discrimination – Tessa M. Perko's Blog

Character Study: Grace

Photo by Vinicius “amnx” Amano on Unsplash

Here I am cleaning the bar while they sit on their asses smoking cigarettes. I’m not the only employee here. Why doesn’t the boss yell at Juan and Carlos to clean up?

Juan grinned at me from his bar stool as he let smoke sail out of his pursed lips like the exhaust of an old car. He winked and I cringed. Using his thumb and index finger to put his cigarette back into his mouth, he turned away from me slowly to rejoin the conversation between the boss and Carlos.

They were chatting about one of the women who had come to the bar that night. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but from the leering looks on their faces, it was derogatory.

The woman had come in alone, walking into the bar around 9 p.m. in a purple satin blouse, a black pencil skirt with a slit up to her panty line, and black stiletto heels. She flipped her dyed-blonde hair over her shoulder as she sat down at an empty table, the lace of her panties showing at the top of the slit in her skirt.

Quickly, both Juan and Carlos had rushed over like ants at a picnic. Together, they bought her a martini.

She stayed for awhile as I made drinks behind the bar and Juan and Carlos waited on tables. She sat alone for only a few minutes because a tall man in a suit asked if he could sit with her. She smiled at his question and waved him into a chair. For two hours, the dyed-blonde and well-dressed man chatted, their elbows on the table as they leaned toward each other.

Finally, they got up. She smoothed down her skirt and tucked in her blouse. He held out his hand. She put her hand in it. They walked across the dimly lit room and out the double door together.

It was 4:30 a.m. The bar had closed at 4 a.m. Since then, I had gathered the dirty glasses from the twenty-six tables in the room and put them in the dishwasher. I had collected the ashtrays, dumped the ashes into the trash, cleaned each of them in a pan of soapy water, and set them to dry in the drying tray.

While I was doing all this, Carlos and Juan had sat down with the boss at one of the high tables. The boss had pulled a bottle of whiskey from the bar and poured it into three glasses. They had been drinking their whiskey for half an hour while I did the cleanup all by myself.

How misogynistic. Juan and Carlos got paid for drinking whiskey with the boss while I played Cinderella?

I wiped down the top of the bar, rubbing it with a cloth until the granite gleamed in the low lighting. I threw the caps and empty bottles of liquor into the recycling trash, counted the remaining bottles of liquor, and wrote the numbers down on an inventory sheet.

Suddenly, I blew a gust of air out of my clenched mouth and banged my fists on the bar. I turned toward the men drinking whiskey and waved my hands.

“Hey, when are you guys going to sweep and mop the floor and wash the tables?” I yelled over the music that was still blasting from the juke box.

The boss stopped what he was saying, put his glass up to his mouth as his eyes settled on me, and swallowed the last bit of whiskey in his glass. Carlos and Juan’s eyes turned toward me in silence.

“Hey, Grace, you do such a fine job. Why don’t you clean up everything tonight?” the boss said. He cocked his head toward Carlos and Juan ever so slightly as he spoke.

I took a deep breath, my chest expanding like a balloon while anger filled my eyes.

“Boss, the sweeping and mopping is not my job. I’m the bartender. The waiters are supposed to do those chores,” I said, trying to hide my fury.

The boss poured more whiskey into his glass as Carlos and Juan grinned down at their table. Carlos took his hands and pulled the ends of his bowtie to straighten it. Juan flipped one of his hands into the air like he was dismissing a servant.

This was ridiculous. Why would I want to work in a place with such a male-chauvinist crew? I had to show them that I wouldn’t put up with this. No woman should.

I untied the short white apron that was hitched around my jeans, scrunched it up into my right hand, and threw it across the room at the three men. It landed at their feet.

“Whoa, girl. Watch your temper,” the boss said. “Pick this up.” All three men stared at me, spectators watching fish in an aquarium.

Really? They don’t have a clue what I’m saying. I guess I’ll have to make myself crystal clear.

“I quit,” I said. “Pick it up yourself.” I took a pile of coasters from on top of the bar and threw them over the granite. They landed under the bar stools and across the linoleum. Then, I strode to the bar’s swinging door, pushed it open, and slammed it back so hard that it clunked on the cupboard behind me. I paced across the room toward the exit.

“I’ll pick up my last check tomorrow,” I said, twisting back toward them and winking before leaving the building.

Women: Six Sure Ways to Empower Your Leadership Ability

When I was a little girl, I wasn’t raised to be a leader. I was taught to be a follower, that women were supposed to be demure, passive, obedient, and silent. This early training manifested itself in numerous ways; for example, I expected men to drive, my dates to pay the bill, and males to make the important decisions.

This kind of thinking hindered my ability to grow to my full potential for a long time. Overcoming the inclination not to give my opinion, disagree, stand up for my beliefs, or lead others took decades. When I worked in the corporate world, I experienced discrimination which only perpetuated my lack of development. Finally, when I took a job in the field of education, I was encouraged to lead and to think with unlimited potential because my job demanded it.

In this post, I want to share some of the ways that I changed my perspective from being reluctant to lead to becoming empowered with leadership ability.

Adopt New Roles

Women can practice being leaders by adopting new roles within their personal lives. After I married my husband, he lost interest in driving. At first, I didn’t like taking on this responsibility, but when I associated driving with exercising my leadership skills, I felt positive about it, and now I’m comfortable driving all the time. This may seem like a small change, but it helped me adjust to being in charge in other situations as well. It’s easier to take one step at a time than to jump up the whole staircase.

Practice Speaking to a Variety of Audiences

Teaching is one of the best ways to practice speaking in front of an audience. First of all, teaching requires daily or almost daily speaking to students, and a teacher can become well-practiced at opening and closing lines which occur for each class period. Another advantage to practicing speaking as a teacher is that the teacher is considered the most knowledgeable person in the room, which automatically builds confidence. The teacher develops her lesson plans, practices them, and presents the information in ways for all types of learners to understand. This involves work and a lot of practice.

People who want to become leaders can take the opportunity to become a teacher for others. All disciplines and industries need strong teachers.

Speaking as a leader, however, involves communicating to a variety of audiences: peers, colleagues with different skills, superiors, or strangers. Each type of audience has different expectations and a leader must anticipate what they are and how to fulfill them.

Some women join a Toastmasters group to learn how to be comfortable speaking about a variety of subjects to a variety of audiences. Others speak up when they attend conferences with peers, and some volunteer to lead charitable groups that need chairwomen.

Admit Mistakes

One of the best ways for a leader to bond with an audience is to admit when she makes a mistake while speaking. She may misspell a word, forget a plus sign, or explain a concept incorrectly. Someone in her audience may point out her mistake, or she may find it herself while speaking. Audiences are human and they’ve made mistakes, too, so when a speaker confesses that she has blundered and admits it, the audience feels that she is more approachable, likeable, and believable.

Use Affirmations to Build Courage

Fear is the number one impediment in becoming a leader, and so I’ve found a way to build courage whenever I become anxious. On the bulletin board next to the desk where I write, I have pinned an affirmation that says I lead with grace and ease. This affirmation helps me remember that being a leader doesn’t have to be stressful. If I know I have the potential, I can approach leadership as if it is a natural expression of my personality. I keep my affirmation close by and recite it aloud whenever I see it.

Emulate Other Female Leaders

I am involved in a women’s charitable organization. One of the women in the group speaks in front of our meetings with confidence, talks loudly enough for everyone to hear, presents informative material, employs a sense of humor, and exudes a positive attitude. I admire her.

When I had to lead an important luncheon, I decided that I was going to try to emulate this woman. I spoke clearly, added a joke or two, and presented our honored guests with a gracious and optimistic manner.

After the luncheon was over, this woman sent me an email telling me that she was astounded with my leadership ability. How ironic that I was trying to emulate her. Of course, I let her know and now we admire each other.

