“I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character”—Martin Luther King Jr.
“When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues,
when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your
family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies...”
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| 4th grade, watching the world |
One of my earliest memories comes back to me often and especially this week. As a kindergartner at Coffinberry Middle School in Fairview Park, Ohio, I remember sitting quietly at my desk in the fall of 1968 and watching Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. MLK had been assassinated in the spring of that year and the world was in upheaval. I felt safe and secure in my suburban Cleveland, middle-class family but I knew all was not right with the world. On the eve of my 5
th birthday Robert Kennedy was shot in Los Angeles. Kent State would follow two years later. Violence was everywhere.
And yet somehow I always knew, at the time, that the answer was love and compassion. Perhaps it was my parents, who never really spoke of race in a direct or political way.
I loved to sing and so my folks encouraged me to audition for a
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The Singing Angels Reserve Chorus, 1972
You can find me in the 3rd row half way down with a circle |
world-famous children’s choral ensemble. Founded in 1964, The Singing Angels engaged youth from all communities to come together to perform quality music, while building teamwork, confidence and a foundation for life. From first through third grade Mom and/or Dad would drive me to an early Saturday morning rehearsal on the lower East Side of Cleveland. In rehearsal I encountered kids from all backgrounds: White, Black, Indian, Asian, rich, poor, middle-class, all of us united in making beautiful music. It was a multi-cultural melange!
Other parts of American culture also began to influence my experience of the world. Marlo Thomas, who would go on to marry Cleveland’s proud son Phil Donahue, introduced the record “Free to Be, You and Me.” Around the same time Norman Lear’s television comedy “All in the Family” debuted, which would incorporate race, ethnicity, and gender in its plots. All of 8 years old, I would watch the show with my parents and marvel at how they laughed and scoffed at Archie and Edith and their dilemmas. I think they both could identify and feel troubled by those characters as they negotiated a new American landscape.
I remember my dad saying at the dinner table there are both good Black people and bad Black people, just like there are both good White people and bad White people. This perhaps simplified the times but for a child it made sense.
For I grew up in a city that was very segregated, though I didn’t realize it until much later. There was a sense of caution about driving to the East side for my Singing Angels practices. After the Hough riots, White people avoided the area out of fear. As I searched the internet today to learn more about that time, I discovered that city officials at first blamed Black nationalist and communist organizations for the mayhem, but historians later dismissed those claims arguing the cause of the riots were primarily poverty and racism.
I attended a suburban Catholic grade school, where the only child of color was a Chinese boy by the name of Mike Chen. On the lower West Side, St. Ignatius, my high school, made it a priority to diversify the student body and encouraged families of color to send their sons to the school, offering scholarships and financial aid to families in need and of every socio-economic background. I never really befriended any of the young Black boys who attended my high school though I knew their names and respected them. I was beginning to struggle with my own sense of “differentness.”
Traveling to the East side of Cleveland to attend John Carroll University I passed through the burned out Hough neighborhood and remember the fear I felt driving down Carnegie Avenue, the most direct arterial to reach University Circle and tree-lined Fairmont Boulevard, which cut through affluent Shaker Heights. I continued to feel insulated by a very white neighborhood and student body, although there were several students of color with whom I came into contact.
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Celebrating my 50th Birthday with Professor Locke
& grad school friends Chris, Ellen & Suzanne (l-r) |
Ironically it took moving to Seattle, one of the most homogenous cities in the U.S. until recent times, for me to finally meet a more diverse community of friends. In my graduate program at the University of Washington, I befriended a number of students who were Jewish. And my first semester I sought out a Black professor to be my mentor and adviser. Professor Hubert Locke taught race and public policy, ethics, and urban affairs. He advised me on my thesis and when I graduated and left for Washington D.C., I stayed in touch with him. When I returned to Seattle in the mid-90’s he welcomed me to live in his basement until I found more permanent housing. And he encouraged me to pursue my love of acting in early 2017, when I felt frustrated and lost. Professor Locke truly wasn’t just a friend and mentor, but a father figure, an elegant man with a deep understanding of history and politics, an expert on the Holocaust, a former policeman and ordained minister. After a time, he was just Hubert to me.
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This morning, June 6th,
marching with health care workers
from Harborview Medical Center
to City Hall |
I wish he were here now to talk to. I’ve struggled the last week to come to terms with my own upbringing and how I have been complicit in our failure to achieve greater racial justice as a country. I’d like to think I have been a friend to the cause of equal rights with my own experience as a gay man, but it’s more complicated than that. Unlike skin color, it might be assumed I can hide my “differentness.” Maybe, yes, and maybe no.
But I have been able to glide through my life with a carefree spirit that doesn't worry about being stopped by police if I am driving in a neighborhood that isn't my own. I am able to linger in a park and listen to the birds and smell the roses without being perceived a threat. And I am protected by virtue of being able to work at home during this deadly pandemic. I never give it a thought.
I haven’t figured out the answers. But this week I feel rocked out of my complacency. And I wish that we had some moral, visionary leaders to help guide our way to a better future.
Maybe those leaders will need to be each and every one of us. It starts by taking one small step, and listening to a narrative that might not be my own.
