equality – Tessa M. Perko's Blog

Character Study: Karen

Instead of studying for her state CPA exam, her mother wanted Karen to do housework. After all, she was living at home and should contribute to the household.

Karen had used up all her savings during the first three years of college, paying for rent, tuition, and books. And the summer after her junior year, she took a group trip to Europe.

That trip had opened her eyes. She hung out with six other college students as they traveled from Italy, Austria, Germany, Belgium, to France for a whole six weeks. These students knew all about art and architecture, so they visited historical buildings and art museums in every city.

After the trip was over, however, Karen had to move back home to finish her last year. Since seven of her siblings still lived there, the house was noisy, even though she had her own bedroom.

She left home early for classes and used the university library for studying, coming home at 9:00 at night. When her head hit the pillow, she slept soundly until the alarm rang the next morning. Repeat.

On Saturdays, her mother asked her to fold a mountain of clothes. She needed to study, so she took her accounting books into the large laundry room and propped them open on the counter as she folded. She closed the door to silence the voices of her family in the rest of the house and memorized the laws pertaining to finance as she worked.

She was worried about passing this three-day, six-part exam. She had never taken any test like this before, and she had to pass it all to get her CPA license.

Even her father didn’t believe in her. He lectured her about how women were supposed to get married and have children. They didn’t need a career, and their minds weren’t geared for such intellectual pursuits. That was what men did.

But her parents’ lack of support was why she was so determined to become a CPA and financially support herself.

She was scheduled to graduate in 1978. Karen had wanted to major in journalism, but she didn’t think she’d get a job after she graduated. One day, she went to a lecture about careers and discovered that many women already worked in the accounting field. In fact, CPA firms came to campus every semester to interview graduating seniors for jobs, so she decided to major in accounting.

Karen got perfect grades in every accounting class, except one. In her junior year, she had taken Advanced Accounting and earned only a C. She had been horrified, thinking that she’d never get a job with such as low grade in her major. If she couldn’t get an accounting job, how would she support herself and move out?

She took the class over the next fall and earned an A. Whew! That felt better.

Whenever she could, she had lunch with the friends she had met on the Europe trip. They had all taken art and architecture classes for their elective courses, whereas Karen had taken Anthropology and Psychology. While in Europe with them, Karen had admired the sculptures by Michelangelo in Rome and the paintings by Leonardo and Raphael in the Louvre in Paris. But her favorites were the paintings by the Expressionist Claude Monet. His ephemeral depictions of flowers made her heart quicken.

Talking with these friends felt like a vacation all over again.

She couldn’t wait to graduate, get a good-paying job, and move out. She just knew a job was her ticket to freedom.

Freedom from the oppressive voice of her father. His limited hopes for her. His expectation that she would get married as soon as possible and have babies.

Freedom from drudgery.

She had babysat for years, saving money for college. She had cleaned people’s houses to save money. At home, she had washed dishes, swept floors, folded clothes, ironed tablecloths and men’s shirts, picked vegetables in the garden, made dinner, made cookies, scrubbed walls, and covered beds with clean sheets.

What she hadn’t done was experience freedom to do as she wanted.

When the schedule came out for the accounting interviews, she signed up for as many as she could.

Character Study: Hazel

Photo by Hannah Olinger on Unsplash

“You shouldn’t go to college,” said Dad, looking down at us kids. “There’s riots and immoral behavior. You’ll get brainwashed for sure.” Dad sat in his brown recliner with the foot rest down, his hands fiddling with a cigarette and match. The four of us, my two older sisters, me, and my little brother, sat cross-legged on the worn-out carpet in front of his chair, even though we were teenagers. We should’ve been sitting in chairs like him.

The news was on television. Dad had just seen pictures of students rioting at U. C. Berkeley for women’s rights. He had turned down the sound and called us into the room from our bedrooms that were right down the hall. I had been doing my chemistry homework, and I still had to finish math.

