Month: November 2009

Finding Freedom in Postwar Europe

Less then a month before my father, Les Green, died in August 2000, he started talking about his childhood. It seems that his grandmother had a boarding house. He advised that there was a father and child there and that they only ate if they had something to put in the pot. He advised that he always had food and never went hungry. He said that when he was in Belgium, serving post-World War II, he was at a woman’s home who reminded him of the days with his grandmother and always ate well there.

After he died, of course we went through his materials. One of the things he held onto was an article from a September 16, 1946 issue of Newsweek, Racial: Maedchen and Negro, about black soldiers in post-WW II Germany. The Newsweek piece was initiated by a much longer piece in the October 1946 Ebony.

The thrust, particularly of the Ebony piece, was that the black soldier felt freer in Berlin, capital of the formerly Nazi nation, than he did in Birmingham or on Broadway.

A July 2009 article in Stars & Stripes confirms this: “In the words of retired Gen. Colin Powell, postwar Germany was ‘a breath of freedom’ for black soldiers, especially those out of the South: ‘[They could] go where they wanted, eat where they wanted, and date, whom they wanted, just like other people.'”

There is a great website, the Civil Rights Struggle, African-American GIs and Germany, which contains some original research on this topic. The NAACP presented its Julius E. Williams Distinguished Community Service Award for 2009 to Maria Höhn (Vassar College) and Martin Klimke (German Historical Institute, Washington, DC / Heidelberg Center for American Studies, University of Heidelberg) for the project.

But, of course, this doesn’t address why my father held onto that article for 54 years. Was he merely interested in the topic? Did he know someone who was pictured? Was HE one of the people in the pictures? There is a guy who remind my sisters and me of my dad. While my father said he was in Belgium, his records show that he was in the European theater from February to November 1946, so perhaps he was in Germany as well. Ms. Höhn, who I have e-mailed, confirms that there were black soldiers in both countries.

I may never know why Leslie H. “Bing” Green held onto that article for so many years.

ROG

ROG

Q is for Questionable Content

In the comments to a blogpost back in September, Andrew Bechard suggested that I write more about race. He had all sorts of good reasons and particular examples. Here’s the thing: I find conversations about race exhausting. It’s not that I think they aren’t important and necessary, or that I don’t engage in the topic occasionally. It’s merely that talking about race often becomes either incendiary (So-and-so is playing “the race card”, whatever that means) or trivialized (the purported “beer summit”) or dismissive (“Race is just a social construct, so if we just stop talking about race, racism will just go away.”)


But Andrew did ask one specific question that I WILL (finally) answer, and without ever using the word in question. “I, for one, am very curious to hear your views on why you won’t use the ‘N word’ when I regularly overhear other black folks using it around Albany.”

OK, here’s the short answer: I don’t like the word, so I don’t use it.

Here’s the slightly longer answer: I think it is hugely a matter of age. People, both black and white, of my generation, born in the 1950s, or earlier, were taught quite clearly that it was not appropriate word for right-minded person to use, certainly to use casually in the manner to which Andrew refers. That’s why when Bill Cosby received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor recently, he requested no profanity or the casual use of the N-word; he didn’t like it. The NAACP held a funeral for the N-word at its annual conference in the summer of 2007. The use of the phrase by Bethlehem Police Chief Louis Corsi – the town of Bethlehem ins in Albany County, NY – got in him into understandable trouble.

For me, part of my antipathy towards the word comes from the circumstances in which I have been called the N-word. It was almost never face-to-face but rather by person or persons in a moving automobile or truck while I was walking or riding my bicycle. this includes more than a few times in Albany, though, to be fair, not in this century, to the best of my recollection.

Now there’s a whole school of thought that if one claims a word, it loses its power. That seems to be the philosophy, not only for some blacks, but women and gays as well. That’s fine for them, but it doesn’t mean that I’ll start using the words. I know people of Polish extraction who use a term considered a slur in talking about themselves, but I’ve never considered it an invitation for me to use it.

I recall quite distinctly that about 15 years ago, I was in my previous church, when one or two black kids were using the N-word in the church hallway. I said, “Don’t use that word here.” At which point, the (white) pastor came on the scene. One of the young men started to argue with me. And I said, in my best stern voice, “Don’t use that word in HERE,” and they relented. The pastor, who is about a decade older than I, was on the same page in this case.

There is a book out there by Professor Randall Kennedy, with the N-word as the title. The subtitle is The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word and that sounds about right. That book and its author, incidentally, were not without controversy.

That said, I would oppose the banning of a book such as Huckleberry Finn merely because it uses the N-word. (I’m really curious what Bill Cosby, who got the Twain award, thinks of this Twain book.) The Irish Repertory Theatre, an Off-Broadway troupe, is putting on an uncensored production of The Emperor Jones, a 1920 one-act play by Eugene O’Neill, with the N-word “flung around with alarming abandon”; I can see the value in doing the production as written.

I’ve also found any number of songs in my record collection that use the word. Thing is, it seemed to be making a point, rather than be a casual comment. Examples include:
Don’t Call Me N*****, Whitety – Sly and the Family
If There’s A hell Below, we’re all gonna Go – Curtis Mayfield
Woman Is the N***** of the World – John Lennon
Living For the City (album version) – Stevie Wonder

When I saw Elvis Costello sing Oliver’s Army last year, I swear he swallowed the N-word in favor of “one more white nah-gah”.

