Tag: history

The past, education, happy, sad

I don’t like studying anything in depth; I get bored.

paperrockNew York Erratic must be from New Jersey, she asks so many questions:

Are there any events in your life that you feel make good parables that you want to share one day with your daughter?

I was 51 when she was born, so there is a lot of my life to draw from. Huge parts of it she doesn’t know, significant events, and I’m not sure exactly when/if to tell her. Maybe if she asks. She DOES know about JEOPARDY!

I remember looking at photos of my mother with some guy she went out with before she dated my father, and initially, it was kind of weird, but hey, that was rather natural. When she would talk about it- I was at least in my 20s by then – and say, “Oh, I could have married” so-and-so, it was rather disconcerting. I mean, I wouldn’t have been me!

My daughter is ALWAYS asking me to tell her stories, and I always struggle to tell her some. I know I’ve not wanted to poison her with some of the racism that I’ve experienced, yet at the same, try to subtly let her know – and some of it she’s figured out on her own – that it’s not all in the past.

I suppose I could tell her about being a conscious objector during the Vietnam war or going to various demonstrations for peace and justice. Not sure I want to tell her how I quit a job without having one to go to, more than once.

Really struggling with this one.

If you could go back in time and talk to yourself at 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50, what would you say?

At 10, I was feeling pretty good about things. Got 100 in the spelling final. I started becoming real friends with the girls in my class. Maybe I’d say that I needed to develop more male friends, because, even to this day, I have a dearth of them. I’ve usually preferred the company of women, and not just in romantic settings. I have some great male friends, but they are in the clear minority.

At 20, I was married to the Okie. I’d tell myself to press her about what was going on with her that would lead to her leaving the next year. Maybe I would have gone to the Philadelphia folk festival (which we couldn’t afford) if it was THAT important to her. (Ah, something the Daughter does not know about yet.)

At 30, I had a good friend die and got my heart broken in a fairly short period of time. I’d tell myself to avoid a certain emotional entanglement the following year, though it felt so good at the moment.

At 40, I had just started my current job the year before. I would have suggested taking a temporary position when it became available because the whole path of my employment could have changed.

At 50, Carol was pregnant with Lydia. Actually, there’s very little I would have said at that point because it’s impossible to understand parenthood without experiencing it.

What do you think you didn’t study enough in high school and college?

In high school, it was French, though I DID put in the effort, I just didn’t GET it, past the first year or so. Wish I had had the chance to have taken it earlier. In college, I’m surprised, in retrospect, that I took exactly one course in music, which I aced, and didn’t participate at all in a choral group, at college, or a church or something.

Did you have to write a thesis for your graduate program?

It was not a thesis as such, but it was a long paper, close to 50 pages. I couldn’t tell you what it was about if you paid me. It was torture when I wrote it.

What’s your favorite subject to study in-depth? What is your least favorite subject?

I don’t like studying anything in-depth; I get bored. I like to know a little about a lot of things. Recently, I HAVE become more expert in START-UP NY (an attempt at an economic stimulus in the state) and NYS sales tax law than anyone ought to be, and still, I have to look up. I suppose I’ve picked up some knowledge of The Beatles and other musical entities of the 1960s and 1970s.

My eyes glaze over when listening to talk about cars; I couldn’t tell you a type of Chevy that doesn’t start with C (Corvette, Corvair).

If you could give one piece of advice to a college student today, what would it be?

Resist learning about job skills that you can go into today; the field could be gone tomorrow. DO learn about all sorts of stuff, and know-how to think, not just regurgitate back the facts. In other words, in spite of the great affection for STEM education in the country these days, and I’m not against it, I still believe in the value of a liberal arts education.
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Do you read the funnies? What’s your favorite internet comic?

