An old hitchhiking trick is having the girlfriend stand in clear view while the boyfriend hides in the bushes. When a driver stops to pick up what he/she thinks is a solitary woman seeking a ride, the boyfriend suddenly leaps out from his hiding place, jumping in with a big grin, implying Let's go!" While irritating, it is usually an effective strategy with getting the couple down the road.
Here too on a Friday night did I answer a call at a local University District hotel, pulling up to the waiting female passenger, only to have her call out to her boyfriend lurking on the other side of street concealed by darkness and local shrubbery. She said he was "only smoking a cigarette" but after a few minutes I doubted her story.
Perhaps instead he was "on the lam" and being extra careful to stay away from prying police eyes, never knowing when Seattle's finest might appear. But whatever the both of them ultimately were doing I don't care whatsoever other than I don't think it's the best idea to be threatening because you never know what kind of response you might elicit, especially since his words were "tossed knives" intended to cut and harm the receiver, in this case, innocent me.
It all started simply enough, with me asking what I have asked a least ten thousand times," Where are you going?" When told the "H ________ Motel, I responded I had picked up there earlier. This is when the young man, more or less 22 to 25 years old, asked very directly "which room, male or female, what time" which led me say "I can't tell you that."
With that interaction creating an immediate uncomfortable silence, I, intending to just be friendly during the next 7-10 minutes we had together, mentioned I had just come from Chinatown and my "meal-of-the-day," with the guy asking me where I went, along with a more general question about the "best dim sum." Telling them it was the "Honey Court," and during the day, having great dim sum, he starting aggressively asking me a bunch of rapid-fire questions which I first attempted to answer until realizing there was something odd going on, deciding to verbally slap him with a "I can't continue answering these lines of questions." which prompted his volleying retort of, "But you have!"
Suddenly I had the thought "How naive I had been!" way back in 1972, facing prison when it seemed I might have to refuse induction into the US Army, not comprehending who I would have been incarcerated with, dealing with people like this guy, obviously someone having spent many years "hardening behind bars," developing a survival strategy unequivocal its pugnacity, willing to kill anyone, me too if necessary. That I now had a "killer" in the cab was now very clear. Whether he had murdered someone, or would in the future, the potential was there, and I knew I was "nothing to him, nothing at all!" just another obstacle to kick out of his way.
Upon that understanding I shut up and got them to where they were going, not taking his "Thank you, brother." seriously as they left the cab. And when I know that the prevailing current attitude is that anyone at any time can do this kind of occupation---hauling complete strangers from point A to B--- I say 'how naive" because being with people isn't simple, and if you think so, you just might end up dead and that is just the way it is. For many, life is no joke, and the passenger I just described wasn't laughing.
"You want to die?! he says, "Why sure, I'll be glad to oblige you!"
Monday, June 25, 2018
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
Four Essays---"When And Where I Learned About Racial Disparity" & 2 Portraits Of Poverty---"Georgia And Zorro" & "Can't Find My Hat" & How People Victimize And Profile Others: "Targeting"
Many recent interactions with both drivers and customers have gotten me to thinking thematically, thinking just what it means to be racially profiled and the often related consequences. Oddly, I learned much of what I know today upon the subject way back in the years between 1957 and 1959 when our father moved us into a Toledo, Ohio housing project. Though only age 3 when we arrived, I quickly received unforgettable lessons concerning racial tension and how it affects individual behavior. In my book in progress, "To Age 13," I delve deeply into that period so this essay is designed only to be the briefest introduction to racial hatred becoming violent and dangerous. To this moment I see myself chased across the field pursued by an adult swinging a baseball bat, trying mightily for a momentous home run, my head his baseball.
When and Where I Learned About Racial Disparity
Logic was not my father's focus, instead decision making his personal game of darts, randomly hitting the target and following it, and of course taking us, his family, along. In deciding to return to his birthplace, Toledo, Ohio, he chose as our new home in 1957 that teeming cauldron of angry, displaced blacks known as the Ravine Park Village housing project, and amidst that roiling sea placing on us the solitary Caucasian street, the project's version of a DMZ zone, theoretically immune from the prevailing poison.
As that wasn't true I soon found out, my parent's setting me loose at age 3 upon the projects, not thinking through what they were doing to me as I wandered the streets learning about life and the world around me. Why I was soon targeted I can't tell you, other than I was white, and the animosity around was a different color, even resenting a little boy incapable of doing them any harm.
One day my tricycle was destroyed. Another time I was threatened for approaching a sizzling barbecue. Then, upon an errand for my mother, a towering black man chased and swung his baseball bat at me. But the crowning event, and perhaps my death save my neighbor's intervention, was being chased down by black teenagers and tied to a pole tighter and snug. To this moment I see him, our artist neighbor running down the slope screaming as the teenagers fled, leaving me to thank my rescuer, taking me back to his place.
Yes, this is how I was taught beyond all doubt about America's race relations and how angry everyone was, somehow not taking it personally, instead remaining curious of what did it have to do with me, a little boy trying to stay alive, holding no ill will toward those who wanted to kill me.
Concerning my father it was entirely another story, disliking the man who I knew to be a fool, not fun discovering at age five your own father a dunce. But being a little boy what could I do about it? Nothing was the answer, there being nothing I could do except ignore both him and my mother which I did the best I could until I left at age 15, age 16, age 17, and finally, 18.
