Racial Attitudes (3)

There’s a difference between racial attitudes among the rank and file of white people in the North and the South.  We did not realize it until we moved north.

I learned this when I moved to New York.  No one in New York (at least among the people we knew) would ever admit to being racially biased, but it seemed to me like many people in New York accepted black people as a race, but did not engage them on any kind of  meaningful social level as individuals.  The might profess love for  people of other races, but a Marcello or a Rufus would not have been among their friends.  On the other hand, we may have likes the Marcellos and Rufuses of the world, while using pejorative language about their ethnic background when we weren't around them.

One experience that confirmed this for me was trying to rent a house in New York.  When we were trying to find a place to live, at first Ann would call.  Ann’s accent is thicker than mine.  When she was in high school, she often played Southern Belles in school dramas.  The accent stuck.  Some people in Texas have been known to ask if she’s from Alabama. 

On the other hand, I grew up talking “West Texas Country Boy,”  but I took a lot of speech courses in college, and that included phonetics.  I can speak the general American dialect if I work at it very hard, but I’ve never allowed it to become my primary way of speaking.  I just don’t think it would be me.  However, I don’t speak West Texas Country Boy anymore unless I want to for some reason.  I speak “Texas Cosmopolitan” (especially if I’m delivering some kind of public speech) which means I probably sound like I’m from Dallas.  Well Dallas may be a bit too sophisticated, so let me say, “Fort Worth.”  That’s more uptown than Clyde.

Back to my story.  When Ann would call she would curtly be told that the place was rented.  We began to suspect that the people who heard her speak on the phone thought she was black.  To confirm this, I started making calls, and got a totally different reaction.  It was obvious to us that some New Yorkers wanted to avoid the racist label, but they didn’t want black people occupying their rent houses.

Racial Attitudes (2)

I also grew up around Mexican people, and to a lesser degree there was prejudice against Mexicans.  I think it’s common among people of all races to look with suspicion on those who are different from them.

 I attended high school with a young man named Marcello Aguero.   You would have to work hard at not liking Marcello.  He was so likeable that he was voted the most popular boy in school.  He was a great athlete, a “swivel hips” half back who could zip through the line of scrimmage with the speed of lighting.   One night we went to Cross Plains to play football. The Cross Plains players were yelling at Marcello.  They kept calling him a “pepper belly.”  That really made all of us mad.  However, we would have probably done the same thing to some Mexican we didn’t know.  Marcello was our Mexican, just as Rufus was our black man.  

I think that illustrates much of the attitude toward people of different ethnic origin at that time.  We rejected other people who were different from us as a group, but we accepted many of them as individuals.

Racial Attitudes (1)

By 1968, the practice of segregation was on its way out.  Most of us thought we saw political power plays behind the scenes, but after it all shook out, we realized that we needed to make some changes.  Black people had been denied full participation in our society, and that had to change. 

After his death Martin Luther King became they symbol of that change.  Whether he went about it in the right way is still vigorously debated.   What cannot be debated is the fact that change took place, and much of that change was for the betterment of our world.

As I look back on that time, I think it might be a good occasion to reflect on some of my personal pilgrimage with respect to racial matters.  Without a doubt I grew up in a racist environment.   I don’t think there was a black person who lived in Callahan County.   I even heard it said that a black man was not to allow the sun to go down on his back anywhere in the county.  I don’t know if that was true, however.

My own attitudes were probably racist, but I was not that way naturally.  I remember a black man named Rufus.  Rufus lived in Taylor County, and there were a number of black people in Taylor County.  I remember being at his house. It was a one room sheet iron building, probably about 10’X13.’ Rufus was crippled, but he was a hard worker, and was highly valued.  Even so it was important for Rufus to know “his place.”  

I especially remember Rufus coming to our farm during the wheat harvest.   Mama had wrung a chicken’s neck, and prepared fried chicken.  Everyone connected with the harvest ate at our table except for Rufus.  Mama served him on the back porch, and as I remember he got the least desirable portions of the chicken.  I didn’t understand why Rufus was served on the back porch.  Why couldn’t he come to the table with us?  My mother explained that it was because of his race.  She used the N word as if that were perfectly acceptable language, but then I was told never to use that word in the presence of Rufus.  The acceptable world was “colored.”  The “N” word was only to be used when white people were present.

 I was getting my education in racism.   I remember the lines from South Pacific. "You have to be carefully taught.  I will hasten to add that my mother’s behavior was generous and compassionate for the time.  Most white farm women probably wouldn’t have fed him, and they wouldn’t have worried about hurting his feelings by using the N word in his presence.   

As time passed I acquired the prejudices of my environment, however I think it was considerably softened.  It wouldn’t have bothered me to attend school with black children.  It probably would have bothered by father, but he would have accepted it.  I think it probably would have been intolerable for my grandfather.  You have to remember that he was born while the South was going through harsh Reconstruction measures.

FLIGHT TO TEXAS

It was during these years that the whole family flew to Texas. It was quite a trip.  We didn’t have to buy tickets for Jim and Ruby since they were both under three.  Jim sat in my lap, and Ruby sat in Ann’s lap.  Elliott was excited about making his first airplane trip.   We drove to Buffalo; flew to Chicago; caught a plane for Dallas.

Daddy and Mama were anxious to see us, but there was no way that Daddy was going to drive through Dallas traffic to meet us as Love Field.  Weatherford was as close as he would come.  I talked with Truman Spring about it.  At the time his mother was living in Dallas.  She picked us up, and we stopped in Fort Worth for lunch and she drove us on to Weatherford where we met my parents.  