Let Others Shine

A leader doesn’t always have to do all the talking. The best leaders give the spotlight to others so that they can shine. For example, teachers often ask students to explain a concept or to analyze a piece of literature. Directors ask their managers to update a team about a project’s progress, and chairwomen are expected to inform an organization about her committee’s work.

When I was leading a charitable luncheon during which the organization awarded scholarships to college students, I asked each scholarship recipient to share his or her story with the club members. Their stories were profoundly interesting and took up more time than I did in presenting them. The luncheon was an astounding success due to the fact that the club members felt a connection with the recipients after learning their stories. All I did was stand back and let them speak.

Women have so many talents to share with their communities, but many of us have been trained to take a back seat. It’s time for women to sit in the front. Both women and the world would benefit from more female drivers.

Glitter, Gloss & Human Dignity

Last Saturday, I attended the San Francisco Gay Men’s Holiday Spectacular at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for the first time. Oh! What a night!

When my daughter and I arrived, a quiet but eager crowd was gathered around the theater’s entrance. We donned our required Covid masks and presented our tickets to a friendly usher who pointed to the stairs. Above, another smiling usher led us to our excellent seats and we sat down—only two in a theater filled with Christmas sweaters and holiday cheer. Excited voices murmured throughout the cavernous room.

The stage curtain was lit up with the title of the chorus in capitalized red letters, and, a few minutes later, the curtain opened to reveal the silhouette of risers brimming with over 200 singers. The lights came on, and the audience suddenly saw ten rows of men dressed in long-sleeved red T-shirts and black bottoms on a staircase of risers. The orchestra began, the conductor raised his arms, and the men began to sing.

Young men, gray-haired men, bald men, men with beards, men wearing skirts, men with canes, and men sitting on stools all crowded the risers and faced the music conductor with professionalism and purpose. No one read lyrics from a song sheet. All of them sang by memory.

The chorus sang “On this Shining Night” by Morten Lauredsen, a song I had sung with the Blackhawk Chorus a few years ago. The men’s voices were rich, on tune, piano and forte. I fell in love with their sound.

After each song, several chorus members quietly exited from the risers and went back stage. As the next song began, these members came back on stage as dancers in various costumes to complement the chorus. Some stood at microphones at the front of the stage to sing solos.

In the middle of the performance, the chorus sang a long rendition of “Jingle Bells” that got the audience toe-tapping and clapping. They sang many verses in a variety of styles that became more exuberant all the way to the song’s finale.

The song that sent shivers up my spine was “Huddled Masses” by Shaina Taub, a song about the plight of immigrants and our moral duty to support them. The conductor explained to the audience that, although this wasn’t a Christmas song, it promoted the spirit of Christmas, which is love.

On the right side of the stage, in front of a glowing Christmas tree, was a sign-language interpreter who signed the words of each song. His hands gracefully moved as the singers slowed their tempo and stretched the lyrics over a series of beats.

One of the last songs was “Silent Night.” The orchestra began the introduction and then the chorus, instead of singing, signed the first verse silently. When it was time for the second verse, the orchestra stopped, and the chorus continued to sign the verse as the audience watched in silent wonder. In the quiet of the moment, my heart filled with so much gratitude to the chorus for expressing what a deaf person hears and how silence can evoke wonder and awe.

Later in the program, the chorus held a moment of silence for the five LGBTQ persons recently gunned down in Colorado Springs. For two hours, without an intermission, and with energy and vitality, the chorus recited lyrics of peace and promoted love in both prose and lyrics. This was a night filled with joy despite life’s hardships and disappointments.

I left the theater with happiness in my heart—contentment that I live near San Francisco, a city filled with respect and love for the LGBTQ community—because I know, that a culture that treats all persons with dignity is the cheeriest place on earth.

Feeling Better about America after Visiting the South

I just completed a trip to Savannah, Hilton Head, and Charleston and, now, I feel better about the United States.

During the last six years, the news has plagued viewers with stories about racism, some of which were unfortunately true and others which were sensationalized. George Floyd was murdered by a police officer who knelt on his neck. In two different instances, a police officer in my own town killed two men who had mental health problems. There are numerous examples like this. Hearing that my country is full of arrogant white supremists who belittle, offend, and abuse minorities does not make me a proud American.

I wanted to tour these historic areas of the United States because I want to understand the history of this country, not just the white-washed stories that many books divulge, but the complete histories of even the disadvantaged human beings who lived here before the Puritans and the African Americans who were brought here to be slaves on plantations.

My trip taught me about a different side of Americans. I met numerous Whites and African Americans who extended great hospitality toward me and my co-travelers. They helped me make hotel arrangements, dinner reservations, and late-night taxi calls. One 6-foot, 6 inch African American man, who was dressed in a blue-and-white-striped seersucker suit and a colorful bowtie, drove me to an appointment one day. On the way, he told me how he met his Russian wife years ago, and, how, they were now best of friends. I’ll never forget his funny story of how he didn’t even like his wife when he first met her and how his eyes lit up like candles as he told me.

An elderly White woman led a group of us around the city of Charleston, showing us how the mansions had slave quarters attached in back. She described the opulent lives of the mansion owners, some of whom were plantation owners who came into the city in order to avoid the mosquito-infested plantations during the summer. She also explained how the slaves had to cook and clean outside in the back yards even during the sweltering summer months. Her mission, she said, was to tell the history of Charleston so that the mistakes of the past were never repeated.

When we visited the Gullah Geechee Museum in Pin Point, Georgia, a Gullah woman taught us how to sing a Geechee song by stamping our feet, clapping our hands, and singing. She also shared details about how her ancestors worked as slaves before the Emancipation and then lived and worked at Pin Point in oyster and crab processing plants. She was confident in her story-telling and proud to share her culture with us.

When we visited the Magnolia Plantation where we viewed slave quarters and a magnificent plantation home, the White tour guide told us that she tells the story of the plantation and its slavery so our country can heal from its lurid past. At another storied place, the Middleton Plantation, we saw how the family of the owners ate from silver platters while the slaves lived in unheated wooden shacks.

Every Southerner we met had a story—a personal one or one that had been created from the South’s history—and they all told their stories with clarity and friendliness. Every community we visited exuded harmony and graciousness. Most notably, Whites were respectful of African Americans; African Americans were respectful of Whites.

When people experience harmony and hospitality, their moods improve and they feel better. I feel better now that I’ve experienced the warmth and kindness of the South.

A Place for All of Us

Last week, I saw Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story with Rachel Zegler as Maria and Ansel Elgort as Tony. Rita Moreno, who played Anita in the 1961 version, played Valentina, the wife of Doc, who was the original owner of Valentina’s drugstore.

This fabulous musical—which whips emotions into a frenzy with enthusiastic dancing and impassioned characters—was relevant back in 1961, a time when racism was high in the United States. For goodness sakes, the Civil Rights Act wasn’t even passed until 1964, three years after this original musical.

The Civil Rights Act outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, and later sexual orientation and gender identity. This act sought to establish equality for voter registrations, prohibited racial segregation in schools and public places, and outlawed discrimination in employment.

West Side Story, first written in 1957 by Jerome Robbins was inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Remember, Romeo and Juliet came from two different feuding families in Verona. Robbins wanted his lovers to come from two different religions in America—Maria was to be a Jewish girl and Tony was supposed to be from a Catholic family.

But when Laurents and Leonard Bernstein started collaborating on the musical, they drew inspiration from the Chicano riots in Los Angeles. By the time the musical was complete, the setting had been moved to New York and the opposing gangs were represented by the Puerto Ricans and poor white communities of the city’s West Side.