I needed parents but truly mine didn't exist. Some children pretend. I wasn't pretending, Ravine Park Village a very real place, for me and my assorted assailants, a home not a home, a hell very far from any version of an imagined heaven floating upon our unconscious minds, all of us wanting to leave.
And we left! not sorry to leave!
________________________________________________________________________________
The next two essays are about two kinds of poverty, one total, the other "working yourself to death" poverty. Neither is a pretty story but the reality facing them and others sharing their situation: a grinding down to the bone.
Georgia and Zorro
Georgia is a Flathead Indian living in Kent, Washington but not for long, down two months rent and no ability to pay the $2,600. She has been sharing the cost with her sister but when the sister failed to receive a Social Security Review notice she was dropped like a "welfare hot potato," fating the both of them, along with Georgia's service dog Zorro and two cats, onto the streets. And since their total combined monthly Social Security equals just over $1,500, it means they have almost nothing left over after paying the rent.
Where is their free choice? Instead, prisoners of an unfeeling culture they have no alternative but to remain enslaved to a situation not of their making.
Despite her age, Georgia is childlike, someone, like so many North American aboriginals, not belonging to the modern world, adrift upon a rushing river quickly taking them over a sheer and deadly cataract. Zorro too has given up, grief his mood, depression his immediate reality.
Together they tell a story no one cares to read. Soon, too soon, they will be dead, and no one will remember, dust strewn upon the wind. They will be dead, that's all.
"Can't Find My Hat!"
The most important fact of this true "life-as-it-really-is" tale is the figure of $165,101,172.00; or to make it plainer, the Seattle Mariner's total 2018 payroll is One-hundred & sixty-five million, One hundred & one thousand, & One-hundred & seventy-two dollars and no cents. I mention this because the middle-aged woman living way out south in Normandy Park was on her way to the Angle Lake Light-rail Link station so she could serve hungry baseball fans at SafeCo Field.
Having almost cleared her apartment complex, I had to turn around as she realized she had forgotten part of her uniform, her hat. Watching the meter tick I became concerned that she was having trouble locating it, and sure enough, she came back in a panic, "They are going to fine me!"
As I sped forward, she talked to herself aloud, wondering just where that hat could be. By the time we arrived, she sounded resigned to whatever fate awaited her. She even tipped me a dollar. And this is someone making the local minimum wage.
Want to guess how much "the King" Felix Hernandez is making this year? Just over twenty-six million dollars. And shall we estimate what she made during the game? Just about $110.00 or so, minus the fine of course. Now we know why Hernandez is Royalty and she is what, just what is she during these baseball games? Does anyone want to guess?
_______________________________________________________________________________
This final essay is all about profiling, about how people just won't let other people be, letting them walk down the street minus all opinion. Always, always, members of our species continually comment, silent or not, about others good and bad. Can people just stop themselves and shut up? No, the answer is no, they can't, it being far too much fun making someone else your personal business!
Targeting
She stood on the street in front of the Victoria Clipper ferry pier extremely conscious she once again, as always, was on display for every one's long nose sticking itself into her private sphere, not wanting anything else but to walk on her way just like anyone else, just as it is her right to do. But no, as she knew too well, everyone wanted to look at her, the men for obvious reasons, and their wives too, for motivations slightly more nuanced.
Escape? No one escapes from the staring and judgmental eyes. If you are brown or black, you are potential trouble. If you're fat, you are disgusting. If you are rail-thin, you're distasteful and culturally unacceptable. If you are young teenagers laughing, you are boorish and immature. And if you are a hippie, you stink, everyone knowing you require a quick bath.
And if you think it isn't so, just ask a passing cop. They'll tell you all about it, they really will!
And if you're grabbed by the collar and pushed into a wall, you can thank that great liberal GOP Bloomberg, the once mayor of NYC reminding everyone who is young and black and proud that it wasn't a good idea six years ago and it still isn't, you being what you are and you damn well better not forget it!
When and Where I Learned About Racial Disparity
Logic was not my father's focus, instead decision making his personal game of darts, randomly hitting the target and following it, and of course taking us, his family, along. In deciding to return to his birthplace, Toledo, Ohio, he chose as our new home in 1957 that teeming cauldron of angry, displaced blacks known as the Ravine Park Village housing project, and amidst that roiling sea placing on us the solitary Caucasian street, the project's version of a DMZ zone, theoretically immune from the prevailing poison.
As that wasn't true I soon found out, my parent's setting me loose at age 3 upon the projects, not thinking through what they were doing to me as I wandered the streets learning about life and the world around me. Why I was soon targeted I can't tell you, other than I was white, and the animosity around was a different color, even resenting a little boy incapable of doing them any harm.
One day my tricycle was destroyed. Another time I was threatened for approaching a sizzling barbecue. Then, upon an errand for my mother, a towering black man chased and swung his baseball bat at me. But the crowning event, and perhaps my death save my neighbor's intervention, was being chased down by black teenagers and tied to a pole tighter and snug. To this moment I see him, our artist neighbor running down the slope screaming as the teenagers fled, leaving me to thank my rescuer, taking me back to his place.
Yes, this is how I was taught beyond all doubt about America's race relations and how angry everyone was, somehow not taking it personally, instead remaining curious of what did it have to do with me, a little boy trying to stay alive, holding no ill will toward those who wanted to kill me.