A wood-framed picture of the Last Supper hung on the wall right above Dad’s chair. To the side of it on the mantel was a porcelain statue of the Virgin Mary that Dad had bought Mom when he flew an Air Force mission to Portugal. A pile of rosaries filled a basket next to the statue. They reminded me of earlier years when we were ordered to kneel on the scratchy carpet to say the Rosary for 45 minutes. Thank God, Dad didn’t make us do that anymore. I’d never get my homework finished.

“Hazel, give your dad his ice cream,” said Mom from the kitchen. She stood at the counter, a box of vanilla ice cream in front of her. Jars of caramel and chocolate, too. Cherries.

I got up from the floor, happy to escape the lecture that I knew was coming. Whenever Dad got on his soapbox, we were stuck for at least an hour. Backpacks open on the floor in our dark bedroom. Homework books splayed wide on our desks. Pencil case contents spilled over half-used binder paper.

Dad put his cigarette and matches down. I gave him his bowl of ice cream.

“I need a spoon,” he said in his booming voice. A scowl made two deep furrows between his eyes on his sun-tanned face.

I jumped, turned to the kitchen, found a spoon on the counter next to Mom, handed it to him, then sat down.

While Mom finished scooping the ice cream into bowls, Dad, in-between his own bites, talked about how college wasn’t good for kids.

“They preach against religion,” he said.

I had heard Dad defend his religion ever since I was a little girl. The thing was, he didn’t seem to be a happy person, even though he went to church every Sunday, prayed at every meal, and raised money for new church buildings.

What good was it doing him?

I didn’t like how the parish priests treated women and girls either. We were treated like appendages of our fathers. No authority. No voices. No purpose except for one day having babies.

Luckily, our high school was run by nuns who were great examples of what women could do when men didn’t oppress them. The principal was a nun who had been educated in London in both education and school administration. My chemistry teacher was a pretty blonde married woman who one day wanted her own children. Our choir teacher was a nun who had a college degree in music. She taught choir, violin, flute, and piano.

But I loved my English teacher most of all. She’s the one who introduced me to the English and American poets and Edgar Allen Poe. Poe wrote such delicious horror stories. Murder. Psychological torture. Manipulation. People buried alive. So incredibly creative.

In Sister Elena’s class, I wrote my own poetry. She entered our poems in contests. I won first place once. We also read Shakespeare plays and acted them on stage for the whole school. Someday, I’d like to write a sonnet as good as he did.

What these nuns taught me was that my father had a narrow viewpoint when it came to education and women. He sent us to our high school to learn religion. But these nuns had taught us their version of Catholicism, and it had nothing to do with oppressing women.

Dad was still lecturing. His loud voice filled the room, but it wasn’t filling my ears.

Nodding my head “yes” every so often, I was far away. I saw myself walking through a university campus, my arms filled with Shakespeare, Marlowe, Emily Dickenson, Jane Austen, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

I definitely was going to college.

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.

A Town Girl on a Dairy Farm

I’m from a town—a suburbia in the San Francisco Bay Area–a place that is less densely populated than a city and bigger than a village. My town has clean streets lined with sycamore and crepe myrtle trees, houses with front and back yards, barbecues, swimming pools, cabanas, patio sets, and walking mail carriers. People walk their poodles and Labrador retrievers on neighborhood hiking paths and buy popsicles from the singing ice cream truck that meanders the streets on summer days.

I own a tidy little home in my town. Yards with manicured hedges, carefully pruned flower beds, edged lawns. Clean and tidy. I sweep under my garbage cans each week when I take them out for collection. My children are grown and have homes of their own, so my house is immaculate too. I spray my shower down after each use. I wipe the stove after each meal, and I own five vacuum cleaners, one for each type of vacuuming task. You get the picture. I’m a clean freak.

I decided to visit my relatives in the country this last month. They live on farms all around the city of Winona, Minnesota, in both Minnesota and Wisconsin. I also am lactose intolerant, and, when I was born, my parents bought a goat to feed me. My mother grew up in Wisconsin, a state popular for milk and cheese. Her whole life, she drank three tall glasses of cow’s milk a day, one at every meal.

I wasn’t one of those town kids that thought milk originated in the refrigerator case at the grocery store. My mother told me where it came from. After all, she grew up on a farm. I’m smart enough to know that most milk at the grocery store comes from cows, not goats, almonds, coconut, or oats. Sorry vegans.