The 2021 version is spectacular, and as relevant as ever. The two opposing factions could be any community in America: men verses women, Whites verses Blacks, heterosexuals verses gays, Christians verses Muslims. Even though the 1964 Civil Rights Act was supposed to establish equality for every person in the United States, it didn’t.

People aren’t equal here, and diversity still seems to threaten our various cultures. Women have not achieved equal pay for equal work, and, even when they work, they experience inequality at home when they are expected to bear most of the responsibility for raising children and doing housework.

African American men are viewed as dangerous and irresponsible and too often become the targets of police officers or white vigilantes. Furthermore, African Americans are dehumanized for their dark skin and course and curly hair.

Muslims are labeled as terrorists just because they share the same religion with terrorists on the other side of the world.

When gay couples want to have children, they are criticized and ostracized. Transgender individuals are the victims of rape and ridicule.

American society is still a white supremist society, and most white people don’t understand how pervasive this damaging attitude is to the non-white cultures of our country. So when two people from different cultures fall in love, their ability to sustain that love is fraught with hatred from their respective communities.

In Steven Spielberg’s version of West Side Story, Rita Moreno sings the song that begins with “There’s a place for us, some where a place for us.” She sings about a place with peace, quiet, and open air. She sings about a time for togetherness, time for recreation, time for learning and caring.

The poor and discriminated in the United States don’t live in places of peace and quiet. They live in places filled with pollution, noise, and stress. They don’t enjoy togetherness when families break down due to financial hardship and lack of opportunity. They don’t have time to play. Stress takes up their opportunities to learn, and they don’t feel like anyone cares.

I cried in the dark theater as Rita Moreno sang this song.

When will women ever feel as equal as men in American society? When will their assertiveness and leadership be valued as much? When will African Americans overcome the cavernous damages that slavery imposed upon them? When will religions ever learn to respect every individual no matter their gender, sexual orientation, or creed?

Rita Moreno sang about how, if we hold hands, we can be “halfway there.” Holding hands requires empathy for one another. We’re not practicing empathy too well these days.

Let’s really get into each other shoes. Choose the people who are the most unlike you, and ask yourself, “How would I like to be treated?” Maybe then, we can start holding hands and finding a place for all of us.

The Maid and the Parking Valet

We stayed four nights in an expensive hotel on the beach in Central California. Every night, I slept fitfully in a luxurious bed with the ocean waves rolling right outside our sliding glass door. It was heaven near the sea.

As we left our room each day, we said “Good Morning” to Lili, our maid, who cleaned all the rooms on our floor. She spent about 45 minutes to an hour in each guest room—picking up the wet towels, wiping down the shower doors, polishing the faucets, making up the king-size beds, vacuuming, cleaning the coffee pot, arranging soaps and shampoos near the tub and at the sink, and moving the patio furniture back into place.

I had read Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich so I knew that hotel maids earned minimum wages or not much higher. When I saw Lili’s envelope on the dresser after her first cleaning, I thought about the book and made a note to leave a tip at the end of our stay. Meanwhile, we wished Lili a good morning each day before she came in to clean our room. When we came back each afternoon before dinner, our room was immaculate and inviting—an oasis by the sea, the waves making music just outside.

On the morning we were packing up to leave, I saw her tip envelope again. “Let’s leave a tip for the maid,” I said to my husband, a retired, successful man.

“I don’t usually tip the maid,” he quipped.

“We should,” I said. I went to my wallet and found a twenty-dollar bill. While I was slipping it into the envelope, my husband handed me a ten-dollar bill. “No, I’ve got it,” I said.

I tucked the envelope’s flap inside and carried it with my luggage down the hall until I found Lili’s cleaning cart outside of another room.

“Lili, I have a tip for you,” I stated across the open room where she was arranging the curtains.

Lili’s face registered total surprise. She walked up to me and took the envelope with two hands. “Thank you so much.” She didn’t seem to get too many tips. I wanted to watch her open the envelope to see her reaction, but I thanked her again for her wonderful work and continued down the hall with my husband.

As we were walking out to the front entrance, we decided that I would go get the car that was parked in the lot up the hill and drive it to the front where my husband would wait with the luggage.

When we got to the open door, the parking valet wished us a good morning. “You were here four months ago, weren’t you?” I asked.

“Yes. I’m Sean. I thought I recognized you.”

My husband proceeded to chitchat with Sean while I got the car. By the time I came back with the car, he had found out that Sean had two sons and Sean coached both of them in soccer. Since my husband had been an athlete and a coach for our sons, he enjoyed this conversation quite a bit.

Sean put our two suitcases and two other bags into the trunk for us. He also got us a bottle of cold water to take on our drive home. My husband tipped him outside while I waited in the driver’s seat.

When he got in the passenger seat, I asked my husband how much he tipped Sean.

“Six dollars.”

“What? For only a little conversation and lifting four items? At the most, he was with you for ten minutes.”

“He was a good guy,” my spouse said.

I’m sure he is a great guy, but I’m curious as to why Lili didn’t get the same equal treatment. The inequality built into the exclusive hotel system left a cruel impression.

Jumping Four Eyes

Ginger swung her jump rope over her head, under her feet, and tripped on it.

“What a dunce!” said Natasha who was skipping by. “You’re just a four-eyed freak.” Natasha’s chestnut braids fell over her shoulders as she glared at Ginger. Her hair was almost the same color as Ginger’s, not carrot red, not brown–a shade in-between. Ginger thought it shone like the cedar chest in Grandma’s hallway after it was polished.

“That’s not a nice thing to say, Natasha,” said Ginger as she poked her glasses behind her ears and back up her nose.

“Well, it’s true.” Natasha grinned, flicked back her braids, and skipped away.

“She is so pretty and smart, thought Ginger. I wish she liked me.

The next day, Kimmie, who also wore glasses, walked up to Ginger holding a jump rope. “Do you want to jump together?” she asked.

“Sure,” said Ginger. “Can you do this?” Ginger swung her rope over her head, crossed her arms in front of her and jumped through the rope.

“I’ll try,” said Kimmie. “Let’s do it together.”

The two girls jumped. Just as they crossed their arms, Natasha walked by. Ginger tripped on her rope, and Kimmie’s left foot got caught up in hers.

“Now I see two four-eyed freaks,” said Natasha.

“There’s nothing wrong with wearing glasses,” said Ginger.

“Except you can’t see anything,” answered Natasha. “You can’t see even as far as your own feet.”

“We can see just fine,” said Ginger. “Come one, Kimmie, let’s go somewhere else.

That night while Ginger lay in bed, she thought about Natasha. Why did she tease her about her glasses? She was just as fun to play with, just as talented and smart. Last week, she and Natasha both got one-hundred percent on their math tests.

If I’m teased about my glasses, thought Ginger, other kids might be, too, so she decided to do something about it.

The next morning, Ginger searched through her bookcase to find her book about jump rope rhymes. At recess, she asked Mrs. Humphrey if she could borrow a long jump rope from the P.E. equipment. With the rope in her hands, she invited Kimmie and her friend Austin to jump with her.

“If we practice, we’ll be the jump rope experts on the playground,” said Ginger. We can use my rhyme book, but we must agree to some rules first. When anyone makes a mistake, the rest of us can only say something kind, like “Good try.”

“Great idea,” said Austin, adjusting his glasses.

Kimmie and Austin took the rope handles and beat out a rhythm on the asphalt.

“I’ll start out jumping and see how far I can go,” said Ginger. She jumped into the swinging rope. At the count of seven, she tripped on her shoelace.

“Hey, four-eyes, I knew you couldn’t see as far as your feet,” yelled Natasha from the monkey bars. Ginger sighed, then squatted down to tie her shoelace.

“Good start,” said Kimmie. “Natasha doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” Kimmie chose a rhyme and started to jump:

Candy, candy in a dish
How many pieces do you wish?
One, two, three, four, five . . .