Concerning my father it was entirely another story, disliking the man who I knew to be a fool, not fun discovering at age five your own father a dunce. But being a little boy what could I do about it? Nothing was the answer, there being nothing I could do except ignore both him and my mother which I did the best I could until I left at age 15, age 16, age 17, and finally, 18.
I needed parents but truly mine didn't exist. Some children pretend. I wasn't pretending, Ravine Park Village a very real place, for me and my assorted assailants, a home not a home, a hell very far from any version of an imagined heaven floating upon our unconscious minds, all of us wanting to leave.
And we left! not sorry to leave!
________________________________________________________________________________
The next two essays are about two kinds of poverty, one total, the other "working yourself to death" poverty. Neither is a pretty story but the reality facing them and others sharing their situation: a grinding down to the bone.
Georgia and Zorro
Georgia is a Flathead Indian living in Kent, Washington but not for long, down two months rent and no ability to pay the $2,600. She has been sharing the cost with her sister but when the sister failed to receive a Social Security Review notice she was dropped like a "welfare hot potato," fating the both of them, along with Georgia's service dog Zorro and two cats, onto the streets. And since their total combined monthly Social Security equals just over $1,500, it means they have almost nothing left over after paying the rent.
Where is their free choice? Instead, prisoners of an unfeeling culture they have no alternative but to remain enslaved to a situation not of their making.
Despite her age, Georgia is childlike, someone, like so many North American aboriginals, not belonging to the modern world, adrift upon a rushing river quickly taking them over a sheer and deadly cataract. Zorro too has given up, grief his mood, depression his immediate reality.
Together they tell a story no one cares to read. Soon, too soon, they will be dead, and no one will remember, dust strewn upon the wind. They will be dead, that's all.
"Can't Find My Hat!"
The most important fact of this true "life-as-it-really-is" tale is the figure of $165,101,172.00; or to make it plainer, the Seattle Mariner's total 2018 payroll is One-hundred & sixty-five million, One hundred & one thousand, & One-hundred & seventy-two dollars and no cents. I mention this because the middle-aged woman living way out south in Normandy Park was on her way to the Angle Lake Light-rail Link station so she could serve hungry baseball fans at SafeCo Field.
Having almost cleared her apartment complex, I had to turn around as she realized she had forgotten part of her uniform, her hat. Watching the meter tick I became concerned that she was having trouble locating it, and sure enough, she came back in a panic, "They are going to fine me!"
As I sped forward, she talked to herself aloud, wondering just where that hat could be. By the time we arrived, she sounded resigned to whatever fate awaited her. She even tipped me a dollar. And this is someone making the local minimum wage.
Want to guess how much "the King" Felix Hernandez is making this year? Just over twenty-six million dollars. And shall we estimate what she made during the game? Just about $110.00 or so, minus the fine of course. Now we know why Hernandez is Royalty and she is what, just what is she during these baseball games? Does anyone want to guess?
_______________________________________________________________________________
This final essay is all about profiling, about how people just won't let other people be, letting them walk down the street minus all opinion. Always, always, members of our species continually comment, silent or not, about others good and bad. Can people just stop themselves and shut up? No, the answer is no, they can't, it being far too much fun making someone else your personal business!
Targeting
She stood on the street in front of the Victoria Clipper ferry pier extremely conscious she once again, as always, was on display for every one's long nose sticking itself into her private sphere, not wanting anything else but to walk on her way just like anyone else, just as it is her right to do. But no, as she knew too well, everyone wanted to look at her, the men for obvious reasons, and their wives too, for motivations slightly more nuanced.
Escape? No one escapes from the staring and judgmental eyes. If you are brown or black, you are potential trouble. If you're fat, you are disgusting. If you are rail-thin, you're distasteful and culturally unacceptable. If you are young teenagers laughing, you are boorish and immature. And if you are a hippie, you stink, everyone knowing you require a quick bath.
And if you think it isn't so, just ask a passing cop. They'll tell you all about it, they really will!
And if you're grabbed by the collar and pushed into a wall, you can thank that great liberal GOP Bloomberg, the once mayor of NYC reminding everyone who is young and black and proud that it wasn't a good idea six years ago and it still isn't, you being what you are and you damn well better not forget it!
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Say Hello To Richard, Former Graytop Cabbie And Two-Term Island County Sheriff & Traffic To The South, Traffic To The North---Caught In Place, Unable To Move
It's rare for me to have real affinity with a passenger but when I do, quite often it's with someone who has shared the taxi top-light and in some shape or form understands the inherent stress and pressure connected to the mundane madness we know and hate, consuming us to the cabbie bone. One such person recently entered my cab, Dick, many years ago a Seattle GrayTop cabbie; and a few years after that, Langley, Washington Chief of Police, and again a few years later, finding himself the elected two-term Sheriff of Island County, Washington.
Now in his late 80s, he reminisced about his "days in law enforcement," saying little about his Gray Top hours other than it kept him going while in the Police Academy, but being more specific about his Island County Sheriff days, said he oversaw five murder and two rape investigations. Knowing that Whidby Island has a big US Navy Air Base, I asked him whether he had dealt with misbehaving Navy personnel, and yes, he knew about them, about 20 percent of all incidents tied to the base. "We tried them in civilian court and then the Navy took over," saying the Navy did the job of jailing the convicted sailors.
Dick said he did all the "hiring and firing" of his deputies, relating how he had to fire "one very smart guy from Florida," who upon arriving late at the Mukilteo ferry heading to Clinton, made the big mistake of "calling the ferry back," using his authority as an Island County Deputy. He said that it was he who gave John Urquhart, the recently unseated King County Sheriff his first job. "Smart guy, smart guy, a good cop."