I seldom read the comics on the Internet, more as a matter of time. I’ve seen stuff I like online, such as XKCD, but it’s not part of the routine. (Here is a special version of the strip.) I read Pearls Before Swine, Luann, Zits, Doonesbury (when there’s new daily stuff) and Blondie, because it has evolved somewhat. Having said this, I did support the Kickstarter for the movie STRIPPED, about the history of the genre, so I am interested in the topic.

What types of jokes or humor make you laugh the hardest?

It’s language: clever puns, things that evolve from double meanings of words. Can’t give you an example, because, as I have often said, I can’t REMEMBER a joke I’ve heard since the age of about 12, even with fiscal incentive. But the visuals on the page, while not the best examples (but they are the last two on my Facebook feed) at least suggest the genre of humor.

I HATE, BTW, America’s Funniest Home Videos; the bits usually involve physical pain and embarrassment. I was at an urgent care place with Lydia a couple of years ago, and it was on the TV; my loathing was confirmed.

One more question, this from SamuraiFrog:

What makes you cry?

Music: The Barber Adagio I have almost a dozen versions of. Lenten music in general. But a great final movement of a classical piece will do it too, especially with organ power chord endings. I’ve mentioned some sad songs, associated with romance, in the past. Music evokes some very specific memories. Sometimes, songs, songs I associate with my former church in Albany make me very sad. Know what song used to make me weepy? Captain Jack by Billy Joel.
Movies: the first one was West Side Story when Maria yells “Don’t you touch him!” over the dead Tony, but there have been several since. An occasional television show will do this as well, but it’s been a while, mostly because I’m not watching much TV.
Other people being sad: I remember when Bobby Kennedy died and people were all sad. I wasn’t, but their tears became mine because THEY were hurting. That Kickstarter/Veronica Mars thing that you experienced made me sad for you, almost to tears, and surprisingly angry.
My melancholia: More now than in quite a while. Sometimes, even in the midst of a crowd, I can feel quite alone. And I cry and/or I get angry.
My daughter in pain, my wife in pain: the worst pain I ever saw my wife endure was after some surgery involving her jaw. MUCH worse than childbirth.

You can still Ask Roger Anything.

The Belgian Congo and Yugoslavia

One of my co-workers came up to me and asked how many of the five former Yugoslav republics I could name; I remembered four.

During the Vietnam war, it was widely reported – I don’t remember if it was apocryphal or true – that most Americans could not find Vietnam on a map. Likewise, today’s students might be challenged to find Afghanistan or Iraq on the globe.

By contrast, I was a bit of a cartology fanatic when I was a child. My paternal grandfather, who lived upstairs, would give me maps from his National Geographic, which I would study at length. I still have some of them in the attic, BTW.

Unfortunately for my recall, the world kept changing. French West Africa and British East Africa became a slew of independent countries. What was once Belgian Congo became Zaire, but is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, sometimes referred to as Congo-Kinshasa; this not to be confused with the neighboring Republic of the Congo, also referred to as Congo-Brazzaville, which used to be under French control.

Later, Germany merged. Czechoslovakia, Sudan, Yugoslavia, and the USSR broke up; fortunately, the former two only broke into a pair of countries each. But Yugoslavia… One of my co-workers came up to me and asked how many of the five former Yugoslav republics I could name; I remembered four. Then I looked it up and there are SIX:

Bosnia and Herzegovina
Croatia (which I forgot)
Macedonia (which I remembered because the Greeks got all bent out of shape)
Montenegro (which I remembered from WWI)
Serbia (which has two autonomous regions, Vojvodina – which I had never heard of; and Kosovo, which I had)
Slovenia (not be confused with Slovakia, part of former Czechoslovakia; I forgot it)

It SHOULD be easy to remember: BCMMSS

Now the former Soviet Union is tougher, and I have developed a bizarre way to remember, roughly from northwest to southeast:

Baltic states-ELL
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania

Eastern Europe-BUM
Belarus
Ukraine
Moldova

Southern Caucasus, Russia-RAGA
Russia
Armenia
Georgia
Azerbaijan

Central Asia-KKUTT
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Uzbekistan
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan

ELL-BUM-RAGA-KKUTT? Well, it worked for me; sounds like a musical selection.

