GOING TO THE RACES

A few minutes ago I wrote on Glenn's Blog (www.HiI'mblack) that I think these people who say, "I'm colorblind", as an indication of how chummy they are to people of other races are full of bullcrap. There's some columnist who is always writing about how he has taught his children to be colorblind. To me he's a jerk. That's not possible.

If you've got two eyes, unless you're completely stupid or have a serious neurological disorder, they flash messages to your brain regarding color of skin, color of hair, type of hair, clothing, attitude, and so many other clues. Even this damn computer I am working on cannot even come close to collecting, registering and sending information as quickly as the human eye to the human brain.

I recognize everyone everywhere for what they are, and in most cases I can differentiate between Korean, Japanese and Chinese, etc., as well. If you're not processing such information, you're either moronic or useless. Every black person recognizes white, so why shouldn't a white person recognize black? It is the same with Asian people; a Japanese person knows at once if the person they're facing is Chinese or Vietnamese, etc.

Back in 1951, I think it was, I was driving down a lonely road in Alabama, and there was a car pulled over, with a flat tire, and a woman standing there helplessly in the hot sun. So, I stopped behind her, got out and changed the tire. Fifteen minutes later she was ready to roll, and in thanking me, almost with tears in her eyes, she said, "No white man has ever done anything like that for me before!" Yes, she was a negro, as they were called in those days. If a carful of white guys had come by, they'd have most likely kicked my teeth in, if I was lucky.

I changed a tire for another elderly woman one day, and she was on her way home to Idaho. Since I was also heading across country to Utah, I followed along behind her car for a couple of days. She later sent me an article from the local paper; she was a woman doing a man's job, making a living digging ditches to support her grandson. She was white.

And then, late one cold night, middle of winter, in a snowstorm in Connecticut I also changed a tire for a lady. She sent me a little alarm clock as a present. The gist of each story is that in each case my eyes took in all the facts, but how I made use of the information was what was important. In an age when chivalry had not yet been dealt some pretty deep stab wounds, there was a job to be done and I did it. I pity the drivers of cars that had passed each one before me, because they missed a chance to do a good deed, and certainly, in case number one, to know that your help was truly appreciated.

I was raised in integrated neighborhoods, by integrated then we usually meant Italians, Germans, Irish and a few others mixed in the stew. Three miles south it was all Italians, or in another area, all Polish. Negroes? A few. But in those days the Whites had more difficulty getting along with each other than they had with the Blacks.

In WWII, the Merchant Marine was the only fully integrated service, and I was a merchant seaman for five years. Sure, most of the men in the Steward's Department were negroes, but we worked harmoniously and we all got along quite well together.

In 1956 I was the National Sales Manager for a company headquartered in Chicago and I often attended a church in South Chicago. I stood out like a sore thumb as I was the only Whitey in the whole church. The Prophet always thanked me personally for attending from the pulpit, and a couple of times we sat and discussed his ministry. Some friends thought I was risking my life to go there, but they'd never been in South Chicago and didn't know a thing about it. It was safe, and the music was always enervating! They "sold" religion better than the churches in our area, and being a salesman, I really appreciated that.

Another story: I think it was 1952 when I got on a bus in downtown Atlanta (GA), and sat just behind the side doors. The bus didn't start up and someone kept talking, but until I was tapped on the shoulder by a negro woman, I didn't realize it was the driver and he was addressing me. "Move up forward, sir," he said. Now, I usually sat in the back of the bus in New Jersey and New York, so it meant nothing to me, and I replied, "I'm okay. I'll stay here." In a stronger voice he replied to me, "Sir, this bus won't move one inch until you move up front."

Now, at that time I was not in the deep south to make political statements, nor was I a Rosa Parks, nor of negro blood, so I moved up one seat, which satisfied him, everyone else too, and the bus moved on.

You see, Rosa Parks was smarter than almost anyone else. Years after that incident, Solzhenytsin wrote: We are victims because we allow ourselves to become victims. I think it is a quote that should be in every compendium of useful quotations. She simply refused, absolutely refused, to allow herself to be made a victim any longer. Internally she resolved the issue and addressed it. I could not have addressed that problem, because it was not my problem. She could and did, because it was her problem! She was the first one with the courage to address it.

Now, everyone who sits on a bus in Atlanta and other southern cities recognizes at once whether or not the person next to them is a White or Black, with long or short hair, and all the other details, unless, of course, they're stupid. It's not what your eyes process to the brain that counts, it is how you treat that person that counts and nothing else.

Oh yes, another time, honest, another long stretch of road, and I was changing a tire for a ditzy blonde woman who kept running up and down the roadway, and around the car, as if she thought I was going to rape her. Jeeezzz. So not only did I change her tire for her, I also saved her from being raped. I simply changed my mind.

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