In short, Dick is someone who simply believes in evenhanded fairness, never deviating from the moral norm. I told him how I got my first taxi ticket when the Seattle cop, not liking my response of "I didn't run a red light." came back with not one but two violations. Dick just shook his head.
Too Much Traffic!
Last Friday morning I started off with two good school runs, first from the deep North-end in Shoreline to West Seattle; then from there to an elementary school in Renton near the Renton/Boeing Airport. Great runs but I found myself trapped south at seven in the morning, all logical routes north blocked by walls of non-moving traffic. One positive is that it gave me opportunity to check out a joint I've had my eye on---The Redwing Cafe (206-420-1706), a coffee shop and bakery located at 9272 57th Avenue South. I took one bite of their croissant and thought, "Paris!" and damn was it good, the best croissant I've had in " ersatz city" Seattle.
Later, at about 6:30 in the evening, my mission was to take Deb, a regular Yellow customer home from North 185th & Aurora Avenue North down south to my old stomping grounds, Capital Hill but was again thwarted by some of the worst! traffic I have ever experienced on I-5. As the meter ticked, ticked away, I finally got off and fought my way down past the University Hospital and up 23rd East and East Aloha to Volunteer Park, finally reaching her building on Bellevue Avenue East. It was horrible, costing her more than it was worth, as I cut off the meter at $40.00 when normally getting her home is $30-35.00. Being a sport, she gave me fifty but I tell you, this kind of traffic is nuts, and yes, you can quote me!
A Good Guess!
Sunday the three Brazilians could not find anyplace in Seattle to exchange their Canadian money into American. Looking like Sea-tac airport being their solitary option, I told him I'd take a Canadian fifty-dollar bill for the fare, which in Seattle Taxi-land, is a $40.00 flat-rate to the airport. I was guessing, once exchanged, I would be getting about $35.00 American. I told Mary my favorite bank teller my guess, and she was impressed when it came out to be $35.69 but believe me, I am no mathematician, barely able to add and subtract. I just got taxi lucky, with my well-honed cabbie instincts guiding me down the financial avenue.
Now in his late 80s, he reminisced about his "days in law enforcement," saying little about his Gray Top hours other than it kept him going while in the Police Academy, but being more specific about his Island County Sheriff days, said he oversaw five murder and two rape investigations. Knowing that Whidby Island has a big US Navy Air Base, I asked him whether he had dealt with misbehaving Navy personnel, and yes, he knew about them, about 20 percent of all incidents tied to the base. "We tried them in civilian court and then the Navy took over," saying the Navy did the job of jailing the convicted sailors.
Dick said he did all the "hiring and firing" of his deputies, relating how he had to fire "one very smart guy from Florida," who upon arriving late at the Mukilteo ferry heading to Clinton, made the big mistake of "calling the ferry back," using his authority as an Island County Deputy. He said that it was he who gave John Urquhart, the recently unseated King County Sheriff his first job. "Smart guy, smart guy, a good cop."
In short, Dick is someone who simply believes in evenhanded fairness, never deviating from the moral norm. I told him how I got my first taxi ticket when the Seattle cop, not liking my response of "I didn't run a red light." came back with not one but two violations. Dick just shook his head.
Too Much Traffic!
Last Friday morning I started off with two good school runs, first from the deep North-end in Shoreline to West Seattle; then from there to an elementary school in Renton near the Renton/Boeing Airport. Great runs but I found myself trapped south at seven in the morning, all logical routes north blocked by walls of non-moving traffic. One positive is that it gave me opportunity to check out a joint I've had my eye on---The Redwing Cafe (206-420-1706), a coffee shop and bakery located at 9272 57th Avenue South. I took one bite of their croissant and thought, "Paris!" and damn was it good, the best croissant I've had in " ersatz city" Seattle.
Later, at about 6:30 in the evening, my mission was to take Deb, a regular Yellow customer home from North 185th & Aurora Avenue North down south to my old stomping grounds, Capital Hill but was again thwarted by some of the worst! traffic I have ever experienced on I-5. As the meter ticked, ticked away, I finally got off and fought my way down past the University Hospital and up 23rd East and East Aloha to Volunteer Park, finally reaching her building on Bellevue Avenue East. It was horrible, costing her more than it was worth, as I cut off the meter at $40.00 when normally getting her home is $30-35.00. Being a sport, she gave me fifty but I tell you, this kind of traffic is nuts, and yes, you can quote me!
A Good Guess!
Sunday the three Brazilians could not find anyplace in Seattle to exchange their Canadian money into American. Looking like Sea-tac airport being their solitary option, I told him I'd take a Canadian fifty-dollar bill for the fare, which in Seattle Taxi-land, is a $40.00 flat-rate to the airport. I was guessing, once exchanged, I would be getting about $35.00 American. I told Mary my favorite bank teller my guess, and she was impressed when it came out to be $35.69 but believe me, I am no mathematician, barely able to add and subtract. I just got taxi lucky, with my well-honed cabbie instincts guiding me down the financial avenue.
