A small part of my personal story is written in this blog about my unique 1980 adventure of being accepted into a black American cultural experience for three weeks. It is a short read. The book that the small blog has been taken from, as well as five other books that I have written, remain unpublished, and have generated little interest, but many of the vignettes and chapters within them have value, and might be considered interesting, or at times, fascinating.
I continue to try to tell my story, to a shrinking audience, for sure. Telling stories keeps me engaged with my creative imperative, though not necessarily more deeply connected with the “outside world”. I have lost the friendly ears of many more members of family and friends over the past 25 years than I have gained. I made a commitment to myself beginning last year to make more friends each year than I lost due to death or other reasons, The covid pandemic sure threw a monkey wrench into that one! I continue to meditate, to respect my insight process, and to write about what interests me. So, at least I have continued the long term commitment that I made 33 years ago to be a friend to myself, and to reveal more of myself to the world through the creative process. To forget that commitment would potentially result in an early death due to the despair of a non-creatively inspired life.
Here is my “blast from the past” followed by a short missive.
I began working with the US Postal Service in 1975, first as a swing-shift clerk on a letter sorting machine. Concurrently, during the daytime, I attempted to finish two engineering degrees, in both electrical and computer engineering, at the University of Portland. After I left school to devote more of my life to the care of my mentally ill wife, as well as to my own addictions and self-destructive intentions, I committed to work with the USPS. Eventually, in 1980, I accepted a promotion into the maintentance department. Because of my education with electrical, electronic, and computer engineering (which placed me well ahead of most of my peers in theoretical expertise), this caused some concern among some co-workers. More than one co-worker thought that I might try to parlay this education into a pogo stick to jump over their place on the seniority roster, but that never happened.
The national training center for electronic technicians for the US Postal Service was located in Oklahoma, on the campus of the University of Oklahoma. I was sent several times over a four year period, from 1980-1984, to Norman, Oklahoma for appropriate and necessary training. In 1980, I was sent to Norman for my first three week training experience on troubleshooting and repairing their letter sorting equipment, which I was quite familiar with through my clerical experience. This was the first time that I had ever flown on an airplane, on Continental Airlines, and it was my first great adventure by myself away from home. I stayed in the University of Oklahoma’s student dormitory, which was shared with the USPS during the summer months for all students.
My roommate was Bill Y of New York City, who also was a maintenance mechanic/electrician from that area. I had never spent any time sharing a room with any human being in my life, save my family, and my wife, who I was now legally separated from. So here we were, Bill and I, sharing a common bathroom and spiritual and emotional space. He happened to be a black man, and he is the first black person I ever had any relationship with, other than through basketball adventures on outdoor ball courts throughout the north Portland areas that I used to engage in. Bill was damaged goods, being a veteran of Vietnam, and still suffering from some very concerning aggressive tendencies and attitudes. Bill always had a pint of liquor in his drawer, and would take libations frequently. But, somehow, he held himself together.
One Saturday evening, six of us Post Office Maintenance Trainees drove a substantial distance from Norman to a nationally famous bar in Oklahoma City. There were five African-Americans, including my roommate Bill, and Jermaine, from New Jersey (who had a huge bag of weed that he just grabbed into and freely distributed to all who liked to partake) and me, the one pale-faced party warrior. I loved being with these guys, and I have never experienced more camaraderie and mutual respect than by running with this group of men. There was a bonding that I just did not understand, but I later learned one of the fundamental tenets of their group energy.
When we arrived, the parking lot was almost full. It was a huge club, with all sorts of action going on outside, and, I was to see, inside as well. We found a decent parking spot, and all walked up to the door together. Bill led the way, and the greeter held us all up, because of me. They did not allow “white people” into their place. Bill explained to the man that I was part of their team, and I was not just any “white person”. The door man told Bill that he would have to register me with the club, and so I was signed in, with the other five people that were with me signing the same paper, vouching for me. I was told that I was not to dance with any of the black girls, and to keep with my group so as to keep the peace. The place had several hundred black people partying and carrying on, and I got more than my share of searching, and some times, dirty looks. Somehow I kept my cool. Paranoia would not have helped me that evening. I settled in eventually, and enjoyed a couple of strong drinks. Bill went outside, to share a joint with Jermaine, while the rest of us hung out on one side of the dance floor, enjoying the music, laughing, and having a good time.