World, stop changing. I’m kidding; change is inevitable.

K is for Killing

The current debate over gun violence likely will not be ended so easily.

 

My church, First Presbyterian Church in Albany, NY, is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year. The church donated some artifacts to the Albany Institute of History & Art, itself founded in 1791. The Institute has an exhibit, ongoing through April 17, showing some of the church history over the years.

Some of the church members included John Jay, eventually the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury; and Aaron Burr, third Vice-President of United States, and the first NOT to go on to become President.

After Burr killed Hamilton in a duel in 1804, the pastor Eliphalet Nott delivered a jeremiad against dueling. As it was a particularly long and significant sermon, it was published by the Dutch Reformed Church in Albany. (I listened to the re-enacted speech a few years ago.) Eliphalet Nott had the remarkable effect of, almost singlehandedly, effectively ending what had been considered an “honorable” way for gentlemen to settle their differences.

The current debate over gun violence likely will not be ended so easily. The solutions seem to be fewer guns on one side, more guns on the other. The latter group clings to the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution: “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The notion of a militia, to me, seems to be a state-run National Guard.

In any case, here’s a list of murders with firearms (most recent) by country. And here are twelve facts about guns and mass shootings in the United States. Nothing here, I suspect, will change anyone’s mind about the next steps to take. No Eliphalet Nott sermon will save the day anymore.

ABC Wednesday – Round 12

How come there’s no WHITE History Month?

We still need Black History Month because we still are learning about, and attempting to rectify, discrimination. Racism is NOT over; it has morphed into more devious manifestations.

Jaquandor, who continues to be western New York’s finest blogger, wrote, even before I asked him to Ask Roger Anything:
May I ask, what’s YOUR response to the question that ALWAYS gets asked in February? I’m referring, of course, to “How come there’s no WHITE History Month?” Anymore I just snort and say “That’s all the other ones. We just don’t announce it.” Problem with that response is, it doesn’t always get taken as the sarcasm it is.
He added:
I really hate hearing that question, with its pouty tone and its implication that racism is over and we need to just stop talking about it.

Let me tell you some of the things we talked about at my church in late January and February:

Education- A married couple, church members, and retired school principals Rose and James Jackson, talked about “Educating all of our children: The Albany Promise,” which is a cradle-to-career partnership introduced by SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher; James is currently a New York State Regent.

In the course of the conversation, the Jacksons noted that there were interracial public schools in the city of Albany, where previously blacks were educated in segregated schools, with black teachers. At the same time, the black teachers were excluded from the new schools. After a legal challenge, black teachers were allowed. But the result is that many private schools – Catholic and otherwise – rose up in the city. The segregation of public schools in the city long predated the “white flight” segregation of other urban areas. So the problems NOW in Albany schools have a largely unknown historic basis from 140 years earlier.

The environment – Activist Aaron Mair spoke on Building Health Advocacy Capacity in Environmental Justice Communities: A.N.S.W.E.R.S. Community Survival Project. He told how the primarily black Arbor Hill section of Albany became the dumping ground, literally, of the Capital District’s waste until the community responded in the last couple of decades; recent history. But Arbor Hill is not an isolated example; NIMBY often means dumping stuff in someone ELSE’S backyard, those with less political and economic power.

Racial designations – as I noted before, the very changeable definition of race was not determined by black people but by the Census Bureau and social scientists of the past. Some may not realize that it’s difficult for many African Americans to trace their ancestry before 1870, “when the federal census first recorded all black people by first and last names. Before this, only free people of color were listed by name in the censuses, except for a few counties that listed slaves by first and last names in the 1850 and 1860 censuses. However…there’s a wealth of information on black people kept by the federal government for the years immediately following the Civil War.” Again, a historical issue affecting the current day.