Wednesday, June 6, 2018
A Nation Built Upon Racial And Ethnic Violence And Discrimination: A Short & Quick History of Phyletic Bias In The United States
My first impulse to write this particular posting came out of concern that something I wrote last week could be misinterpreted as slanted against minority or immigrant groups, which it wasn't but anytime, especially in this current anti-immigrant era, anything hinting group accountability could be construed as condoning collective blanket punishment against an entire community, something I would never think of or could support. That I am disgusted with lying by anyone for any purpose goes without question but I find myself especially galled when my potential customer base is deceived by fellow transportation providers for the sole purpose of extracting as much money as they can from the passenger's wallet. Not only do I find these actions nonsensical and repugnant, I understand fully that the immigrant cabbie is endangering their very ability to remain in the USA because cheating a customer is a misdemeanor, which upon conviction, qualifies and targets them for deportation whether a Green Card holder or recent naturalized citizen.
This fact is no joke in these Donald Trump poisoned times, a period where racial hatred emanates daily from the White House. Few know that in 1964 Donald Trump and his father were discovered by the Federal Government to have illegally not rented to potential black tenants in NYC. Only a settlement and substantial fine prevented them from being formally indicted.
That this man is now President says much about America today and what it means to be a person of color living in the United States and obstacles faced. And that this is nothing new shouldn't be surprising which I is why I will be briefly outlining America's sordid racial history and how it relates to the country we reside in today. Knowledge, not ignorance should be our guiding light.
Again, I consider this outline, however comprehensive it is or not, to only be a primer upon the subject, encouraging everyone to delve deeper into a topic essential to every living American, newly arrived or native born. Without knowledge, one is blind, and to not know our countries history is like not knowing your own name, who your parents are and where you were born. Knowledge then is purposeful, taking you to where you need to be, knowledge forever your comfortable home, warm and well lit.
Historical Timeline 1492 to the Present, June 2018
Christopher Columbus arrives in North America on October 12th, 1492, landing on the island now known as Hispaniola in the Caribbean. Amongst other actions, he captured over 25 Indians (he thought he was in Asia) and transported them back to Spain, with only 8 surviving the journey.
Tiguex War 1540-1541---Tiwa Indians from both sides of the Rio Grande River in what is now the State of Mexico and Mexico fight the Spanish army led by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado.
American Indian Wars 1622-1898
Spanning three centuries, both early colonists and the post-1776 Federal Government fought wars of aggression against the North American tribal nations, killing hundreds of thousands, breaking treaties and acquiring Indian lands. The first recorded war occurred in the years 1622-44, Virginia colonists battling the Powhatan Confederacy.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 resulted in the infamous "Trail of Tears" with the 1838 forcible removal of the Cherokee tribe from Georgia to the Oklahoma Territory, a distance of about 800 miles.
The last recorded action, known as the Battle of Leech Lake, was a Chippewa uprising occurring in northern Minnesota.
It was not until 1924, and the passing of the Indian Citizenship Act, that Native Americans were granted American citizenship.
American (United States) Slavery 1641-1863
Beginning in the Massachusetts Colony in 1641, and more or less officially ending upon Abraham Lincoln's Proclamation 95 (the Emancipation Proclamation) on January 1st, 1863, an over 222 period where Africans imported as live chattel were expected to live and die in lifelong forced servitude.
1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision that slaves were indeed the material property of their masters.
Jim Crow Period 1865-1966
President Andrew Johnson (1808-1875) in 1865 opposed the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, providing former slaves American citizenship, thus empowering Southern Segregationists and White Supremacists to resist black integration, creating the "separate but equal" mentality fueling "Jim Crow" which in some forms, remain throughout the USA, especially concerning relationships with police.
The NAACP says that between 1882-1968 there were 4,743 confirmed racially motivated lynchings.
President Woodrow Wilson, president from 1913-1921, who was an avowed segregationist, oversaw separate toilets for whites and black at his Treasury and Interior Departments.
Negro Baseball Leagues 1920-1960. Until the black ballplayer Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15th, 1947, blacks were not allowed into the baseball major leagues.
When President Truman signed Executive Order 9981 on July 26, 1948, a full year after Robinson joined the Dodgers, he fully desegregated the American Armed Forces. During WWII blacks served in separate units, usually led by white officers.
1954, the Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the Supreme Court ruling that the racial segregation of school children was illegal.
Negro Motorist Green Book, 1936-1966, an African-American road travel guide to restaurants and motels/hotels catering to blacks in the South and elsewhere in the USA. If African Americans wanted to eat and sleep without getting arrested, they needed this guide.
In 1964, pushed by President Johnson (LBJ) the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended an over 150 year span of segregation in the USA, while also banning employment discrimination due to race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
Voting Rights Act of 1965, also by President Johnson, was aimed at overcoming and removing legal barriers aimed at preventing blacks from exercising their right to vote. Unfortunately, this battle continues to this day despite the best efforts made by fair minded Americans.
Immigration Acts & Actions
Naturalization Act of 1798 required a 14 year wait to become an American citizen. Currently you must wait 5 years before you can apply but only 3 years if you are married to an American citizen.
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. If you were Chinese, you were not welcome, plain and simple.
Immigration Act of 1882 implemented "head tax" on all non-citizens entering the USA.
1885 Alien Contract Labor Law (the Foran Act). Prohibited the importation and migration of foreigners and aliens under any and all labor contracts.
The 1892 Geary Act extended the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, requiring all Chinese residents in the entire United States to have a resident permit that acted like an internal passport.
!903 Philippines-American War, 200,000 to 1,500,000 to possibly 3 million killed. What were the Filipinos fighting for? Their freedom from the American colonists.