The next morning Daddy, Elliott, Jim and I went to one of Benton Pruett’s tanks and Daddy shot some ducks.  I don’t think I hit anything.  I’ve never been much of a hunter, and I’m a poor marksman.  We went back to the pickup and Daddy took a picture of Elliott, Jim and me holding up the ducks.   From the look on Jim’s face, I don’t think he was too excited about the whole thing.  He was not yet two.  We did have our duck dinner that evening. 

Later we spent time with Ann’s family, and I reported to my sponsoring church in Houston.  Finally, it was time to return home.  When we left Dallas, it was sixty-five degrees.  When we landed at O’Hare Airport in Chicago we learned there were major weather problems in Buffalo. There was no way Charles Williams could drive to Buffalo to pick us up.   When we landed at Buffalo, the air temperature was around zero, the wind chill much lower than that, and a major winter storm had left of lot of snow on the ground.  Fortunately, Al Hartwigsen, who preached in Niagara Falls at the time, picked us up at the airport and took us to his house for the night.  This is just one of the many travel misadventures we’ve experienced over the years.

TROPHIES

By 1967 we had five people in our house at 133 Midgely Street in Jamestown.  Elliott was in school and doing well. Jim and Ruby were toddlers.  It was during this time that Elliott made me a special present in crafts class.  He painted a smooth rock and pasted a picture of a St. Louis Cardinals baseball player – Tim McCarver I think – and gave it to me.  I still have it, even though the picture is somewhat faded.  

The picture is just one of my many “trophies.”  My trophies are things that have been given to me, or given to us over the years.  When we were at Albany, a lady gave Elliott is plant for this third birthday.  The plant, some kind of creeping vine (maybe a Wandering Jew?) has been with us ever since.  At times it has grown to the point that it reached all the way across the room.  Ann has cut it back and repotted it several times.  It’s always there as a reminder of the love people have shown us.

Most of the trophies are in my office at church.  They include wooden “fish symbol” given to me by David Adams during our first stay in Cedar Rapids.  He also gave me some wooden expanding book ends.   I’ve got a Texas Bluebonnet dried and placed in a frame by Pasty Harvey from Houston.  (Ann picked up new bluebonnets to go in the frame on a recent visit to Texas. I’ve got a branding iron and barbed wire given to me by Ann’s brother-in-law, Donnie.   Dyrel Collins, who preached in the Albany area, painted me a western picture on canvass, which hangs in my office.  I like western art, and all things cowboy. Jim bought me a set of longhorns and carved my initials on the leather part that holds them together.   I’ve also got a horse picture in our closet at home, which Gary, Kelly, and Scott gave to me. 

I’ve got a Model A John Deere tractor, which Ann got for me at Ertyl Toys  in Dyersville, Iowa.    I  have an eagle picture and a wolf picture hanging on my wall given me by the Minden Church of Christ.  I’ve got a Texas Bluebonnet picture, which we bought at the Official Texas Bluebonnet Festival at Chapell Hill, Texas.   There’s also a picture of a cowboy reading the Bible to a little boy, which we purchased from the artist in Red River, New Mexico.  I have a little rocking horse given to me by Hilda Hodge in Cedar Rapids.  There’s a little wooden turtle that I picked up somewhere.  We have a barn picture painted for us by Pat Chaney, a member of our youth group when we lived in Belton, Texas.  We also have three pictures painted by my Aunt Loretta.  Ruby made up a special album for me to celebrate fifty plus years of ministry.  I’ve also got some pictures painted by Dovie Bales, widow of my late uncle, Alfred T. (Bus) Bales.

I don’t have to go to a museum to fuel my memories.  They are all around my house and my office. I treasure them all.

Learning From Conflict (2)

There was another brother, who had different issues.   I took exception to his critical comments, especially in Bible class. Anytime he or his wife would raise a question, my defenses went up.  I almost dreaded teaching a Bible class, because I felt like I was going to be challenged.  At one point his unhappiness was so great that I asked the brothers in the church to meet with him, and excused myself because I thought I would be a lightning rod.  I felt they needed to hear his honest complaints.   A meeting was set up for a certain night.

Before the meeting took place, his wife talked with Ann.  She said, “I think we can talk where our husbands can’t.”   She told Ann about some problems her husband was having a work problem.    She said, “He’s in a position where he can’t express his feelings, so he takes it out on Norman.”   She didn’t completely let me off the hook.  She said, “Norman has taught me more than any Bible teacher I’ve ever sat under, but when I raise a question, I see his defenses go up, and I think he wishes I would just keep my mouth shut.”  

She was right about that one. Then Ann began telling me what my “non-verbal” communication was saying, so I began viewing both of them much differently.  On the day of the meeting he came by the office.  He said, “I think our wives have had a conversation, and I think you know where I’m coming from.”  I told him that I did, and I was able to respond compassionately.  He said, “Are you coming to the meeting tonight?”  I told him that I didn’t plan to.   He said, “I’d really appreciate it if you came.”  I went to the meeting.  It was congenial.   When we got to his issues, they were really small.  After that we got along. 

That taught me something about the dynamics of church work.  When you have issues with people, the subject that’s out on the table is not usually the real problem.  It’s a cover story that masks some kind of pain that’s hidden much deeper.   I also learned something about the concept of transference.  Quite often the person who is trying to help receives the blame for what others have done.  It’s not a perfect world, and life is not fair. 

 I don’t think church people are more prone to this kind of thing than others.  In the church we have such close proximity to one another, that the problems become magnified.   If you can’t learn to deal with that, you don’t need to stay in full time ministry.