1974 - Discrimination

Often we react to a statement or a gesture that is simply misinterpreted. Our own experiences tend to make each of us sensitive to different insults and slights. Sometimes the insult is intentional... sometimes... not.

1974 – Discrimination

Mary was beautiful. She was easily one of the most physically beautiful women with whom I have been involved. Mary was thin in the right places and not thin in the other right places. She was tall… or, at least, tall to me. At 5’7” she was 2-inches taller than me and, although it was the era of platforms on men (high shoes – high in heel & toe), it was also an era of platforms on women so, although hers weren’t usually as high as mine, when we were out together she was still slightly taller and far more stately than me. She had an imperious attitude that I found endearing because it meant that she wasn’t about to take any crap from anyone. I have often seen this as strength in some women and, although it can be taken too far, she rarely did. She had a good grasp of righteous indignation and used it to reach the ends she desired… particularly at work, where we met.

She was dark… no… dark is too subtitle… her skin was the color of a ripe olive without a single blemish that gave it a sheen that fairly glowed in the light of the practice room… with it’s black light on the wall coupled with 2 red light bulbs in the overhead. Skin so smooth & blemish-free that stroking her bare arm or bare back was reminiscent of smooth silk. She wore an Afro that was 18” around and which I discovered was a wig at an unfortunate moment (enough about that.) She was a lovely, proud Afro-American with a child, a home and a family that consisted of parents, a brother and an ex. An absolutely fascinating woman with opinions similar in many ways to my own and yet, sometimes, very different if not in conclusion then different in the experiences with which her life path had delivered those opinions. She was definitely a child of the “Black-Experience.” In the year we knew each other, 1973, race and racial problems were a part of daily news and we found many chances to discuss these issues in great detail.

Socially we were actually quite different. During this era the separation was illustrated by the gap between different styles of music. The difference was obvious to me particularly; as a musician I was intimately involved in my own kind of music. When I spent time with Mary we listened to The Chi-Li’s, Temptations, Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield, among others. When I was with buddies or practicing with the band it was all Styx, Uriah Heep, Zeppelin and Jethro Tull, among other heavy-metal groups or Crosby, Stills & Nash, Manassas or Simon & Garfunkle for our harmony-fix. When we partied it was heavy metal all the way. At the two parties I attended with Mary and her friends it was mellow, harmonic and gentle soul music. A vast difference in the party mood but the bonding among friends was identical. Taking a friend to the first party I attended with Mary and her circle of close friends I found my friend to be paranoid and unable to relax… we left early. He didn’t accompany me to the next party and I had a great time although there was initial discomfort finding myself completely surrounded by a culture that was foreign to my experiences. After the first drink and joint as well as a little conversation I relaxed completely and had a great time making several new friends who, truthfully, I never saw again… but I had a great time. This wasn’t the experience of Mary’s brother when he attended one of our parties.

Mary and her brother were invited to our party and like me he arrived with a friend. He & his friend, Charles, were definitely uncomfortable with the number of white people who were all loud and raucous. In a few minutes I found them sitting on the couch, as close to the wall and as far into the corner they could get. I sat and tried to talk to them for a while but they were unresponsive and obviously quite uncomfortable. An hour into the party someone, in passing, said, “Oh, boy. What a party!” Unfortunately Mary’s brother, in the loudness of the party, misunderstood what was said and accused Ron of calling him “Boy.” Ron became insulted and, not being one of my more accepting friends, began a short shouting match which was a result of both the misunderstanding and the extremely loud music. Within 2 minutes Mary, her brother and his friend left despite my protests. When I called her later she didn’t answer.

Monday, at work, I saw Mary and explained the misunderstanding. She, although initially insulted for her brother, soon understood and forgave my friends and me for what was not said. She explained how uncomfortable they had been anyway as the music and mood of the party was so different from the parties they were more used to. To those used to much mellower music, our brand of party sounds were, to her, violent and assaulting to her senses. Mary admitted she, and sometimes her brother, were told they were being too sensitive but she explained why that was such a likely scenario. She explained that when she was a little girl she became very close to her great-grandmother. Great-grandma was very old and, indeed, old enough that HER grandmother & grandfather had been slaves in the south. It hit very close to home when great-grandma explained how her grandmother spent most of her life without her husband who, soon after she became pregnant, was, quite literally, sold down the river to a different owner. She never saw her husband again, never fell out-of-love and never stopped missing him. Her pain was so apparent and Mary was so close to her grandmother that she felt she could feel the pain of separation clearly and still held some resentment over the history she knew so intimately both factually and emotionally. She admitted that she sometimes over-reacted but also said it would be difficult for anyone else that had not had this experience to understand the loss, the pain and the resentment that carried through the generations. The seriousness of this story was plain on her face and I never questioned again why she seemed sensitive. She was right… I could never understand how this was an important part of her psyche. Being a longhair and putting up with “Is that there a boy or a girl?” for the last year, I could barely understand the discrimination she lived with every day. Even that bit of understanding was, comparatively, very minor. Although I understood why she would be sensitive to racial slights I continued to wonder why she so quickly assumed that people with whom she’d had no interaction were being racist when only making innocent comments that definitely were not intended to be racial. I really had no problem with her being sensitive when insulted but it bothered me why she would simply assume that any innocent comment had racial overtones… after all I didn’t jump to this kind of conclusion with no reason…did I? No!

Or so I thought…

A year later I was living in San Diego. A few months after my move my car broke down in Mission Valley. It was operating so badly I was compelled to leave it parked by the side of the road. It took a couple of days to get paid so the next Saturday it still sat where it had been left. Eventually I had been paid and now had a bag of new wheel bearings and bearing grease. I had finagled a ride from a friend to within a block of my car. As I walked down the block I could see my car a block-up parked in front of a new car dealer, which as usual, included a wide driveway at the entrance to the lot. As I reached the point where this driveway cut into the curb I stopped and looked both ways, alert for any vehicle that may be approaching. Seeing no one in sight I proceeded across the drive. When I was about halfway across a big Cadillac sped around the corner and came to a skidding stop in front of the driveway. He laid on his horn and started cursing at me out of his open window calling my forbearers and me all kinds of obscene names and making comments about my rudeness at crossing when he would want to enter. I hurried across just marking the insults up to the typical abuse received by any longhair… then I paused in my thoughts… “Wait a minute! I had just gotten a haircut the previous day! I look normal!” I had shorn my locks as looking for a new job as long hair was not yet generally accepted on males… and I wanted a new job.

It was a shock when then that I came to a new realization. My misperception was clear, as was the actual reason for his rudeness: “Sometimes what appears to be discrimination simply isn’t.”

Sometimes the broadcaster of foul language and insults upon my being was not the act of a racist or sexist or an anti-longhair. Sometimes it is simply the behavior of what is generally known as an asshole. He wasn’t racist. He wasn’t sexist. He didn’t even care about the length of my hair, the color of my skin or my sex. He was simply an asshole!

Anyone who is barely conscience will notice the world is full of ‘em, most of them stink and nothing can be done to change their essential personality. In order not to lose myself in anger over the occasional asshole, which would affect me negatively and the asshole not at all, that day I had to come to the conclusion that most times when faced with undeserved criticism or verbal abuse my best course of action was to realize this was just another asshole and there was nothing I could do to change that. My best course of action was to…

…get over it.