When I visited my relatives in Minnesota and Wisconsin this month, my cousin Scott–a handsome man with a ready smile, who owns a 600-cow dairy farm near Altura, Minnesota, invited a bunch of us to visit his farm. I didn’t mention to him that I was lactose intolerant since I didn’t want to feel ostracized. I was confident, however, that his cows would like me just fine. Really appreciate me, in fact.

We got to the farm before Scott did, and his workers told us to wait outside. As we walked through a barn full of teenage cows—some with the cutest faces, we found some pitchforks and posed for a picture like Grant Wood’s 1930 American Gothic painting, except both my husband Bob and I held a pitchfork since we believe in equality. In Grant’s painting, the farmer’s daughter didn’t have a pitchfork in her hand. I hate to think what Scott’s pitchforks were actually used for and what debris was on the handles that I touched, but I wasn’t going to pass up a great opportunity for a memorable photograph.

I was wearing a clean T-shirt and skort and a pair of running shoes, knowing that we’d be traipsing around in cow emissions of all kinds. When Scott arrived, I gave him a cousin hug. He recoiled away from me, and when I let go, I noticed that his Tshirt was full of dirt stains. He didn’t want to get me all dirty, apparently. He had already been at work on the farm the whole morning, and had had meetings with lots of females (cows) who never put on a suit or blouse. That was a town-girl blunder. I surreptitiously looked down at my T-shirt and skort to see if I was still presentable.

I’m not at all a dumb person, but, living in a town, I spend more time thinking about the best hiking trails and restaurants than I do about the biology of animals. This visit brought my knowledge of cows out of the back room of my brain into my frontal cortex. I appreciated, too, that Scott was as informative as an agricultural professor at the University of California, Davis where they offer classes in dairy farming.

The first thing people must understand about milking cows is that a cow has to have a baby before it produces milk; therefore, the process of milking cows takes patience and great skill. Because the cows have to be impregnated, go through about a 280-day pregnancy, give birth, and then produce milk, a dairy farm is comprised of a fertilization lab, pregnancy dorm, maternity ward, nursery, elementary school, high school, milking station, and milk refrigeration tank.

There’s a lot to learn about a cow’s life. About half of the calves that are born are female and the rest are male. I know this seems obvious, but Scott doesn’t need all those males so this statistic is unfortunate; he keeps a few males for breeding but sells off the rest to beef processing facilities. What happens there is for another blog post, likely not written by me.

At the back of his property, Scott raises his calves in individual pens, each one living in a domed shelter with food and water. When the calves get bigger, they live in a barn—organized like a college dormitory—which has an insulated roof and fans that blow constant breezes through the building to keep the cows cool. The cows are encouraged to spend as much time in the field as they want. I was intrigued that they actually had a choice in this matter; Scott talked about them like they were his valued students. Their rooms were also much cleaner than most college dorm rooms I’ve visited.

Pregnant cows also live in a barn dormitory. A long building that holds several dozens of cows, organized into three rows that run the length of the barn, each row is divided into individual pens filled with a soft bed of sand. The two outside rows are where the cows stay when they’re inside. They can either stand up or lay down in the soft sand. They face out, having access to fresh water and hay. Their backsides face into the center row through which a stream of water flows, sweeping up the cow manure and any sand that is soiled and discarded by the cow’s movement.

The dirty water, filled with excrement and sand is processed through a filtering system near some manure holding reservoirs. The clean water gets recycled back into the barn stream, and the excrements are deposited into the holding reservoir where it is treated and used for fertilizer to grow alfalfa or corn. A well-thought-out system that truly impressed this town-girl.

So many problems can occur with milking cows. They can get sick, dehydrated, infected, or overheated—all of these situations affecting their ability to produce high-quality milk. We saw calves that had spikes put through their noses to prevent them from milking on other cows. We learned that new babies were removed from their mothers so they wouldn’t milk, and they were given milk that was tested to ensure good health. We witnessed testing tools, pages of testing data and production statistics.