1917 Immigration Act required all migrants over 16 to demonstrate basic reading competency in any language, while also requiring increased taxes to be paid upon arrival. All people of Asian origin were barred except for Filipinos and a very limited number of Japanese.
1917 National Origins Quota limited to two percent of total number of each nationality as of the 1890 census. This means I am very lucky to be here because three of my grandparents were from Hungary and one from Sicily, people less than white.
The 1924 National Origins Formula capped annual emigration to the USA at 150,000.
Immigration Act of 1926 ( the Johnson-Reed Act) essentially excluded most anyone from migrating to the USA unless you were Anglo-Saxon. You might remember Trump's comments about favoring potential migrants from Norway, their skin much whiter than mine.
The 1943 Chinese Exclusion Act of 1943 finally permitted Chinese nationals to become citizens. That sounds great until you know that the Act limited potential Chinese entrants to 105 per year.
In 1954, Joseph Swing, then Director of the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), led something called "Operation Wetback" which deported over 1.3 million people, including hundreds of thousands who proved later to be legal American citizens. Now do you feel safe?
In 2006, the Secure Fence Act was signed into law, mandating 700 miles of double-reinforced fence stretching from California, Arizona, New Mexico to Texas. Obviously putting up a wall is nothing new.
Focus Upon Japan
On July 8th, 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry and ships under his command sailed into Tokyo Bay demanding trade and contact with Japan. When the Japanese didn't respond properly, he once again in 1854 entered Tokyo Bay with many more ships and cannons, and Japan, clearly getting the message, signed something called the Treaty of Kanagawa, opening up ports to American traders and shipping and allowing the establishment of an American consulate.
Upon FDR's issuance of Executive Order 906 on February 19, 1942, all West Coast Japanese-American residents, citizens or not, were ordered to leave their homes and businesses and be interned in concentration camps. That they had done nothing to warrant their arrests didn't matter given American antipathy toward Asians in general and Japanese in particular, somehow being blamed for Japan's attack upon Pearl Harbor. Many years later the survivors received a letter of apology and $20,000 dollars, this after many had lost everything they once owned.
On March 9th, 1945, the US dropped 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs upon the civilian population of Tokyo, killing between 80,000-130,000 people. One American pilot reported that he could smell the cooking of human flesh, stopping him from eating for 3 days.
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima, August 6th, 1945, and Nagasaki, August 9th, resulted in up to 226,000 deaths, including 20 Allied prisoners of war.
German & Irish Migrants in the 1830s & 1840s
It seems if too many of one group decided to come to the United States to be free, trouble soon ensued. The first large wave of Germans were harassed and maltreated and forced to live in squalor. Worse was the Civil War-era draft when poor Germans were seen as prime conscripts for the Union Army. And since most didn't have the $300.00 to buy their out of the draft, the famously rioted in NYC.
Same fate awaited the Irish fleeing the potato famine, resident Americans not liking their Catholicism or their tempers, subjecting the Irish too to discrimination and hatred. Can you imagine hating the Irish now just for being Irish? Hey, pour me a Guinness!
Eugenics---Darwin's Theory of Evolution Gone Amok!
Misinterpret Darwin's classic voyage upon the Beagle, then adding tainted elements of racism and class superiority and you come up with that bastard science, eugenics, once supported by the likes of President Teddy Roosevelt, H. G. Wells, Margret Sanger, Winston Churchill and Charles Lindbergh. The advocacy of such theory was popularized by a Darwin cousin, Sir Francis Galton who claimed that a "new social engineering" was a societal cure all, eliminating all those considered low functioning and feeble.
And it was the American Henry Goddard, whose 1914 book "Feeble mindedness---Its Causes and Consequences," later published the same year in German, that came the basis for some of Nazi Germany's most atrocious crimes, which of course clarified for the world what eugenics truly is---a bogus science used by fools for their own end.
In 1907, the State of Indiana passed the world's first mandatory sterilization law, mandating the "compulsory sterilization of degenerates."
In 1927, the Supreme Court, in Buck versus Bell, upheld the state of Virginia's right to sterilize young women considered "unfit to continue their kind."
In 1939 the transatlantic ocean Saint Louis held over 900 Jewish refugees escaping Nazi violence. Famously refused entry into the USA, they sailed back to Europe. Over 284 of those passengers seeking freedom in America were killed by the Nazis.
After what happened during WWII, eugenics, for the most part has lost its cultural appeal and the bulk of its supporters.
Current
Puerto Rico Hurricane Maria death toll: official 64 while the actual is closer to 5000.
Over 500 civilians killed by American bombs in 2017 in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin police swarm black NBA basketball for parking in handicapped zone, knocking him to the street and stepping on him.
Summation
If you listen closely, you hear the echoes of what I have referenced from the pass nearly four hundred years in the words of Donald Trump and his supporters. That is why it would be wise to heed warnings taken from the near and distant past and make sure you don't involve yourself in petty actions that could jeopardize the well-being of both you and your family. Play it straight because the history of this country says that it won't hesitate to kick you in the buttock all the way back to where you originally came from. Taking a quote from Bob Dylan, "the cops don't need you and man! they expect the same." Beware!