Kimmie jumped to twenty. As she counted through the twenties and thirties, dozens of kids gathered around to count with her. They counted to fifty. They continued to sixty and seventy, clapping in rhythm with the rope. “Seventy-six, sevety-seven, seventy-EIGHT!” breathed Kimmie, dropping to the ground holding her side.

“Wow!” exclaimed Ginger. “You did great , Kimmie. Austin, you’re next.”

“I plan to get a little fancy,” said Austin. “Just watch.”

Benjamin Franklin went to France
To teach the ladies how to dance.
First the heel, then the toe,
Spin around and out you go.

As he sang, Austin placed his heel on the ground, then jumped. He pointed his toe. On the last line, he twisted himself around in the air, skipped over the rope, and ran out to the side. Squeals of delight erupted from the crowd. Everyone cheered and clapped.

Day after day in the playground, Ginger, Kimmie, and Austin sang rhymes from Ginger’s book. More kids joined them. Austin jumped as the girls raised the rope higher and higher.

Ginger practiced after school. She tied one end of the rope to a ladder rung on the swing set in her back yard and asked her brother Ron to turn the other end. Finally, one day while Natasha watched from the bars, Austin sang a rhyme from the book about the face of a clock. Two new jumpers, Holly and Henry turned the rope ends, Kimmie skipped in the middle of the rope while Ginger skipped all around her. She didn’t trip even once.

Boys and girls clapped in rhythm with them, laughed when they heard their rhymes, and complimented them on what good jumpers they were.

The next Monday, while Ginger was jumping to a tune about the Mississippi, she missed a beat. The rope hit her in the nose and her glasses fell off. Tears filled her eyes and trailed down her sweaty cheeks. She pressed her nose with her fingers to stop the pain.

“Good try, Ginger,” said Kimmie as she picked up her glasses and patted her on the back.

Ginger checked to make sure her glasses weren’t broken, then put them on. She noticed Natasha walking up to her, so she turned around and walked away. She didn’t feel like being insulted, again.

Someone lightly tapped Ginger on the shoulder. She stopped, wiped her face, and turned around. Natasha was staring at her only two feet away. “I’m sorry you got hurt,” she said, taking in a deep breath. “You guys are really good. Could I jump with you?”

Ginger stared at Natasha’s braids for a minute. Each one was tied with a bright, yellow ribbon. “I thought you didn’t want to play with people who wore glasses.”

“I was wrong,” said Natasha. “It doesn’t matter if someone wears glasses or not. You guys are having so much fun. I really want to play with you.”

“I want to play with you, too,” said Ginger, grinning. She started running back to Kimmie, Austin, and the others. “Come on, you’ve got a lot to learn about jumping!”

Consideration and Other Covid-19 Behaviors

Way before the age of the internet, the Civil Rights Movement of 1965, the birth of Millennials and the X and Z generations, Emily Post (1872-1960) was promoting cultural humility through her advice about good etiquette.

The practice of cultural humility promotes the putting aside of rigid personal perspectives and becoming open to the viewpoints of others. When I engage in cultural humility, I become humble in the promotion of my own understandings and, in my newly-created humility, make room for comprehending the culture of others, especially those cultures that differ greatly from my own. In this process, I contribute to making my community a positive place for all inhabitants to live and thrive.

Post said that “consideration for the rights and feelings of others is not merely a rule for behavior in public but the very foundation upon which social life is built.”

What she meant was that consideration for others or the lack of it establishes the foundation of social life. In places where people show great thoughtfulness for others, social life is positive and fruitful. When people lack consideration for one another, their social life is injured, broken, and painful.

But what did Post mean by consideration? It turns out that she interpreted the meaning of consideration the same as the meaning of cultural humility. To Post, consideration benefits all of people involved in a decision, encourages a positive outcome, a better community.

In promoting good etiquette, Post described other qualities that should exist along with consideration.

Respect is shown through actions and words. When I talk about another individual, I honor and value them regardless of their race, creed, gender, or any other possible classification. I treat them as equal to me and 100 percent worthy of esteem. This even includes the treatment of people that I may easily consider morally less than me, such as a prisoner in jail for robbing a bank or selling cocaine.

In his book Just Mercy, for example, Brian Stevenson explains that, because of the inherent biases in our legal system, we should honor and act merciful toward all imprisoned people. Some of them have been punished with harsh sentences for insignificant crimes, some are mentally impaired and lacked adequate defense during their trials, and some are even innocent.

With great difficulty and effort, Stevenson, through his organization, Equal Justice Initiative, secured release and freedom for Walter McMillian, a young man sentenced to the Death Penalty for a murder he did not commit.

Stevenson makes an even more profound point in his book. He claims convincingly that “each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”

How many of us have skeletons in our closets, secrets from our teenage years, or idiotic histories from our youth? Maybe we stole a bottle of scotch from a liquor store when we were in high school just to see if we could do it. Maybe we drove while intoxicated after a college party, but we never got stopped by the police. Maybe we smoked marijuana before it was legal and even inhaled, or maybe we did something that is best left in our past because it would mar our current balanced, respected reputation. When we think back over our own mistakes, we easily can agree with Stevenson that “each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”

Another aspect of respect is self-respect. When someone possesses self-respect, they are equipped to honor others. Self-respect avoids pushiness or boastfulness from conversation and encourages self-confidence. When someone is self-confident, they don’t worry about their physical appearance or abilities, but act with integrity and good character, qualities of lasting substance.

Post’s etiquette and the concept of cultural humility also involve “honesty.” Honesty is knowing our characters and maturity are flawed, yet still trying to speak the truth in a positive way. Honesty is using our understanding of truth, but recognizing that as we grow and learn, our truth will become a greater expression of love than we are able to express today.

Graciousness was also favored by Post, which she defined as the ability to make everyone feel welcome. This, too, is the essential purpose of cultural humility. We open our arms to everyone no matter if they are rich or poor, heterosexual or homosexual, Jewish or Muslim, African or African American, Chinese or Korean, or male or female. In graciousness, we hug each and every human being and make them feel secure and comfortable in our society.

“I am so happy that you got such a big raise, my friend.”

“Your husband is always welcome at our dinners, Mark.”

“Would your rabbi let me join your Jewish history class. I’m so fascinated.”

“Tell me about how your family observes Ramadan, Raul. I want to learn about your religion.”

“When did you decide you wanted to become a doctor, Krystal? I think you’ll be a great one.”

All of these welcoming statements express graciousness.

Finally, Post promoted the practice of kindness as part of good etiquette; likewise, cultural humility cannot exist without the expression of kindness between two people of different backgrounds. Kindness is warmth from the heart, a transfer of love from one person to another. When I am practicing kindness, I’m unable to judge, discriminate, belittle, or condemn another human being. I’m treating people as my equals.

In this day of social distancing, etiquette and cultural humility, both, can help us navigate our new society, hopefully an environment which is temporary, but now reality. We have been ordered to stay six feet apart, wear masks in public places, and cover our hands with gloves to protect us from the Corona Virus.

What should we do when we meet people who are not following these protocols and potentially endangering themselves and other people?

If we look to Emily Post’s advice and the practice of cultural humility, we must remember to respect, be honest, act graciously, and confer kindness in our interactions.

Instead of yelling at someone to back up six feet so we don’t get their germs—“Back up, you bozo!”—instead, we could explain that we are concerned about their safety, so it would be better for them if they left more distance between us.

When witnessing potentially harmful activity such as a gathering in a park, etiquette and cultural humility encourage us to avoid jumping to criticism. An alternative would be to say, “Isn’t it great to get outside! Don’t forget to stay six feet apart while you’re having fun.”

