June 9, 2017--Freedom Summer

It's graduation season but though it's 2017 some of the official celebrations feel a bit like back to the future.

For example, at Harvard, Harvard, African American graduate students had their first separate ceremony with their own speaker.

Reading about this took me back to the past--my early years as an English instructor at Queens College, a selective unit of the City University University of New York. Thus, because of rampant inequalities and lingering segregation in New York's K-12 system, when I arrived in the early 60s, the student body was overwhelmingly white.

Two years later, I became deputy director of the SEEK Program, which was a pre-open admissions effort to foster the enrollment of minority students. It worked quite well. After a few years we had 500 or so mainly Black and Hispanic students and almost all of them excelled academically when, if needed, after some remedial work, we mainstreamed them into the "regular" course work and programs of the college.

Was everyone happy about this? Far from it. Some on the faculty were upset about what they perceived to be pressure to lower standards. In fact, in too many cases, mean-spirited faculty raised their expectations to help assure that SEEK students would fail. To contribute to a racially-motivated self-fulfilling prophesy. But, for the most part, rising to the occasion, many SEEK students did not feel at home on campus, sensing that they were not fully welcomed there or in the surrounding all-white neighborhood.

So, in the student cafeteria minority students arranged to sit at self-segregated tables. There were Black tables and Hispanic tables. I hated it, but understood.

In addition to understanding, there was an irony--Queens College was where civil rights worker Andrew Goodman was enrolled. With companions James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, a few years earlier, during the 1964 Freedom Summer, near Philadelphia, Mississippi, he and they were brutally murdered and buried in a shallow ditch.

During one English Department faculty meeting a memorial service for Andrew Goodman was underway right outside the building where we were gathered. They were remembering him while we argued about the way in which a new Medieval Literature course was to be described in the college catalog.

So, again, I understood the reasons for those separate tables.

But a separate graduation at Harvard? In 2017? Though I understand this as well it is not quite for the same reasons.

SEEK students at Queens College were not made to feel comfortable. Often quite the opposite. There was widespread resistance to their admission and attendance. Any number of faculty confronted me about how thanks to us the academic currency of the college was being debased. There were all-college faculty meetings at which some professors did not feel reluctant to speak out against the change in complexion of the Queens student body.

That was one reason there was a SEEK Program.

But at Harvard and other elite colleges where various forms of self-separation are being reintroduced, in a campus climate that includes an infusion of Black Lives Matter's agenda, minority students are saying, as one did recently to a New York Times reporter, "We have endured the constant questioning of our legitimacy and our capacity, and yet we are here."

Here and yet not fully here. And not during their separate graduation ceremony.

Also not at Emory and Henry College where this spring they held their first "Inclusion and Diversity Year-End Ceremony." The University of Delaware held a "lavender" separate graduation for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students; and at my old college, Columbia, where they held a "First-Generation Graduation" for students who were the first in their families to graduate from college.

I wonder if I would have been happy to attend. I suspect not. I was trying to "pass."

Passing no longer needs to be on too many agenda--and that's a good thing. But isn't that the point?

That with colleges and universities for at least four decades getting comfortable, seeing it advantageous to have a diverse student body, what we used to call campus "climate" has changed and there should thus be less not more need for separate tables much less graduations.

Harvard Black-Student Graduation Ceremony

August 24, 2016--Midcoast: Peggy Pays A Visit (Concluded)

"Back in New York no one would eat anything recommended by Paula Deen who's an out-and-out . .  ."

"That's not the way things work up here," Dan said, remaining calm. Peggy fussed with the knot in her Hermes.

"So just how do things work up here, Danny?" I wasn't sure if Peggy was being condescending.

"Well, how do they work down there in New York?" Dan said firmly but without attitude.

"Among other things we pride ourselves in being tolerant. No restaurant person I know would have anything to do with the likes of Paula Deen."