Suddenly, Bill came back in, with Jermaine in tow, and started waving his gun around in the air. He started yelling very loudly, proclaiming
“I don’t want anyone to get hurt here!
Someone has blocked our car in, and unless they moved their car immediately, someone was going to get hurt.“
My other three friends surrounded me, and we all started walking to the door, with the express intention of leaving without anybody slowing us down. A parting of the crowd, like Moses with the Red Sea, occurred, and we made it outside, awaiting the offending driver to move his vehicle. Two angry looking dudes came outside, with a following entourage of onlookers, and moved the car, all the while with Bill still waving his firearm in the air.
After the offending car was moved, we all piled into the rental car, and Bill assumed the driver seat, laying the gun in his lap. We tore out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell, and we all watched to make sure that we were not followed. Bill later expressed one of his fundamental values:
“We have to be willing to lay our lives on the line for our friends, and make whatever sacrifice that is necessary to protect each other from danger!”
I began to really understand why I had never felt so safe and protected while with this group of men. This was the civilian equivalent of a small military squad in a war zone, which, apparently, Bill still felt that he was in. I have never felt this way with any other group of people in my life. It was exhilarating, fun, bonding, challenging, hair-raising, and enlightening to run with this crew for three solid weeks. I was someone I had never been before, respected, accepted, and honored as being a part of a family, where we were accountable for each others’ success and safety. I was accepted into the field of human energy where I was unconditionally accepted as a brother, and a friend. The color of my skin did not matter, as long as I shared in the energy, and did not bring judgement with me.
I never forgot the challenging fact that many of my dark skinned brothers and sisters feel like they are victims of a multi-generational war against themselves, and their race, heritage, and culture. Though I am not a conscious racist, I share in a collective white consciousness that has persecuted, judged, and marginalized all races not white, since the whites have been the predominate, ruling class of individuals within society.
My three week experience with Bill was sometimes like being on patrol in Nam, without the jungles and uniforms. Yet, Bill, like most of his black community, had been on patrol together long before the advent of the Viet Nam war. Bill had adjusted as best he could to the constant oppression of his life by the white cultural power brokers as well as the limited opportunities given to him from our culture of white privilege. Our culture continuously speaks out of two sides of its collective mouth: one side promotes the idea that we are all equal, yet the other side promotes hatred and indifference to all non-whites, and the denial of equal opportunity. Bill’s innate goodness and internal resourcefulness had never been fully recognized or acknowledged by our broken culture, and he had compensated for that by forming self-protecting mechanisms that helped him to try to feel better about himself, and to feel more in control, even while things beyond his immediate reach really were out of control. He, like his family and friends, knew all too well what a life “on patrol” felt like.
Once I became an electrician with IBEW local 48, I continued to meet and befriend many members of all races and heritages. I worked to treat all people fairly throughout my career, yet I know that, collectively, racism continues, and is built into the very fabric of the American white consciousness. I worked with a least two bosses who blatantly discriminated against all non-white workers, as well as against female workers. The “conspiracy of silence” that I have written extensively about, I had not yet been healed of at this time. I saw how I did not speak out against the oppression, sometimes keeping my mouth shut, for fear of being fired or laid off, clear up to the year 1996, when I finally started to find my courage and my voice. We must find the courage to speak out, and to confront lazy thinkers and oppressive leaders. Those that choose to be fully aware of themselves can work to heal our wounding, and to help bring change around our broken consciousness.
In the meantime, The War continues. Donald Trump’s personal advisor, Steven Miller, is a white nationalist, and racist of the first order. Nobody looks to our president for hope to bring healing to the racial divide. If racial violence does not abate, hope will ebb, and constructive, healing options will continue to feel like they are unattainable.
There are many white men, and women in positions of power and influence,who have lost all sanity, love, and hope, or, more tragically, never had those qualities in the first place.
They just want to watch the world burn.
We need not burn with them.
The rest of us, those who truly want healing within our world, within our country, and within our own consciousness, must accept each human being, whether or not they are from our family, our tribe, our religion, or our race, as our own. In the immortal words of my USPS friend, Bill Y:
“We have to be willing to lay our lives on the line for our friends, and make whatever sacrifice that is necessary to protect each other from danger!”
[A] new society cannot be created by reproducing the repugnant past, however refined or enticingly repackaged.
– Nelson Mandela