Postscript June 11, 2018
A few days ago, the American Historian Ira Berlin (1941-2018) died, a writer known for his thorough research concerning American Slavery. Two books of his are especially recommended:
"Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South" Published 1974
"Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America" Published 1998
As I said, knowing our human history is essential, especially if you are interested in not repeating past mistakes. Know the world's history and you will know life as it is. Not knowing history, like Donald Trump thinking it was Canadian troops who burned down the White House during the War of 1812, when it was not until 1867 that Canada gained independence, is to be culturally and historically illiterate, something no one should want to be.
This fact is no joke in these Donald Trump poisoned times, a period where racial hatred emanates daily from the White House. Few know that in 1964 Donald Trump and his father were discovered by the Federal Government to have illegally not rented to potential black tenants in NYC. Only a settlement and substantial fine prevented them from being formally indicted.
That this man is now President says much about America today and what it means to be a person of color living in the United States and obstacles faced. And that this is nothing new shouldn't be surprising which I is why I will be briefly outlining America's sordid racial history and how it relates to the country we reside in today. Knowledge, not ignorance should be our guiding light.
Again, I consider this outline, however comprehensive it is or not, to only be a primer upon the subject, encouraging everyone to delve deeper into a topic essential to every living American, newly arrived or native born. Without knowledge, one is blind, and to not know our countries history is like not knowing your own name, who your parents are and where you were born. Knowledge then is purposeful, taking you to where you need to be, knowledge forever your comfortable home, warm and well lit.
Historical Timeline 1492 to the Present, June 2018
Christopher Columbus arrives in North America on October 12th, 1492, landing on the island now known as Hispaniola in the Caribbean. Amongst other actions, he captured over 25 Indians (he thought he was in Asia) and transported them back to Spain, with only 8 surviving the journey.
Tiguex War 1540-1541---Tiwa Indians from both sides of the Rio Grande River in what is now the State of Mexico and Mexico fight the Spanish army led by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado.
American Indian Wars 1622-1898
Spanning three centuries, both early colonists and the post-1776 Federal Government fought wars of aggression against the North American tribal nations, killing hundreds of thousands, breaking treaties and acquiring Indian lands. The first recorded war occurred in the years 1622-44, Virginia colonists battling the Powhatan Confederacy.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 resulted in the infamous "Trail of Tears" with the 1838 forcible removal of the Cherokee tribe from Georgia to the Oklahoma Territory, a distance of about 800 miles.
The last recorded action, known as the Battle of Leech Lake, was a Chippewa uprising occurring in northern Minnesota.
It was not until 1924, and the passing of the Indian Citizenship Act, that Native Americans were granted American citizenship.
American (United States) Slavery 1641-1863
Beginning in the Massachusetts Colony in 1641, and more or less officially ending upon Abraham Lincoln's Proclamation 95 (the Emancipation Proclamation) on January 1st, 1863, an over 222 period where Africans imported as live chattel were expected to live and die in lifelong forced servitude.
1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision that slaves were indeed the material property of their masters.
Jim Crow Period 1865-1966
President Andrew Johnson (1808-1875) in 1865 opposed the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, providing former slaves American citizenship, thus empowering Southern Segregationists and White Supremacists to resist black integration, creating the "separate but equal" mentality fueling "Jim Crow" which in some forms, remain throughout the USA, especially concerning relationships with police.
The NAACP says that between 1882-1968 there were 4,743 confirmed racially motivated lynchings.
President Woodrow Wilson, president from 1913-1921, who was an avowed segregationist, oversaw separate toilets for whites and black at his Treasury and Interior Departments.
Negro Baseball Leagues 1920-1960. Until the black ballplayer Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15th, 1947, blacks were not allowed into the baseball major leagues.
When President Truman signed Executive Order 9981 on July 26, 1948, a full year after Robinson joined the Dodgers, he fully desegregated the American Armed Forces. During WWII blacks served in separate units, usually led by white officers.
1954, the Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the Supreme Court ruling that the racial segregation of school children was illegal.
Negro Motorist Green Book, 1936-1966, an African-American road travel guide to restaurants and motels/hotels catering to blacks in the South and elsewhere in the USA. If African Americans wanted to eat and sleep without getting arrested, they needed this guide.
In 1964, pushed by President Johnson (LBJ) the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended an over 150 year span of segregation in the USA, while also banning employment discrimination due to race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
Voting Rights Act of 1965, also by President Johnson, was aimed at overcoming and removing legal barriers aimed at preventing blacks from exercising their right to vote. Unfortunately, this battle continues to this day despite the best efforts made by fair minded Americans.
Immigration Acts & Actions
Naturalization Act of 1798 required a 14 year wait to become an American citizen. Currently you must wait 5 years before you can apply but only 3 years if you are married to an American citizen.
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. If you were Chinese, you were not welcome, plain and simple.
Immigration Act of 1882 implemented "head tax" on all non-citizens entering the USA.
1885 Alien Contract Labor Law (the Foran Act). Prohibited the importation and migration of foreigners and aliens under any and all labor contracts.
The 1892 Geary Act extended the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, requiring all Chinese residents in the entire United States to have a resident permit that acted like an internal passport.
!903 Philippines-American War, 200,000 to 1,500,000 to possibly 3 million killed. What were the Filipinos fighting for? Their freedom from the American colonists.
1917 Immigration Act required all migrants over 16 to demonstrate basic reading competency in any language, while also requiring increased taxes to be paid upon arrival. All people of Asian origin were barred except for Filipinos and a very limited number of Japanese.
