Letters to the Editor
cazador@nnex.net
Published Letters: 21
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I Sense a Bias Toward Hillary in Many of Your Columns....This One Is No Different
[Read the article: Moving beyond Obama and race]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Barack's white grandparents probably were atypical but we don't know for sure if they welcomed their daughter's choice of his Kenyan father into the family with open arms. My guess is that for them in the 60ies there was some trepadation and second guessing, and probably relief when he finally and quickly moved on. That was a period piece back then and in many parts of the US continues to be the rule and not the exception
I grew up in Chicago in the 40ies through the 60ies. I am now 65. I'll have to say that Chicago is one of the most racially and ethnically divided cities in America. It was when I was growing up and continues to be so. Though the present Mayor Daley has done much to involve black Chicagoans in the city's progress, management, and administration and promote black talent in every way he can, this was certainly not an interest or goal of his father when he was Mayor. Quite the contrary.
Having grown up on the South side of Chicago, by the early 70ies my syblings, all but one, were married and had moved to Hinsdale....one of the whitest and richest suburbs in the Chicago area. Later my last sybling and mother and aunts followed. For years, up to the present, I have grudgingly attended family gatherings during Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Invariably during the festivities the conversation turned to the "black" problem, where off the wall statements were made demonstrating our collective familial paranoia, ignorance, fear, disdain, and sometime even hatred for all those people who lived between the western suburbs and the loop, [downtown Chicago].
The fear that many suburban whites have during their daily drives down the Dan Ryan or the Eisenhower expressways as they speed through/past those black neighborhoods or crawl during rush hours, has no basis in fact but is a crippling fear nonetheless. And heaven forbid that they would ever have to get off those expressways midway to their destinations for gas or to fix a flat....Most would rather ride the tire till the rim was shaved flat.
Granted, the incidence of crime in those neighborhoods is higher than in the white suburbs but almost 100% of the crime is committed by blacks against blacks. The occasional white traveller through the side streets of those neighborhoods is a novelty and hardly ever given a second thought. They're certainly not attacked. I've worked over the years in many of those neighborhoods and was never treated with anything other than curiosity, friendliness, and respect.
So what are we all so afraid of as we take time out from our holiday dinners to once again confirm the wisdom of our segregated choices. We're afraid of the typical black man who we have never even taken the time to know. That fear runs deep, is annually renewed, passed down to another generation, and has never once materialized as any real threat for any of us. And that's what it's like to be typically white.
Only with the leadership of people like Mr. Obama and even preachers like Rev. Wright will we even approach coming to terms with our unfounded fears. His leadership as President will go a long way to lifting up his own people and us white folks right along with them.
John H. Higgins cazador@nnex.net
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Offing Mr. Terry
[Read the article: Moving beyond Obama and race]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My mother was a typical white Irish south side Chicago woman. During much of her life she had the typical 3rd generation Irish American prejudices against all people of color,Jews, and all foreigners or at least those with a foreign accent that wasn't gaelic.
In April of 1960 my father died at the age of 53.
Mr. Terry was a typical, kind, hard working black mailman who during the weekends from 1950 to 1960 worked at my father's office and our home washing and waxing the lenoleum floors of each and doing whatever other odd jobs occurred to my parents to be within his skill set.
It was a tradition that every Christmas, Mr. Terry was given, in addition to his weekly pay, a $100 bonus as a Christmas present for a years worth of work well done. My mother after the death of my father had continued to employ Mr. Terry and the Saturday before Christmas of 1960 chose to continue the tradition of the $100 bonus.
My Mother shared the fears of Mr. Obama's typical white grandmother when it came to black men.
According to my mother, I was not there but was out shopping for last minute Christmas presents, when she gave the $100 bonus to Mr. Terry in the kitchen, in response, he made a move to embrace her and give her a kiss,whether on the cheek or lips was never clear by her telling. She was cornered but managed to escape his advances. She ran into the living room of our empty house and Mr. Terry left by a side door, got into his car, and drove home.
My mother was horrified. I was commissioned the following Saturday to tell Mr. Terry, as he walked up our driveway preparing to work, that he would no longer be needed.
It was probably one of the hardest things I have ever had to do and I remember the sadness in his eyes as they welled up in tears, he shrugged his sholders as if his whole body was asking the question why, held his palms outstretched reaching for my hands, I stood back, he turned and left.
What had probably been a small sincere gesture on his part to thank my mother for continuing my father's generosity, had been turned into an unwelcomed inter-racial assault.
Unfortunately it's been my observation over the years that that is what "typical white people" do more often than not.