Taking Stock of a Dream

I had written another post last week, and was planning to post it today – but that will be delayed for a day because of a National Holiday. Martin L. King, Jr. Day is today, and I spend some time every MLK day to take stock of race relations – now I am not sure that is what this day is for, but that's what I use it for.

Side note: my place of work does not give MLK day off. We get St. Patrick's Day off. When I first found out about this, I thought it was subtle racism. St. Patrick's Day is an Irish holiday, and why would that be "more important" than MLK day. Well, the only reason we get St. Patrick's Day off, it turns out, is that the company is positioned downtown, and it is very difficult to conduct business on this day – Savannah has the second-largest St. Patrick's Day parade in the nation. Yeah, our dinky little city out-performs Chicago!

My memories are generally after the Nixon administration (and the courts) started righting many wrongs – yeah, Nixon was a slime-ball but his administration did several things to implement the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Johnson signed into office. For example, in response to Nixon's Department of Labor hearings that exposed continued widespread racial discrimination, Nixon developed the concept of using "goals and timetables" to measure the progress federal construction companies were making in increasing the number of minorities on their payrolls. In 1970, Nixon extended the use of goals and timetables to all federal contractors, and in 1974, Nixon declared that affirmative action programs should also include women.

End of the history lesson. I have heard more than once that "sports are the great equalizer," meaning that there are no inequalities in sports. Well, this was not always the case – a la Jackie Robinson making history in the 1940s. He was not the first black baseball player, but he was the first black baseball player in a long time that played in the major leagues (AL or NL). Okay, I am swimming over my head when I talk about sports, but there was a Negro League who had fine athletes. Jackie Robinson was not the most gifted athlete in the Negro League (from what I recall from a PBS special), but he was an athlete that the front office of the Brooklyn Dodgers thought could make the transition to the Major Leagues. Not because of skill, mind you (he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1962), but because he could take the abuse on and off the field.

My father is a sports fan – football, baseball, basketball. Now, I remember casually watching several playoff games for the NBA – sorry if the nomenclature is off. And the two teams that I remember most are the Boston Celtics and the LA Lakers. My dad (and I since I was a daddy's girl) routed for LA. But I remember many of those games, and it looked like LA's team was almost all black, and Boston's team was almost all white. My father was not necessarily an enlightened liberal at the time – he just thought Boston's recruitment practices were racist. Most teams have a mixture of black and white players, and Boston's starting five were usually white. At least that's the way I remember it. It was not stated in the news (as I recall), but it seemed that was the case.

Personally, I would have routed for another team (if one had been good). I don't really like routing for California teams – they have great weather, glamour, most of their inhabitants are attractive, etc. I just think they should not have it all.

Fast forward to the last couple of years. Barry Bonds said he did not want to play in Boston because of the racist fans. He was crucified in the media "because of his racist remarks." Now, I really don't know about the fans in Boston. I have never been there; never knew anyone from there. But those Boston Celtic teams sort of made me think about it.

When I was a little girl, racism was blatant. I recall several incidents. Now racism is much more subtle. When I was a teenager, I remember listening politely to a neighbor of ours tells a story about when her little girl first saw a black child – and she thought it was a monkey. What a horrible thing for them to laugh about – it seems degrading to me. And this person is from "the north," where she said racism does not exist.

It is hard for me to comment on racism because "I am white." I feel less than competent to discuss the issue. But I have discussed the issue throughout my lifetime with close friends who happened to be black. And I get their prospective. Since we have similar ideas on a number of issues, I make the assumption that were I black and have endured the discrimination that they have endured, I may feel similarly. Lots of assumptions, but it is the best that I can do.

I have some friends who will avoid a state entirely just because of racial issues. Today – not twenty years ago, but today. Several people, and some don't know the others, and they all avoid the same state. Strange I know, but I would guess that many reading this would be able to guess the state.

I had a conversation with an elderly black man when I was in school. We talked about lots of things (we both thought Larry Bird was overrated because of his race, by the way). He said that race relations would continue to improve as "old codgers" like him would start to die off. That was the only way – for people like his grand daughter, and my future son or daughter – those not tainted with racism of the past – started to grow up. I believe that people can change – but as I get older, I can see his point, people don't normally change. Like the neighbor who thought it was cute that her daughter mistook some baby for a monkey. I have seen a lot of "first baby pictures" and I think most babies for the first day or two of their lives look more like space aliens. Spindly fingers, elongated heads, buggy eyes – space aliens. But I would not tell my girlfriends or sisters-in-law that because it would be rude.

I remember when the MLK holiday was new – some people (racists, perhaps, I don't know – hard to look into the heart of another) would comment about Dr. King's deficiencies. How he plagiarized when in school, etc. Funny thing is that for Presidents Day, we don't do the same (for the most part – let's exclude more recent presidents) of our presidents, especially our founding fathers.
Okay, this post has been a bit disjointed. I would just ask you to take a moment and wonder how we are doing as a nation – are we better off as far as equal treatment goes?

Tomorrow's post will be more of the normal Leesa.