1917 National Origins Quota limited to two percent of total number of each nationality as of the 1890 census. This means I am very lucky to be here because three of my grandparents were from Hungary and one from Sicily, people less than white.
The 1924 National Origins Formula capped annual emigration to the USA at 150,000.
Immigration Act of 1926 ( the Johnson-Reed Act) essentially excluded most anyone from migrating to the USA unless you were Anglo-Saxon. You might remember Trump's comments about favoring potential migrants from Norway, their skin much whiter than mine.
The 1943 Chinese Exclusion Act of 1943 finally permitted Chinese nationals to become citizens. That sounds great until you know that the Act limited potential Chinese entrants to 105 per year.
In 1954, Joseph Swing, then Director of the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), led something called "Operation Wetback" which deported over 1.3 million people, including hundreds of thousands who proved later to be legal American citizens. Now do you feel safe?
In 2006, the Secure Fence Act was signed into law, mandating 700 miles of double-reinforced fence stretching from California, Arizona, New Mexico to Texas. Obviously putting up a wall is nothing new.
Focus Upon Japan
On July 8th, 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry and ships under his command sailed into Tokyo Bay demanding trade and contact with Japan. When the Japanese didn't respond properly, he once again in 1854 entered Tokyo Bay with many more ships and cannons, and Japan, clearly getting the message, signed something called the Treaty of Kanagawa, opening up ports to American traders and shipping and allowing the establishment of an American consulate.
Upon FDR's issuance of Executive Order 906 on February 19, 1942, all West Coast Japanese-American residents, citizens or not, were ordered to leave their homes and businesses and be interned in concentration camps. That they had done nothing to warrant their arrests didn't matter given American antipathy toward Asians in general and Japanese in particular, somehow being blamed for Japan's attack upon Pearl Harbor. Many years later the survivors received a letter of apology and $20,000 dollars, this after many had lost everything they once owned.
On March 9th, 1945, the US dropped 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs upon the civilian population of Tokyo, killing between 80,000-130,000 people. One American pilot reported that he could smell the cooking of human flesh, stopping him from eating for 3 days.
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima, August 6th, 1945, and Nagasaki, August 9th, resulted in up to 226,000 deaths, including 20 Allied prisoners of war.
German & Irish Migrants in the 1830s & 1840s
It seems if too many of one group decided to come to the United States to be free, trouble soon ensued. The first large wave of Germans were harassed and maltreated and forced to live in squalor. Worse was the Civil War-era draft when poor Germans were seen as prime conscripts for the Union Army. And since most didn't have the $300.00 to buy their out of the draft, the famously rioted in NYC.
Same fate awaited the Irish fleeing the potato famine, resident Americans not liking their Catholicism or their tempers, subjecting the Irish too to discrimination and hatred. Can you imagine hating the Irish now just for being Irish? Hey, pour me a Guinness!
Eugenics---Darwin's Theory of Evolution Gone Amok!
Misinterpret Darwin's classic voyage upon the Beagle, then adding tainted elements of racism and class superiority and you come up with that bastard science, eugenics, once supported by the likes of President Teddy Roosevelt, H. G. Wells, Margret Sanger, Winston Churchill and Charles Lindbergh. The advocacy of such theory was popularized by a Darwin cousin, Sir Francis Galton who claimed that a "new social engineering" was a societal cure all, eliminating all those considered low functioning and feeble.
And it was the American Henry Goddard, whose 1914 book "Feeble mindedness---Its Causes and Consequences," later published the same year in German, that came the basis for some of Nazi Germany's most atrocious crimes, which of course clarified for the world what eugenics truly is---a bogus science used by fools for their own end.
In 1907, the State of Indiana passed the world's first mandatory sterilization law, mandating the "compulsory sterilization of degenerates."
In 1927, the Supreme Court, in Buck versus Bell, upheld the state of Virginia's right to sterilize young women considered "unfit to continue their kind."
In 1939 the transatlantic ocean Saint Louis held over 900 Jewish refugees escaping Nazi violence. Famously refused entry into the USA, they sailed back to Europe. Over 284 of those passengers seeking freedom in America were killed by the Nazis.
After what happened during WWII, eugenics, for the most part has lost its cultural appeal and the bulk of its supporters.
Current
Puerto Rico Hurricane Maria death toll: official 64 while the actual is closer to 5000.
Over 500 civilians killed by American bombs in 2017 in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin police swarm black NBA basketball for parking in handicapped zone, knocking him to the street and stepping on him.
Summation
If you listen closely, you hear the echoes of what I have referenced from the pass nearly four hundred years in the words of Donald Trump and his supporters. That is why it would be wise to heed warnings taken from the near and distant past and make sure you don't involve yourself in petty actions that could jeopardize the well-being of both you and your family. Play it straight because the history of this country says that it won't hesitate to kick you in the buttock all the way back to where you originally came from. Taking a quote from Bob Dylan, "the cops don't need you and man! they expect the same." Beware!
Postscript June 11, 2018
A few days ago, the American Historian Ira Berlin (1941-2018) died, a writer known for his thorough research concerning American Slavery. Two books of his are especially recommended:
"Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South" Published 1974
"Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America" Published 1998
As I said, knowing our human history is essential, especially if you are interested in not repeating past mistakes. Know the world's history and you will know life as it is. Not knowing history, like Donald Trump thinking it was Canadian troops who burned down the White House during the War of 1812, when it was not until 1867 that Canada gained independence, is to be culturally and historically illiterate, something no one should want to be.
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