In the milking shed, the cows are milked twice a day. They are led into the stalls and encouraged to turn around so that the workers have access to their relevant body parts–teats. Some milking sheds, Scott informed us, have turnstiles that turn the cows into the right position. Scott doesn’t have those. His milk hands push the cows into the correct position, clean each cow’s teats and attach the milking tubes which automatically milk the cows for an average of 20 minutes. When the milk hand punches the cow’s serial number into the machine on her stall, the machine measures her milk output and adds it to the farm’s data system. See why math classes are so important. Everyone uses math.

Cows are insanely fruitful. One cow produces about 60 pounds of milk a day—that’s 90 glasses a day for people like my mother. The milk travels through pipes into a stainless-steel cooling tank that looks a lot like the stainless-steel wine tanks in Napa, California that hold sauvignon blanc or chardonnay. These dairy tanks are expensive—one can cost from $100,000-$140,000. What struck me was that the purpose of the tank was not just to store the milk, but to also cool it. The milk is warm when it comes out of the cow. Again, I might have figured this out on my own, but, secretly, I was surprised to hear about it.

I asked Scott whether his farm was considered a small, medium, or large dairy. “It depends on who you ask,” he replied. “I’m only one of three dairy farms left in the immediate area. Smaller farms are disappearing due to the rising costs of operation.”

Scott now has a female manager at his dairy. I can’t remember her name, but let’s call her Laci. “Laci likes to be in charge,” said Scott. “She also fell in love with my one-in-a-million cow hand, married him and now has a child.” Scott’s calls this cow hand one-in-a-million because of his excellent work ethic. Apparently, One-in-a-million is also supremely savvy; he married his boss.

By the time we had toured the whole process, my T-shirt and skort reeked of cow sweat, dust, and hay and the treads on my running shoes were caked with a smelly, nefarious, brown sludge. I found myself holding my arms away from my body in a desperate attempt to feel cleaner.

Scott invited us into his office where his hound was waiting. When we sat down, the dog plunked his muddy paws onto my lap and slobbered my skort with drool. First, I looked down in horror, but, then, I quickly composed myself and left the drool alone, trying very hard to adapt my cleanliness obsession into an acceptance of the natural dairy farm environment.

Scott opened his little refrigerator and offered us frozen chocolate treats and push-up ice cream popsicles. They were certainly welcome after a hot tour of his cow quarters. I hadn’t had a push-up popsicle for ages, and I tried hard not to drive the whole piece of ice cream out of the tube and onto the floor as I struggled with it.

Turns out, Scott gave the last part of his popsicle to the hound who licked it up joyfully on the floor. This helped me relax a little, and when I had just a little of my popsicle left, I shared the rest with Scott’s hound too. This was a remarkable development, you see, because a town-girl would have never put her popsicle down on the floor for a dog to roll around and lick up.

That day, on Scott’s dairy farm, I proved that even town-girls can leave the town behind and have a little fun in the country.

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.

Hidden

Photo by Anton Darius on Unsplash

Sylvia had a secret. One that rolled around in her stomach like a marble in a maze, bashing against the walls until they bruised, swirling her energy into anxiety.

Sylvia’s friend Ruth told detailed stories about how her mother psychologically abused her during her teenage years. When they were cleaning out her grandmother’s house after her death, Susan had wanted her grandmother’s wooden chest full of yarn. Her mother refused to let her have it, and, instead, gave it to Susan’s older sister who didn’t even knit. Susan wondered for decades why she wasn’t good enough to have such a treasured keepsake and why her mother had favored her sister over her. Ruth told everyone about the hurts in her background, but she still walked around like a broken doll, permanently damaged, as if nothing could ever erase the scars she had suffered.

When Ruth talked about her feelings, Sylvia flashed her own memories across her mind about how her father had favored her sister over her. “Isn’t she beautiful,” she remembered he had said. Sylvia had looked in the mirror countless times wondering why no one ever called her beautiful. She had clear skin, thick hair, blazing green eyes. Weren’t green eyes as pretty as blue ones?