If we run into a customer at Safeway who is not wearing a mask, we don’t have to shame her for her insensitive behavior, which only makes us insensitive. We can nod to her in a friendly way and explain that we feel more comfortable following the mask rule so as to avoid getting infected. Then, send her on her way with “Stay healthy, my friend.”

If we see our neighbor’s gardener drive up, good etiquette and cultural humility guides us to refrain from judging in case we misjudge instead. Perhaps the worker is cleaning up the weeds in the back of our neighbor’s house, which qualifies as an essential service. If the gardener is not doing essential business, but just mowing the lawn and trimming the hedges, we might think about the type of relationship we would like to foster with our neighbor in the long term. Avoiding confrontation or criticism now can help us to maintain our good connections that promote a friendly and safer neighborhood for everyone involved.

After this pandemic has passed and our lives get back to a more normal state, if we’ve practiced good etiquette and cultural humility, we’ll have developed good habits for the rest of our lives.

In addition to fostering better relationships and communities, we’ll have grown into more caring, considerate, and loving human beings. Our new etiquette-minded, culturally-humble perspective will make us more joyful and help us foster happier relationships.

Corona Virus Integrity

Pope Francis claims that the Corona Virus Pandemic is presenting humans with an opportunity.

A few weeks ago, right after the San Francisco Bay Area was ordered to shelter-in-place, I signed up to receive his daily email messages as a way to continue my journey toward cultural humility.

I’ve always respected this pope and believed that his spirituality reflected a mature connection with God. He never judges. He never criticizes. He accepts responsibility for his mistakes and, since he is the Pope, he recognizes the mistakes of the Catholic Church and works to heal the pain caused by the Church in the past.

He also understands the power of joy in life and the profound goodness it can achieve in helping someone develop a stronger spiritual life. I watched the movie The Two Popes; at one point, Francis tries to teach Pope Benedict how to tango. Pope Benedict never learns to dance well, but, while dancing, his face lights up with pleasure, a delight that he didn’t often feel before Francis arrived.

I’m impressed. I really am. Pope Francis brings joy into the lives of many people; he behaves as a human being of integrity.

Today, the day of Easter, his message is thoughtful and profound. He advises his readers to become inventive, creative. This makes sense. Creativity is the origin of life, the basis of growth, and the source of expanded understanding.

The Pope suggests that Christians use their creativity “in opening up new horizons, opening windows, opening transcendence toward God and people.” In simple words, for humans to love one another.

Before the sheltering-in-place order, many people attended Mass, and then, after leaving the church, they thought nothing of discriminating against other people. Some disparaged the LBGTQ+ community by criticizing pictures of gay marriages on television. Others labeled Muslim women as terrorists simply because they wore Hijab scarves while shopping at Safeway. Others accused people of sinning just because they didn’t follow the same “rules.” Some angrily rebuked people who had different political values. This is hypocrisy, not love.

Pope Francis asserts that today’s crisis puts “a spotlight on hypocrisy … It’s a time for integrity.”

To live a life of integrity is to love all human beings, and no one can fully love someone else unless they try to treat that person as they, themselves, would like to be treated.

This is cultural humility. A person cannot assume that they fully understand anyone. They, instead, must open to learning more and more each day about people and their lives.

Here’s an example. A heterosexual cannot fully love a member of the LBGTQ+ community unless he or she treats that person with respect and kindness. This does not include judging the behavior of that person; instead, the heterosexual can attempt to better understand the other person’s life without any prejudice at all.

People who claim that they don’t condemn the person, just their behavior, are not loving. They are living lives of hypocrisy since integrity does not include any type of judgment.

Pope Francis explains that the Corona Virus Pandemic does not discriminate against the rich or the poor; all humans are vulnerable to its deadly seed, and humanity can learn how to develop better spiritual lives if they strive to practice integrity—wholesomeness, oneness in action, unity.

Pope Francis also shares an idea that he gleaned from reading the Aeneid; don’t “give up, but save yourself for better times.” He asserts that humans should use this shelter-in-place time to become better, more trustworthy companions to their fellow sisters and brothers. He says that we should be “coherent with our beliefs”—make sure that our actions imitate what we claim to believe.

Amen to that!

If people are honest with themselves, they know when they are loving vs. prejudiced.

I realize that I am in the midst of my own journey toward cultural humility, and I’m sure I’ll be on this path for the rest of my life. Yet, I’ve learned how to achieve more cultural humility, another word for integrity, by practicing the following.

When I meet believers of Islam, I engage in a conversation with them. I learn about their histories, their daily lives, how living in America might clash with some of their rituals, what their goals are, or how they have experienced prejudice from other Americans. If they offer to share their foods with me, I accept them with eagerness and gratitude.

When members of the LBGQT+ community share their gender status with me, I welcome them into my life with open arms. I accept their lifestyle as a natural condition, and never question why they have chosen that persuasion. I also read about their lives and listen to their stories to reduce my ignorance. Finally, I show them respect by including them in my life; for example, I listen to the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus to hear incredible singing.

I befriend people of all races and treat them as valuable contributors to my life. During this crisis, I have financially assisted some people so that they can maintain their small businesses. I know that my concern for them strengthens our bond and friendship. If I didn’t have the money for helping them, I would have helped establish a Go Fund Me page or found another way to provide some help.

I actively seek the beauty in members of races different from me. For example, I love the braided hairstyles of African Americans that demonstrate their creativity and African culture. Whenever I can, I compliment a man or woman on his or her hairstyle.

Another attractive trait I’ve discovered are the traditional costumes of Indian citizens with yards and yards of glittering fabrics swirled around the female body. When I meet a woman of Indian heritage on the street, I tell her she is lovely.

The Corona Virus has brought danger, but also opportunity—the chance to become a human of integrity. I am not beautiful if I don’t see the inherent, non-judged loveliness in my sisters and brothers. Only if I accept them completely will I ever achieve integrity—the pinnacle of spiritual life.

River Lullaby

Langston Hughes’ poetry uses words like musical instruments. Themes leak out of every line. Images grow out of every stanza.

When Langston was eighteen and on his way to live with his father in Mexico, he was sitting on a train that crossed the great and almighty Mississippi River.

He turned over his father’s letter and wrote this poem on the back:

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I’ve known rivers:

I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the

flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln

went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy

bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

By virtue of being a human being with hopes, dreams, and a history, anyone can understand this poem. Even though Langston writes about the African American, this human being represents the humanity of each and every one of us.

While thinking about these beautiful words, I decided that the best way to relate to this poem is on a soul level, a level of feelings, creativity, and emotion. Here is what my soul created while I mused.

My hair is black and long with tight curls. I sit in a kitchen chair, and my sister takes tiny strands of my hair and twists them into braids with beads: red, yellow, orange, pink, and green. She braids hour after hour until my whole head is a bouquet, braids fanning out like spokes in a parasol.

We take a break and stretch our bodies into yoga positions. Downward dog. Plank.
Warriors that we are, our bodies strong and lithe. We are women with poise.

Then back to the chair. Sister gathers my braids and turns them into a sweeping updo, the beads popping out like happy jewels. After she is done, I smile into the mirror and love my vision.

My braids represent our heritage. We are from a long, line of female warriors. Our grandmothers once lived beside great rivers. They gathered wheat beside the Euphrates to feed their families, and ground this wheat into brown flour, and with this flour made bread. We sat with our husbands and children and shared the bread and talked to each other with joy.

Our grandmothers picked fruit from boughs beside the Congo River. With this fruit, they made curries for their families and communities, carried the curries to their neighbors’ huts for sharing, and built relationships of mutual trust.

Their daughters and grand-daughters built pyramids to help the Egyptians bury their dead. They did not eat with the Egyptians, but they watched reverently as the Egyptians wrapped their loved ones in swaddling cloths and laid them into stone tombs.

