain OUR theme until further notice....
(How can the Vatican disdain "Gay Culture" - don't they realise that they are living in the middle of the most sublime expression of gay culture ever --- ("What??? "Oh, and Michealangelo did your ceilings? Fabulous!")