Her friend Paul had told her about how his father was never around. He never played sports with him, never sat with him on the couch for a game of chess, never even got to his high-school graduation until Paul had already walked across the stage and waved to his mother who was frantically waving back with both hands, as if she was waving for two. Even today, Paul’s father didn’t act like a father, but like a distant friend who sent him an article once in awhile about a topic that never related to Paul’s life. Paul had worked hard to build self-confidence, but struggling with a narcissistic father made that an up-and-down journey.

Sylvia’s friend Jen talked about her childhood, too. She told Sylvia how a sixteen-year-old neighbor boy had raped her when she was eleven, luring her into his backyard shed one afternoon and slowly removing her clothes while he talked to her about the different birds in the garden. Jen said that it was therapeutic to talk about it after so many years of keeping it hidden. At first, she was embarrassed that it had happened to her. What did she do to encourage that boy anyway? Why did she let him get her into the shed by herself? Didn’t she know better? Sylvia didn’t see how Jen had let go of the trauma if she still had all these questions in her mind.

When Jen talked, Sylvia nodded empathetically: “It wasn’t your fault. He took advantage of you. He was stronger, and you couldn’t have stopped him.” Inside her chest, however, Sylvia carefully drew a curtain in front of her own heart, shielding it from the memory of her own secret, stopping her from the minute-by-minute re-enactment of the scene, her shame, her acquiescence, her fear of exposure.

Sylvia didn’t want her friends to know she had suffered so much, had been irreparably violated. Maybe someone would use the information about her secret as revenge if they ever got angry at her. They would expose her in front of people she didn’t trust, and she would endure more embarrassment than she could handle.

Sylvia had spent years searching for her own self-esteem, her worthiness to be loved, her value as a treasured friend, her worth as an employee, her right to be happy at all. She thought that she should go talk to someone about her secret so that she could get it off her chest. Would that even work?

Finally, she made an appointment with a female minister at a church she did not attend. She told the woman about her secret, and asked her what she should do to heal from it.

“First, ask God for forgiveness. God will forgive anyone, even if you can’t forgive. Once, you’re comfortable that God has forgiven you, then forgive yourself and anyone else involved.”

Sylvia had worked on forgiving herself and the other person involved for years. Nevertheless, the memories, surfaced again and again like a nightmare when she least expected them. Sometimes, she even invited them into her thoughts as if she could purge them out of existence by focusing on them one last final time.

Nothing stopped the nightmares. They came while she was sleeping in a vivid stream, and her fear rose incrementally during the dream until she would awaken all of a sudden, gasping for breath like she had been under water the whole time. Her forehead was drenched with sweat, her heart tight with shame.

Sylvia did feel the pain of her friends, and because she did, she could listen to their stories and offer some solace just by suffering with them. She also understood the pain that her students told her about.

Samantha was a student in Sylvia’s college composition class. Samantha’s mother had kicked her and her three-year-old daughter out of the house, and, now Samantha experienced anxiety that interfered with her performance at school. Sylvia had counseled Samantha through several episodes of anxiety, and she had passed her English class in spite of her mother.

Van suffered from post-traumatic-stress-syndrome ever since he returned from Iraq, and his significant other left him right in the middle of the semester. Since Sylvia knew what anxiety and poor self esteem felt like, she coached Van step by step until he, too, passed his writing class.

So many of her community college students needed emotional support in order to pass their classes. Owen’s father beat him. Misty lived with five family members in a noisy, two-bedroom apartment. Monica’s parents wanted her to get married like a dutiful Islam daughter and give up going to school. Randall had spent two weeks living out of his car during the semester until his uncle let him live in his garage.

Sylvia knew that if she put in more effort to help these students, they could succeed and improve their lives through education and awareness of other opportunities. Yet, sometimes, as Sylvia sat beside one student or another, she felt like a broken human being trying to help another broken soul.

Was it true that people who never felt loved died of heart attacks? Most mornings, she woke up with a tight chest. She lay in bed breathing in and out of her nose until her chest relaxed a little, but the tightness never fully went away.