Their great-great granddaughters picked cotton beside the Mississippi River. They tanned their backs during the day, and served their Masters’ families meals in the evenings. They smiled at them even when they were tired. They sang to their children when they took them to bed.

Our grandmothers, their daughters, their grand daughters, their great-great granddaughters and we are nurturers. We care for our families and our communities and help those whom we know, but do not fully understand. We love.

We learned how to love by watching the great rivers. The great rivers drift and stream and flurry—their waters continuing downriver over stones, rocks, cliffs, logs, fish, and beavers. That is what great love is—it builds and flows and washes over insults, prejudice, judgment, ignorance, anger, and sickness. Keeps going. Nothing stops it reach a greater body of water—the ocean of humanity where we are all connected like pearls knotted together. In our communion, we are even more beautiful.

All human beings can learn how to love like the great rivers, even those who don’t have braids, those who have never seen a river, those who have never picked wheat, plucked fruit, quarried stone, or sung a lullaby.

Langston’s river poem is a lullaby about the love and connection of all humanity.

Faces of God

When I was thirteen, I walked slowly up to the priest giving out Communion. Decked out in a green robe with a white stripe down the front, he held a gold chalice in one hand, his other hand resting on the cup’s lip, holding a white wafer between his thumb and index finger. He looked up into my face, opened his eyes wide, and formed an “O” with his lips. Staring deeply into my eyes—I remember his eyes were brown—he exclaimed, “The face of God.”

I have always wondered what he meant. Did he think that green eyes were particularly pretty? Did he see God in my eyes where he looked so deeply? Did he think that I had some higher power present in my face, a power that he recognized out of his own wisdom? Did he see my soul?

All that I know is that I have always carried on a conversation with my soul.

As part of my relationship with myself, I have thought deeply about my relationships with other human beings. This is why I always have wondered about the issue of racism. When I was little, my parents acted like racists. They learned these hateful attitudes from their narrow-minded parents and relatives who lived in Northern states surrounded by the descendants of Europeans—Swedes, Polish, German, and Irish. When you live in such a closed community, it is easy to label people who don’t look like you as “the others.”

My soul told me that these “others” that my relatives insulted were like me. They had feelings, hearts, and souls like me. Yet, as I grew older, I learned about the great chasm that divided Whites and Blacks. So much distrust. So much lack of understanding. So much violence. So little peace on either side.

So I read about the history of the people of whom I was once taught to distrust. As I read and learned about the untold history of the African American, I watched my parents change their attitude as well.

After retiring from the Air Force, my father went back to school to earn a degree as a building contractor. His biggest job as a contractor was to build See’s Candy Stores in California, Arizona, Nevada, and Hawaii. He had to manage all the contractors who came to work on the remodeling and building of the stores. Some of them were Black.

I remember one night when he came over to my house for dinner after he had worked all day in a nearby store. We sat on the patio. The sun had set into night, and the porchlight lit up his big face like a full moon. “Two of my electricians are Black,” he exclaimed. “What good workers they are. Not only that. They are friendly and can joke around just like the other guys.”

He was fifty years old, and I realized that it had taken him more than half his lifetime to learn how to trust people who were different from him on the outside. I was amazed, but I also hoped that it wouldn’t take me that long to learn my own lessons.

By the time my mother was 76 and my father had died, a Black family had moved in next door to the home where my parents had lived while raising their large family. Now, my mother lived all alone. When her Black neighbors went on vacation, they asked her to take in their mail. She agreed. She also found out that the father was a professional painter, so when she needed some painting done, she asked him to do the job.

Pretty soon, their little girl came over in the afternoons to visit her “grandma” next door. She drew pictures for her. My mother bought the little girl little trinkets from the Dollar Store. When I spoke with Mom on the phone, she described her visits with Lily and mused about the next trinket she would buy for her. I felt jealous. She wasn’t Lily’s real grandmother. Mom belonged to us.

Finally, after a few years, my jealousy waned as I watched my mother turn her love toward more and more people, never judging them, and loving them for what they brought into her life. She did not only belong to me, but she belonged to everyone that she chose to love.

When my mother turned eighty-six, she couldn’t pass her driver’s test. She sold her car and asked a fellow church-goer to drive her to church on Sundays. By the time she turned eighty-nine, her eye-sight was so bad that if she dropped a bottle of pills on the floor, she couldn’t see well enough to pick them up and put them in the correct bottle again. So we moved my mother into an assisted-living home. She gave her most precious piece of furniture—a mahogany marble topped washstand that she had purchased in England—to the Black family next door. “My friend Vivian,” she said, “has always loved that table.”

I never witnessed my father’s interactions with his Black contractors, and I never heard him talk about his experiences with my mother. I rarely was around when my mother interacted with her Black neighbors, but, over the phone mostly, I listened to her transformation from a racist to someone who embraced her African American neighbors as special friends and trusted people.

Both of my parents learned that African Americans were not the “other” people they couldn’t trust. My parents became walking miracles. Their attitudes underwent a revolutionary change—they learned to see African Americans as men, women, and children with souls—with the faces of God.

Achieving Belovedness

The African American woman has the most to complain about in America. She, after all, was brought here against her will in the bowels of a ship, raped by her master before she turned fourteen, bore his illegitimate children, fell in love with her lighter progeny, lost her mind when her children were ripped away and sold to other plantations, lashed across her back and legs when she did not submit, and forced to smile day after day beside her master’s wife.

To understand the African American woman’s plight, we must contemplate the plight of all women in America.

Most still have not achieved equity. This is tragic, especially for a country that pats itself on the back for its individual rights. No, American women don’t all wear veils and burkas, but their voices still are silenced and subjected to the will of men in power.

Blatant examples exist all throughout American society.

One example: American Catholic women have no voices. The power of the church is carefully guarded and only granted to males through church “laws” that maintain male power. When Catholic women speak, they are expected to follow the strict rules set down by Catholic men ever since the church was first adopted as the official Roman Empire religion. Never mind that, prior to the Roman take-over, Christian prayer groups were once led by women. Catholic women are not encouraged to think independently; instead, they are coerced into following orders. Like soldiers in the military: valued for their obedience, not their wholesome humanity.

In American culture, women are raped and blamed for their acquiescence. They are prevented from rising above the glass ceiling while blamed for having children. They are paid less than men who hold the same jobs and blamed for not working harder.

Even First Lady Melania Trump walks like a voiceless doll next to her husband. When she is asked a question, her answer is amended by the opinion of her husband. And so, she is silenced, muzzled.

But the African American woman has suffered some of the greatest indignities. Perhaps this is why Toni Morrison chose to be her voice. In interviews, Morrison said that she wanted to tell the story of the female slave: what being a woman was like under the yoke of bondage, the lack of having a voice or will, the scourge of being at the mercy of selfish and insensitive men.

I first read Beloved by Toni Morrison when I was a mother of two young children. Much as I wanted to appreciate the story, written by this African American professor whom I admired for her achievements, I was confused. Trying to understand how a dead daughter floated in and out of her mother’s life and then lived and haunted her mother, sister, and friends for over a year was intriguing, but what was the author’s point?

I was frustrated that I couldn’t understand the story. Was my white privilege so strong that my heart was unable to empathize with a slave woman’s experience? Was I too comfortable in my white prosperity that I didn’t really want to understand? I knew that slavery was immoral, but what else could I learn? Clearly, Morrison had pondered about the African American story for a long time. She knew a story that I didn’t know, and I longed to overcome my ignorance.

After I read Beloved, I read every Morrison novel I could find: Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, The Bluest Eye. I also read essays which spoke to the aspects of Morrison’s writing such as “Toward the Limits of Mystery: The Grotesque in Toni Morrison’s Beloved” by Susan Corey. Then, finally, I read one of Morrison’s own essays, “The Source of Self-Regard,” in which she supposes that Beloved is an intimate version of history.