Justice – pretty much what I wrote about a couple of days ago, where race is STILL a major determinant as to who gets incarcerated and executed. I noted last year the book and video Slavery by Another Name, whereby black people were incarcerated on trumped-up charges so they can work in the factories and the towns could make money leasing them out. I’ve read that the current private contractor prison system that exists in some states works best financially at near-maximum capacity, so one has to wonder if selective enforcement is taking place in those locales. Not that black people are the only victims of America’s tiered justice system, and do NYC cops have arrest quotas?

In each case, I wanted to have a historical perspective on current issues. And with so much blather out there, that’s vitally important. Some yahoo just recently, as in March 2013, suggested at CPAC that slavery was defensible because slave owners provided ‘food and shelter’. That slaveholders fed their investment, their source of labor, is true, of course, but its application a distortion of the institution’s injustice and brutality.

When others suggest that slavery could have been prevented if blacks had guns, that might literally have a soupcon of accuracy amid its absurdity. BUT the US government had long conspired to keep guns OUT of the hands of blacks; in fact, as I’ve noted, the Second Amendment was ratified to preserve slavery. One can’t recognize that we are experiencing The New Jim Crow – title of Michele Alexander’s important book – if one is unfamiliar with the old Jim Crow.

The yahoos might even be on the Supreme Court. The racism deniers such as Antonin Scalia likened congressional renewal of the Voting Rights Act to a “perpetuation of racial entitlement,” as Rachel Maddow noted on the Daily Show; I cannot recall a statement by such an important citizen so lacking in historical understanding. I mean, generations of people died in this country trying to vote; what “racial entitlement” is he’s talking about? And the notion that the United States has “moved past” its history of racial discrimination has been disproven repeatedly by the attempts to disenfranchise not only blacks but Hispanics and the poor.

If the Mormon church rewrites its racist history, and you don’t know the racist history of the Mormon church, you could believe the revisionist narrative.

When I wrote about film and race, it created an interesting dialogue with SamuraiFrog over that very disturbing segment of the movie Holiday Inn and other issues. Not incidentally, as a direct result of my post, someone has sent me a copy of Song of the South, which I haven’t watched yet.

We still need Black History Month because we still are learning about, and attempting to rectify, discrimination. Racism is NOT over; it has morphed into more devious manifestations.

So in answer to your specific question, there’s no White History Month because, as you suggest, much of American history has covered that area, while much of black history, beyond George Washington Carver, Martin Luther King, and a relatively few others, remains hidden. Moreover, the United States is peculiar about race. I wish the country had had the reconciliation conversation South Africa engaged in after the end of apartheid.

The First Step to Freedom

Freedom is a process, not an event.

 

There was an exhibition, entitled The First Step to Freedom: Abraham Lincoln’s Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation that toured eight cities in New York State in the fall of 2012, the last of which was Albany, on November 9 and 10, at the New York State Museum. My family spent over 90 minutes in line to see the document for less than three minutes.

As this audio/visual presentation shows, the Emancipation Proclamation has been oversimplified.

It is NOT true, for instance, that President Lincoln freed all slaves with the stroke of a pen.

“It is an easy narrative, historians argue, that a single document granted freedom. But that’s not how it happened.

“Look to the proclamation’s language: ‘That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.’

“Freedom only applied to those slaves in states that had seceded. It did not apply to border states, or specific regions in Union control: about 750,000 slaves.”

On the other hand, it would also be false to suggest that it did nothing. It led to a number of black soldiers fighting on the Union side; after about two years of war, that infusion of new fighters made a huge difference, and also showed that it wasn’t just others fighting for the freedom of black people.

The Emancipation Proclamation was just part of a process, sometimes progressing (Thirteenth Amendment, Reconstruction), sometimes regressing (Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow laws, inequitable treatment by courts). The military became integrated, and the schools were supposed to be, although the resegregation of public education is now painfully clear. There is an inequality in our prison system, and continued inequity in wealth is its own jail.

Freedom is a process, not an event.

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