Most people had a secret, didn’t they? Weren’t most people walking around, hiding their secrets underneath their shirts, their polite manners, their rudeness, their abusive characters, their anxiety, their bullying, their surrender, and their repeated attempts at survival?

Yes, they were, Sylvia knew. She was, too. She had endured so many scars and affronts to her character, yet here she was, carrying her secret around like a satchel of wisdom.

Really, she thought she deserved a medal.

Five Features of a Perfect Democracy

Ever since the pilgrims landed on the North American Continent, Americans have struggled with freedom.

On January 7, 2021, Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation made this statement in the Foundation’s Equals Change Blog: “Our founding aspirations were just that: aspirations.” What he means is that the freedom which we aspire to in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights has not yet been achieved. In fact, Walker admits that these aspirations were a “founding contradiction.” When white settlers took control and settled across what is now the United States, they took away the rights of the natives who had previously lived on the land. As white plantation owners built tobacco, rice, and cotton empires, they enslaved human beings from Africa to serve like cattle in the muddy fields under sweltering sun.

On January 6, 2021, a mob of white supremists stormed the capital, our citadel of democracy. This event horrified most American citizens and made them realize how fragile our democracy really is.

Yet, some good came from this insurrection toward our government. It signifies that we have not achieved the freedom that we strive for; we have not reached the level of a true democratic government. This violent, but sad act against our government makes the brokenness of our democracy blatantly clear, and that is what is good. We have clarity that we must act to improve our democratic dream.

In his blog post, Walker makes it clear that “inequality is the greatest threat to justice—and, the corollary, that white supremacy is the greatest threat to democracy.” As long as people exist who do not seek equality for all peoples, our democracy is flawed.

What is a true democratic freedom? I mused over this question for days, and my mind constantly wandered back to Aristotle’s rhetorical philosophy practiced in the original democracy of Greece which solved community issues, not with force, but with respectful dialogue.

I wondered about how a citizen should act or what a person should be in order to promote democratic freedom. I’m not a specialist, but I do have aspirations to promote democratic freedom for every person in the United States. As I mused about what qualities would promote freedom for all peoples, I came up with five overlapping features that must exist in the populace for a truly democratic community: openness, self-discipline, moral courage, empathy, and respect.

Openness

The United States is a diverse country, and, therefore, in order for us to achieve to true democracy, different types of people with dissimilar customs and cultures must live together without criticism or conflict. This requires citizens to adopt an openness to customs and cultures that are diverse, even when those practices are against what citizens may choose for their own lives.

To be open means to be imaginative, curious, and ready to learn about the lives of other people, no matter how unlike they are to oneself. Being open means to be receptive to new ideas without feeling threatened. It means to be attentive to all people no matter what their background is. It means to be transparent in action, acknowledging what is new, but accepting it anyway.

Here are some examples of openness. A heterosexual couple willingly accepts the lifestyle of a homosexual couple who moves into the apartment next door to them. They treat this couple as a respected neighbor and do not make judgments about them just because they are homosexual. A pedestrian encounters a peaceful demonstration while he is walking down the street. Instead of prejudging the participants, he reads their signs and engages in a conversation with one of them to hear their point of view. A manager who is hiring a new employee does not discriminate when an applicant comes into an interview wearing a turban on his head.

Self-discipline

Most humans work on improving their self-discipline throughout their whole lives. In a truly-perfected democracy, self-discipline is important since one person must never infringe upon the freedom of another for any reason. Whites cannot take away the freedom of Blacks or Hispanics. The rich cannot take away the freedom of the poor. City dwellers cannot erode the freedom of rural dwellers.

Self-discipline is the ability to control personal feelings and overcome personal weaknesses. It is the aptitude to pursue what is right despite temptations or any private fears. Self-discipline involves acceptance, willpower, commitment, hard work, and persistence.

Acceptance requires that people look at reality accurately and acknowledge it. For example, the reality is that Whites have greater privileges in American society than other races; however, even today, many Whites don’t understand this. They don’t understand what White privilege really is.