So, Andrew: I don’t use the N-word because…I just don’t.
ROG

ROG

Sunny Day, Chasing the Clouds Away


If you’ve gone to Google the past week or so, you could not help but to have noticed the visual tributes to Sesame Street. The program hits its 40th anniversary tomorrow, November 10. For someone past the targeted demographic – I was almost 17 when it first aired – there was a period in which I watched it a great deal, especially in college.

The recollection is now fuzzy, but the Muppets of Jim Henson would show up on a number of variety shows in the 1960s. Possibly the first character to make the transition from the Henson act to Sesame Street was Kermit the Frog. Kermit was green, as I am (of sorts) and early on sang a tune about the difficulty of that fact, something about blending in with so many other ordinary things, and people passing you “over ’cause you’re not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water or stars in the sky.” Boy, could I relate. Kermit was also often a bit exasperated, as I was.

Here’s part of the first episode, before a slew of guest stars discovered that it was cool to appear on Sesame Street.

But it wasn’t just the Muppets that appealed to me. Bob McGrath, who plays Bob, looked very familiar; perhaps I recognized him from Sing Along with Mitch (Miller)? I also liked Susan, played forever by Loretta Long. Don’t know how long I was watching, but it was enough time that I remember both the old Gordon (Matt Robinson) and the “new” (1973) Gordon, Roscoe Orman, switched in a very Darrin Stephens way. I even went out and bought a soundtrack album in those first years, which unfortunately got lost or stolen. So when the 10th anniversary album came out in 1979, although I wasn’t actively watching the show anymore, I purchased it. More than that, I played it quite often for a good decade.

Jaquandor has a bunch of Sesame Street YouTube links, including an early version of “Bein’ Green” and the one the one about explaining death that manages to make me tear up every damn time.
ROG

ROG

It Ain’t Easy

Very few phrases fill me with dread and/or irritation as the response, “Oh, it’s EASY!” And it bugs me on two separate but related levels.

I had this colleague who was very smart but I don’t think she recognized her own intellectual gifts. When I would ask her for help, she’d say, “Oh, that’s EASY.” It was as though, if SHE could could do it, it must not be all that special. But, in fact, it was, and in her profession, she is now quite accomplished. It seems that she has recognized the value of her talent.

The other version is when a techie or someone doing something technical or mechanical says, “Oh, that’s EASY.” Implicit in this one is that “anyone” can do it it. Well, obviously, they don’t know ME. While I have mastered which end of the hammer is the one you generally hold, there is nothing in this arena that comes easily to me. If there are four ways to put something together, but only one correct way, you can be sure I will have tried at least two of the other three first. I have absolutely no innate spatial reference capacity.

And it also extends to my absolutely DREADFUL capacity for remembering names. I’ve tried all the tricks. Someone named Mr. Dole is wearing a pineapple shirt; I’ll remember him as Mr. Pineapple.

Now there ARE some things that I do do easily, but I don’t assume that others can, or should be able to do the same. I specifically remember 9th grade algebra, which I was rather good at (97 on the final – I’m also pretty good at remembering numbers generally). There was a particular problem that this kid Sid was trying to do on the board. The teacher was trying to explain it to him, but he just wasn’t getting it. Then she let me try, and the light bulb went on in Sid’s head.

What got me thinking about this was the daughter in kindergarten. She’s fairly smart. Her teacher is having the students spell out the words phonetically, and she knows most of her letter sounds. What happened last month was that she spelled the words incorrectly, of course, and burst into tears. Her mother and I had to emphasize the fact that English isn’t easy.

I mean I am a pretty good speller. A lousy typist but good speller – 100 on my 5th grade final (really) – but I don’t know if I ever knew WHY most words were spelled as they are. Why do “giant” and “jelly” have the same starting sound? Or “cat” and “kitten”? Or “school” and “skill”? The silent e has some rationale – long vowel sound – but what about the silent b in climb or silent g in gnu, the latter of which appears in one of her picture books?

She HAS mellowed since then, but does have a perfectionist streak that doesn’t seem to come from either her mother or me.

“Well all the people have got their problems
That ain’t nothing new” – It Ain’t Easy

It Ain’t Easy by David Bowie video. “Dedicated to The Big Easy with much love.” ROG

ROG

Lighting the Way to Equality

There is a rally this Monday, November 9 from 6 to 7 pm at the Capitol Building in Albany, State Street entrance, in favor of marriage equality.

The NY State Senate is preparing for a special session on Tuesday, November 10th. Apparently, the Senate leadership has indicated that the Marriage Fairness bill (S.4401/Duane) might be voted on that day.

The local NYCLU even came up with talking points if one is speaking with a state senator, not the least of which that:

“Thousands of New York families have been denied the fundamental right to marriage and the basic dignity that comes with state recognition of their family. This discriminatory practice must end. It is time to grant all families the rights and responsibilities that come with marriage.

“New York has long been a leader in civil rights, and it’s time for this state to lead once again. New Yorkers – gay and straight alike – care deeply about this issue. New York already recognizes out-of-state same-sex marriages. It is time to allow same-sex marriages in this state; your vote will put you on the right side of history.”

While I certainly agree with the goals of the rally – and I’m said about the recent vote in Maine on the topic is really depressing – I often wonder about the efficacy of protest generally. And I have been to a LOT of protests in my life. Still, because it is so specifically focused to that targeted date, I find that I am compelled to attend the event.

1. What are your feelings on gay maariage or domestic partnerships?
2. What are your feelings about the value of the street demonstration?

ROG

ROG
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