Much to my surprise, Beloved is based on a true story of a run-away slave named Margaret Garner. While being pursued as a fugitive slave, Gardner slit the throats of three of her children so they wouldn’t have to return to the cruelty of slavery and endure the abuse and torture that she knew too well. One of those children died. Remarkably, Garner wasn’t tried for murder; she was tried for the theft of her master’s property. Proving that history is carved by those in power.

In Morrison’s fictional version, the protagonist is Sethe. Sethe escapes from Sweet Home Plantation with her four children across the Ohio River to Cincinnati. When the slave-catchers find her, she grabs her kids and hides in a woodshed where she slits the throats of three of her babies. Her two older boys live, but her oldest daughter dies in her arms. We never learn this dead baby’s name, but Sethe has the word “Beloved” etched into her tombstone. Her younger daughter, Denver, is uninjured.

Abolitionists succeed in securing Sethe and her three remaining children’s freedom, and she moves into a house in the community. When the boys become teenagers, they leave home, tired of their mother’s grief for Beloved and wanting to become men.

One day, neighbors find a strange adolescent girl sleeping outside of Sethe’s house, and they believe it is Sethe’s dead daughter Beloved. Sethe becomes enamored with Beloved; she cooks for her, bathes her in affection, and ignores her other daughter.

A former fellow slave, Paul D., escapes captivity and finds his way to Sethe’s house. He, at first, removes Beloved’s ghost from the house, but later, when Beloved has transformed into a more physical presence, she seduces him and becomes pregnant with his child.

Once I understood that Morrison wanted to tell the story of the female slave. I decided to read Beloved again. To hear the female slave’s voice. To feel her pain and sorrow. To experience her fear and dread. I finally felt like I was ready to understand the meaning of the story that had eluded me for twenty years.

This is what my second reading of Beloved taught me.

When Sethe is attacked in the plantation’s barn by the Schoolteacher’s grown nephews while her husband watches from the rafters, I feel her indignity—a knife thrust into the pin cushion of her femininity. They drink the milk from her breasts that she needs for her infant. Not only do they rob her of her intimacy, but they harm her child’s viability. These men violate her center, the core of her femaleness. Tragically, her husband, her one-time protector, dies from insanity, not having the power to save her, and she loses his partnership.

When Sethe takes the life of her daughter, her already weakened core responds, and she acts out of distress—trying to save her children from all the abuse that their parents have endured. At least in death, they can find peace; in a slave’s life, peace will never come.

But Sethe suffers dearly for her actions. Psychologically, she lives in anxiety, questioning whether or not she made the right choice for her child. No matter what the child’s name, the child is her “beloved.”

The pain of Sethe’s conscience is so deep that she believes that Beloved comes back to her, so that she can make up for depriving her mother’s love. This is a manifestation of Sethe’s guilt. Whether or not Beloved is really present is unimportant; in Sethe’s mind, Beloved is present, loved, lost, wanted, missed, and grieved. Beloved can also wound Sethe, and she does when she becomes pregnant with Paul D. Like betrayal, the loss of a child hurts acutely and forever.

Sethe’s suffering is raw, violent, and close to the surface. Her pain wracks her body with weakness and her soul with despair. She can barely live, and has no need for freedom after she has lost so much of herself.

At the end of the story, Sethe tells Paul D., “She was my best thing.” This means that when Beloved died, Sethe died with her. She lost her willingness to live, he ability to think without guilt or sorrow, and even her capacity to love her other children completely so that they could enjoy their free lives.

Female slaves lost not only physical dignity, but also their emotional and psychological self-possession.

Paul D. corrects her gently: “You your best thing Sethe.” What he is asserting is that she can overcome her deep grief and loss and find a way to recapture who she is. She can wash up her battered body and mind and live the present. Put the past in the past. It does not have to define her.

As an American female, I am the African American’s sister; I, too, have lived with the loss of dignity. Even though my damage does not equal the forfeiture of slavery, I have been slashed by violations, a lack of voice, and scars of discrimination.

I stretch out my femaleness, my soft center, my vulnerable heart to my African American sister so we can raise each other up, celebrate our communal bond, and feel unified. Our past does not determine our future. We have changes to make in this America.

Clearly Bothered

I felt like a target, sitting in a dark theater with a hundred college students and only one other professor.

Movie Theater — I felt like a target, sitting in a dark theater with a hundred college students and only one other professor . . .

One night after I teaching my courses at Diablo Valley College, I attended the showing of a movie—Sorry to Bother You—written and directed by Boots Riley, who will be coming to campus in March as part of Black History Events.

The movie is an artistic commentary about the negative characteristics of capitalism. The main character Cassius Green, who is Black, gets a job as a telemarketer and finds out that he is successful only when he uses his “white voice,” a nasally, high-pitched tenor with overtones of lassitude and a lack of interest.

Just as the poorly-paid telemarketers unify to demand a union and better pay, Green is promoted to the “Power Telemarketer” floor where he enjoys the luxury of a modern office and sells labor for a company named Worry-Free.

While Green is enjoying the parties, alcohol, and access to the CEO of Worry-Free, he learns that the company transforms humans into horse-like creatures who can work harder and stronger than the average human, creating even more profits for capitalistic, greedy companies. Green’s girlfriend informs him that all labor is slave labor when capitalism controls the corporate culture. The employees work at the mercy of those in power, thus having no rights or voices.

Finally, in the end, Green quits his job, gets back his pure-of-heart girlfriend, and retains his morality.

I walked into the theater right at 4 p.m., thinking the movie would be starting on time. The room: a theater with about three hundred seats that stepped down to a big screen, where a podium stood to the side with a laptop set up to show the movie. An IT woman, that occasionally comes to my classroom to fix technical problems, stood behind the podium.

I looked around before choosing a seat. Feeling a little overwhelmed, I sat in a seat on the right aisle about six rows from the door.

Scattered in the rest of the seats were students who did not reflect the diverse nature of the college. About half were Black, sitting in twos and threes, sprinkled throughout the room. Several Asian students, sitting by themselves, also filled the seats. Three white students sat together. Where were the Hispanics, Middle Easterners, Indians, and Native Americans? I saw no professors—the people in the room were all in their teens and twenties.

Waiting for my English colleague who was bringing her class to the showing, I changed my seat to an aisle seat in the middle section of the room. Definitely felt like I needed some physical support in this room that did not reflect either my age group or my status. Finally, I’ll call her Carol, Carol walked in with her class—an assortment that more reflected our college’s diversity, and I adjusted more comfortably into my seat.

At about 4:15 p.m. a Black man strode down to the podium and turned to face the audience. He wore his hair in a wide, black afro and dressed in casual clothes, not helping me decide whether he was a fellow student or professor. In any case, when he started talking, his sophisticated vocabulary and well-practiced speaking voice let me know that he was used to speaking in front of groups about issues that he supported. He introduced himself. Let’s call him Brian Miller.

Miller explained the focus of the movie. He discussed how students have to use their “white voice” when they speak with their professors.

At this, I squirmed in my seat. I spend lots of time in my English classroom teaching students how to speak and write in Standard English. I explain that they will have to use formal language in the workplace, and that they will be more successful when they attain a command of it. I preach that the acquirement of this language is empowerment.

I also inform them that, once they learn the mechanics of formal English, they will be able to purposefully adapt the language to suit different writing and speaking purposes. While speaking, they can employ a short sentence to give listeners time to think. When writing fiction, they can utilize fragments to create emotions or visual impressions.

But here, this person was inferring that the formal language I teach is not only “white,” but also oppressive. That what I teach in my classroom is a form of domination that subjugates people to conform to those in power, and those in power are the “whites.” I wasn’t sure I belonged in this room, being an English professor and white, but I wasn’t willing to miss learning about how an African American film director was going to portray the white culture. I wanted to know and try to understand, so I stayed deep in my chair.