The “willpower” part of self-discipline helps individuals set a course of action and start on it. They set an objective, create a plan, and then execute their plan. For example, I wanted to become a professor whose African American students succeeded in my classes. That was my objective. My plan was to use more African American authors in my course readings and more visuals of African Americans in my online course. My plan also included in improving my own knowledge about African American history that was never taught in school; through study, I would better understand African American history and, through their history, my students’ current needs and feelings. Then, I executed my plan, and my courses became more inclusive, I became more knowledgeable, and my students became more successful and happier. Even I became happier in my growth and their success.

Commitment cannot be underestimated. To be committed means putting in the time to whatever goal you have in order to achieve it. For my goal of improving the success of my African students, I committed to reading numerous books on the African American experience even when reading those books took time away from more pleasurable activities. I read every day. When I finished one book, I started another right away. If I wasn’t committed, I often would have chosen to read a light-hearted mystery or go outside to do some gardening in the sunny weather.

Self-discipline also requires hard work. I had to read challenging books even when I was tired after a long day teaching. I had to look up new vocabulary words, reread certain paragraphs until I understood them, and take continuing education courses that complemented my newfound knowledge.

Finally, nothing of value is accomplished without perseverance. I started my quest to learn more about my African American students over five years ago, and now, I have accumulated a lot of understanding of the African American history. This knowledge has allowed me a greater understanding of the current political issues today such as the George Floyd murder and the Black Lives Matter protests. If I hadn’t persevered in my growth, I would never be able to comprehend the complicated issues America faces today. And now, I’m at a new level of citizenship, ready to make new goals.

Moral Courage

Moral Courage is integrity. People with moral courage are honest, true to their word, do the best they can, and own up to their shortcomings. They do not make excuses or blame others for their actions or faults. They do not try to cover up their mistakes. They try to make others feel better, and they do the right thing even when it is difficult.

Here are some examples. Travis intervenes when Roger bullies Mario on the playground. When Sarah goes for a walk, she takes a plastic bag so she can pick up litter on the street. Ivan completes his chores without being reminded by his father. Killian pays for the college tuition for his nephew without telling anyone. Recently, Vice-President Pence refused to block the electoral vote in Congress even though it would have been easier to submit to President Trump’s aggressive demands.

Practicing moral courage is hard, but our country needs citizens who possess it. People can draw inspiration from people who have demonstrated great courage such as John Lewis, the former Georgia Congressman who helped Martin Luther King, Jr. demonstrate against prejudice and then worked in Congress for decades to continue King’s work.

Another way to strengthen moral courage is to practice acts that require courage and to avoid actions that lack courage. People can compliment those who treat them badly, and consciously can avoid gossiping. They can think of new acts of courage on a daily basis so that acting with courage becomes a habit.

Empathy

To help America attain a perfect democracy, people must possess an empathy for their fellow citizens. The type of empathy required is a compassionate empathy where a person’s logic and emotion are balanced. Compassionate empathy is a combination of logic and emotion—a concern that leads someone to act for the betterment of another.

When someone intervenes for a bully victim, they feel compassion for the victim and they are able to stop the bullying from taking place because of their intervention. When a professor feels compassion for a Hispanic student who lacks the technology necessary to pass her course, she uses her resources to provide technological resources to that student. The effect of the action is to improve the lives of those for whom you feel compassion, thus enhancing their freedom—to live without fear, to attain an education, to secure decent housing, to acquire a job that pays adequate wages, or to be able to vote in an election.

Respect

Of course, in a perfect democracy, citizens must respect each other. We must treat each other with dignity, with regard for each other’s feelings, wishes, rights, traditions, and needs. Citizens must treat each other with kindness and politeness, hold each other in high esteem, and exude a positive attitude toward one another.

Citizens show respect when they discuss mistakes with kindness instead of hatred or criticism, when they make decisions based on what is right rather than whom they like. Respectful citizens listen and hear one another and honor physical boundaries. They treat each other’s property with care and they never violate or intrude to cause physical or psychological harm.

Respect means never making assumptions about people just because they are poor or transgenders, or because they live in Oakland, wear a turban, or attend a synagogue or a Catholic church every weekend.

