There is a lot of advantage in growing up poor in a relatively small, segregated town. I grew up in Wichita Falls, Texas, on the East side of the tracks. That was how our world was divided. The East side is where you lived if you were black or Latino. The West side is where white people lived. Children are not born with prejudice, and because my mother, who I would come to understand had experienced much heart wrenching prejudice in her life was focused on earning Gods love, prejudice was not taught or passed to us in our house.
Next door to our small house was the neighborhood grocery store. It was run by brother Amos, an aging man, huge, but gentle and loving. He always had his bible with him and everyone in the neighborhood knew if you needed something, he would find a way to help you. He felt being a Christian obliged you to feel that way. Brother Amos store is where in warm months, the elderly men of the neighborhood gathered to talk about the worlds issues. I was fascinated with sitting and listening to them, and only years later did I marvel at the fact that these men, who must have endured some amazing things in their time, never displayed anger or hate, but instead talked about hope and dreams and how things would not always be as they were.
As I got older, and the world began to change, I like most young people thought less about the lessons I had learned from those old men. Now most of my learning came from books, which I loved. I read everything I could get my hands on. I loved history and the biography's of famous people, and I dreamed of traveling the world and someday living up to the courage and wisdom of those I admired from these books. And wow, did the world change. Because my mom taught me to have faith in myself and because my books encouraged boldness, I was among the first in my community to go to all of the places I was told were forbidden to me. As I not only survived but thrived among the people in those forbidden places, I grew in many ways, having the privilege to see and understand the world from many divergent perspectives. I sat with old white men at the farmers market and heard their ideas of what the world was and how it should be. I went to the homes of white kids I met at the Boys Club, who lived in huge houses and whose lives seemed like something from a fairy tale, and I was treated mostly with warmth and respect. By the time in 1969 when the high schools were integrated in my town, I was well beyond the curve, having gotten to know many people and having spent much time on the forbidden West side.For years the kids I grew up with on the East side watched me leave to go across the tracks, and they listened as their parents told them that someday I would not come back. But my mother just smiled.
The Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power Movement, Black Nationalism, the Ku Klux Klan, the Hippie movement and the summer of love all had lessons that shaped the way I saw the world and the hope I had for the future. In my teens I began to visit relatives in other parts of America and to experience the worlds they lived in; Kansas City, Chicago, Buffalo, Denver; and each brought a different perspective.
I witnessed incredible change and I walked and talked with people who talked amazing progressive talk, and I dreamed of a world like the one those old men used to talk about. Without knowing it, I had grown into, rather than away from the influences of my mother, brother Amos and those old men who gathered at the grocery store. I had also grown toward those white friends I had made on the West side and the belief that with a little boldness and a lot of faith we could all learn to walk in each others shoes.
Now, so many years later, I look at America and wonder what happened. As we move head first into the the most intense part of the contest that will decide the next president of America, the way in which the politics of division has been utilized bring memories rushing back of the civil rights movement. The middle class, who has been decimated by policies that began being implemented in the 1980's are pawns, being appealed to in earnest by those who say support us and you'll somehow benefit, but we can't really explain why. And the other side says don't believe this, they've been telling you this since the 80's and look at what has happened. Within this war between the classes, you are encouraged to see images of poor nappy headed blacks carting away the hard won gains of proud dilligent white people, an image I know all too well from my childhood. And it is just as untrue as it was when offered then, but those promoting this image just don't seem to be bothered by this fact at all.
But what disturbs me most is the way the teachings of Christ have been perverted almost beyond recognition. Having grown up in Texas, I am well aware of how so called Christian groups like the Ku Klux Klan used the bible to justify their views and actions. Now it is less in your face, more subtle. The Chrisitian attitudes of people like my mother, brother Amos and those venerable old men I have such fond memories of who believed that no matter how wrongly they had been done, Christs challenge to us was to rise above it and keep love in our heart, is no where in sight. Instead what you see is a strange twist in which the idea is promoted that Jesus had harsh views of those who don't live their lives exactly as they say he believed, and that somehow his admonition that only God had the power to judge others was somehow misunderstood by us heathens who do not seem to realize the devine mission God gave them to set us all straight. They would probably laugh with derision with brother Amos idea that Jesus wanted him to somehow use his store to help even those in the most dire situations because God shows his happiness with us by making us rich, so if you're not rich, that means you do not please God.
Now, 58 years after being born into this world. After years of growing ever more optimistic and believeing that we are as human beings sure to eventually live up to our God given potential, I am sad and disheartened. No matter who wins this election, I see only more difficult times ahead for the plight of human kind. I fear that hardened hearts and purposely undeveloped minds will continue to resist every effort by the more progressive among us to move humanity to a saner place. And while I still believe that good wins in the end, after all the bible gurantees it; I am deeply distraught at the price I fear we will have to pay before that day of salvation finally comes. The bible prophesied that too, but finally, at least for me, what seems obvious has overcome my natural sense of optimism, and I weep in my heart for whats been lost, and for what I now believe will take far too long to find.
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