One scene in the movie showed the CEO of Worry-Free Company surrounded by scantily clad women who fawned all over him. Another scene showed naked women having sex with naked men at a company party. I was certainly offended at the misogyny of the scenes, and commented about it to Carol. My first thought is that people are more concerned about equality amongst the races than they are amongst the genders. Troublesome. A uniquely American issue that continues to plague our whole society.

At the end of the film, Miller asked the audience to rate the film from 1 to 5, with 5 being the best. Most people rated it as a 3 or 4 as Carol did. I didn’t even raise my hand. The film was such an in-my-face opinion about the culture that I represented that I couldn’t even decide what to think.

What could I learn from this Avant Garde criticism of America set in Oakland, California? As I drove home from campus, dodging the headlights of dozens of cars whirling around me, my heart fluttered like a moth burned by the heat of a lightbulb.

Why would this director claim that capitalism was “white” culture? Because the white Europeans colonized the Africans in order to rob them of their land’s natural resources such as rubber and diamonds. Because the English aristocrats, who profited from the Caribbean plantations, left the sin of slavery behind when they went back to England to live in their mansions and estates. Because American plantation owners treated the slaves like they were savages and erased their African roots by converting them into Christians and partial human beings. Because African Americans have never felt like the benefactors of the capitalist system. They have slaved before and after the Emancipation without profit and, for hundreds of years now, have been robbed of their human dignity.

When I got home, two new volumes of African American literature were waiting for me on my doorstep. I recently had ordered them from Norton. As I sat at the kitchen table in the hallowed light of the room, I read the Table of Contents of each volume.

The first volume starts with the words of spirituals—religious songs sung by African Americans since the earliest days of slavery. As I followed the long list of songs, I recognized the name Brer Fox, but most of the words were not familiar. In the latter lists, I spotted Phillis Wheatley, a slave who was taught to read and write by her mistress, and W.E.B. Du Bois, and the Harlem Rennaissance poet Langston Hughes. Volume 11 covers literature up to the 2000 years, and I knew of Melvin Tolson, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

But the lists of people I had never read was longer. The editors of the volumes are two African American professors from elite Eastern universities. Obviously, they have used their long literary careers studying the works of African American authors of all forms and styles. I never even heard of many like Bob Kaufman who wrote Jail Poems or Adrienne Kennedy who is still living and wrote Funnyhouse of a Negro.

I’m not surprised I don’t fully understand the perspective of Boots Riley and other African American writers like him; I have two disadvantages. For one, even though I have experienced discrimination and prejudice for being a woman, I have never worn the dress of an African American. Second, I have much, much more reading to do and more empathy to cultivate until I understand why Blacks distance themselves from me, from someone who wants to be their fellow citizen, but, first, who needs to qualify.

My Search for Cultural Humility

Maya Angelou wrote, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” This is the quote that will guide me through my search for cultural humility.

I was born white. Nobody asked me what color I wanted to be. I was just born this way: pale skin, toe-head blonde, pink fingers and toes. I was also born female. No one asked me what gender I preferred. Then, about a month after I was born, my parents even chose my religion; they had me baptized as a Catholic. These three conditions created my destiny, my opportunities, my struggles, my pains, and, for a long time, my opinions about people who were different than me.

I was raised in a white community: white neighbors, white church members, white school, white grocery stores. Both of my parents were white. All my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins were white. As far as I knew, everyone in the whole world had bleached skin.

When I was nine years old, my father—an Air Force sergeant—was transferred to England to serve there for four years. So, in the middle of my third grade, my large family of nine white children flew to England to live for four years. While there, we lived off-base in the English countryside and attended English Catholic schools. I can only remember white classmates, kids who looked even paler than I did.

In California, state history is taught in fourth grade, so I missed learning about the California missions, the Spanish colonialists, and the Gold Rush. I didn’t study about how the Franciscan priests converted the native Indians to Catholicism, made them work in the missions making wine and bread, watched them contract the white man’s diseases, and buried them in the mission cemeteries.

In seventh grade, California students study United States history, so I missed that too. While kids back home were studying about the Colonial times, I was learning about Anglos and Saxons settling the British Isles, William the Conqueror’s successful takeover of England in 1066, and the tumultuous and factious rule of several royal families like the Houses of Lancaster, Tudors, and Stuarts. I became fascinated with Elizabeth I, whose reign produced William Shakespeare. To me, she was a powerful, ingenious woman who used savvy strategies to maintain her hold on power and her queenship in a male-dominated world.

If my old friends in the U.S. studied anything about slavery, I didn’t at all. I leaned that the men from aristocratic families often sailed out of England due to business, but nobody ever talked about where they went, what decisions they made, what they saw, what they were responsible for, or how their wealth was produced.

My family lived in England from early 1966 to late 1969—important years in America: civil rights. I missed hearing about all of Martin Luther King Jr.’s marches, his speeches, what he was speaking for. On the day that Robert Kennedy was killed, Sister Genevieve asked me to stand up in front on the class and tell everyone else how I felt about his assassination. I didn’t know.

I never even heard about Martin Luther King’s assassination, and no one asked for my opinion when he died. An ignorant mind doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about right and wrong or concepts of equality and freedom.

I knew little about Black people except what I learned from the mouths of my parents. My father thought they were lazy. He told stories about the Black men in his unit who were supposed to work on the plane engines. He described how they sat around smoking cigarettes while the white men brought in the parts, organized the work spaces, and fixed the broken planes. The Black men smiled as they smoked, knowing they could get away with doing nothing.

My mother used the “N” word. Whenever she talked about Black people, she called them “N****s.” I knew that it was a derogatory term by the sneer that formed on her face when she said it. The tone of her voice emphasized the first syllable in a low guttural sound, and then let up on the second syllable like the backlash of a whip. One side of her lip curled up like she had just found a cockroach in the garbage can.

While we lived in base housing—a pastoral oasis with grazing cows and forested valleys—a Black family moved in next door to us. My parents reacted with quiet, stunned faces. One day when I was outside in the front yard, one of the boys from this family walked out onto their patch of front lawn. His skin was black, as dark of my father’s shoe polish. We looked at each other silently for several long minutes.

After noting his skin, I searched for his eyes—not black. In the English sun, they shone like deep, brown pearls floating in seas of white cream, friendly, wistful, inviting, tender. I softened in response, like a morning glory opening in the early light, and a wad of shame built up in the center of my chest for all of my preconceived notions.

Yet, this was only a first impression and short-lived. Soon, our family was on our way back to the United States and away from our next-door Black neighbors.

And so, I came back, enthralled with a love of English aristocracy and royal lineage and the literature that upheld their good and righteous glory. I believed in the goodness of Henry V as he protected the English throne on the edge of France. I believed in the moral purity of Elizabeth and Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.

I never studied American history until I got to college. In high school, I studied World History in freshman year. No Black peoples or slavery interrupted my understanding of Egypt, Rome, Constantinople, or Napoleon. As a senior, I studied Civics, never learning about the constitutional amendments that finally allowed women and Blacks the right to vote freely, without literacy or taxation barriers.

In college, finally, I took American History from Colonial Days to 1877. 1877 was the end of the Reconstruction Period in the South. Did I understand the significance of ending Reconstruction? Absolutely not. Looking back, I wonder why the academic planners chose to end my history class right before Jim Crow took over the South.

So, I entered the world of adults, ready to work, vote, contribute, change, and mold my society with an incomplete understanding of the history and make-up of my country or the world. Little did I know that I would learn what discrimination meant, but from a female point of view. But, even with good intentions, I was ignorant of who my fellow Black brothers and sisters were and how they felt about themselves and me. My perspective was too white, too female, and too Catholic. My journey toward cultural humility was going to be a long one.