We have many blemished citizens in our country, and this is why our democracy is flawed. Maybe we will never achieve the perfect democracy where every human being is treated with equality, but we can do better than we are doing today.

Walker has not lost hope. He says, “while much remains to be done, and undone, I believe we can emerge—and are emerging—a more unified, more equal, more just, more American America.”

It’s time to start talking about the qualities that will help us fulfill our democratic dream again. Now that we have been awakened by the riots in our capital, we can use our new awareness to upgrade ourselves, fight against privilege that demeans others, and make plans to spread freedom to more people and to grow closer to a perfect democracy.

Graffiti and Staircases

Today, I drove to Oakland. On an overpass, across the highway, graffiti was sprawled across the cement. “Resist authority,” it said.

People in the suburbs don’t understand graffiti, but it’s been around for centuries—since Egyptian, Greece, and Roman times. Graffiti is a word or a picture that is scribbled, scratched, or painted, usually illegally, in a public place. Most often, the words express social or political views that defy authority or criticize the status quo. These words are powerful expressions; they often infuriate conservatives into passions of criticism and revulsion.

In 1964 in his song “Sounds of Silence,” Paul Simon wrote, “’The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls.’”

I think Simon was telling society to pay attention. We shouldn’t ignore graffiti; it foreshadows the protests of people who exert great effort to be heard. Energy is pent up behind graffiti’s words, and until that power is spent, it continues to build until it can no longer be contained in the paint on a wall, across a bridge, or around a garbage can. It represents the howl of people who don’t have a legitimized voice.

I listen to graffit. I want to sit down with the graffiti artists to hear their whole story, not just the few words that are sprayed on a wall. Why? Because graffiti artists, although not formally voted into office, are the true representatives of their community. They empathize with the story of their neighbors, and they have the courage to paint the pain of their friends over the arch of a highway. They have nerve. Audacity. In another word, courage.

Whenever I want to feel more understood and relevant, I tell my stories to somebody. I cry that my mother died a few days before Christmas and that Christmas will never be the same again. I talk about the ache from a break-up that has lasted for twenty years. And I repeat my worries about money and love and job security and children and my dead aunt over and over again, until one day, I have talked enough, and I stop crying.

Every community consists of staircases. In San Francisco, on Filbert Street, over two hundred stairs climb the hill to Coit Tower. In Berkeley, 125 Oakridge steps ascend to a stunning view of San Francisco Bay and the City. In Oakland, the Grand Lake and Trestle Glen neighborhood staircases guide residents away from the sidewalks among the blooms of spring and summer.

I’ve been climbing the staircases of these cities for years now. I started right after I underwent chemotherapy. I don’t mean to stir up any sympathy; I just want to demonstrate that I had a good reason for not being able to climb very far or very fast in the beginning. I’d stare up at the wild ascent from the bottom like I was a finless salmon at the foot of a river. The incline was daunting, and I panicked that I would never feel the heady rush of reaching the top. I was afraid of being doomed to crawl back and forth on the first few stairs, feeling weak and powerless, without hope or optimism.

Then one day, I climbed past the first flight of stairs. I rested on the landing like a panting dog, my torso leaning against the railing for support. I scrambled up the second flight and sloughed across the next landing, gripping the rail with clenched claws, too winded to speak.

I scaled and mounted the steps like they were enemies. I heaved and sighed, trudged and tripped. I counted and lost count. I ascended the steps while dots danced across my eyes and pins jabbed the center of my chest. Then, when I was too weary to go any farther, a stranger grabbed me around the waist and pushed me up. We climbed like one unit, in a slow march for a common purpose. And I found the top of the stairs, my head in a fog, deficient of breath and oxygen, with a new friend beside me.

Not every stair can be climbed alone if you don’t have shoes, can’t afford a cane, or just don’t have the stamina.

This is why I want to listen to the graffiti. Graffiti is the story of people who want to climb the stairs, but who are trapped at the bottom. I want to listen to their stories and walk a few stairs with them until they can see their way to the top. Along the way, I will make new friends. I could use more. While I listen to their stories and help them mount the stairs, I realize that I’ll be climbing higher, too.

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.

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.