"Well, we're pretty tolerant up here too. Maybe even willing to give someone like Paula Dean the benefit of the doubt. She was mortified by what she said and apologized profusely. No one you know in the Big Apple ever make a fool of themselves?"

Peggy didn't have a ready answer to that but pressed on, "I look around this diner and what do I see?"

"You tell me," Dan said.

"Well, Danny, everyone looks like you." She paused to let that take its full effect.

"I hope not," he said, "That would be a sight for sore eyes."

"I mean," she leaned closer and this time in a sub sotto voce whisper said, "Not a person of color. Not even one working in the kitchen washing dishes."

"I'll let that stereotype about who might be washing dishes pass. But, yes, Maine has very few minorities, if that what you mean. 'Round here in the Midcoast even fewer. So by that definition of yours it's true were not diverse. But," he added, "that's not the only way to think about it."

"Well, how do you folks define it up here? The rest of the country . . ."

"Let me cut you off right there," Dan said, "'Cause there's no 'rest of the country.'" He made air quotes.

"You're losing me," Peggy said. "On CNN, on MSNBC, in the New York Times, even on Fox News which I assume you watch, that's how they talk about diversity."

"Your rest of the country is not all the same. There are lots of local differences. I remember talking with Rona and Steve back in May about the election and how we agreed that we have to be careful making assumptions from our limited individual perspectives. I quoted someone I heard on CNN, which I watch, who said that he asked at a dinner party in Manhattan how many people had been to Paris and how everyone raised their hands. Then he asked how many had visited Staten Island. He reported that only a handful had. It's just a ferry ride away and pretty much no one had ever been there."

"Well, I have," Peggy said, "And couldn't wait to get back to civilization. But return to your claim that Maine, in spite of who I'm seeing here, is diverse."

"I'll say even more so than your downtown New York."

"I'm all ears," Peggy said, cupping her ears.

"What you're seeing and being blinded by, if I may say so, is skin color. Not that I'm minimizing the importance of that but it's only part of the picture. Even liberals would agree that not all Hispanics or black people are the same. You also have to look at how much education people have, the kind of work they do, what they read. But Im not just talking about that though that's an important way to see the diversity here. We may look the same in part because we all dress more or less alike--basic clothes, informal, and all that--but you'll see what I mean when I tell you about who's in the room."

Peggy swung around in the booth to see who Dan was talking about.

"At the counter from the left is an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in feet and next to him . . ."

"Is he the one who now smokes salmon?"

Dan smiled but continued, "Next to him is a retired science teacher who taught at the Lincoln Academy for 30 years, then there's Jimmy who makes a living these days as a clam digger. That's John who is a former accountant in New York City who runs a very successful steel fabricating business who has clients around the world, especially in Europe and the Middle East. Under that overhang next to the air conditioner is a minster who runs the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life at Bowdoin College in Brunswick. His wife, right next to him, is a major fundraiser for a variety of social service agencies. At the next booth is Al, a former contractor who is now a graphic designer and book publisher. You may have seen one of his own book of photographs at the bookstore in town."

While Dan paused to catch his breath, Peggy said, "And what about you? What don't I know about you?"

"By comparison I'm boring. I was a lineman for the local phone company for 35 years. Now I build wood boats. But are you getting what I'm trying to say? I could go on with who's here right now but don't you already see how diverse we are? Beyond appearances?"

"I am seeing that," Peggy said.

"And here's the big point--"

"What's that?"

"How we're all here having breakfast together. This is a place where people from all sorts of backgrounds are comfortable with each other. Know each other in many cases all our lives. Those with a lot of education and impressive careers and others who are just getting by working two, three part-time jobs."

"I must admit where I go for coffee in the morning there isn't much of this kind of diversity."

I jumped in, "When we're in the city we go to the same place for breakfast and though we love it there, pretty much everyone agrees with everyone about politics--everyone's for Hillary--to movies to restaurants."

"That's my final point," Dan said, "How right now in this room there are people with very different perspectives--of course about politics, but also about religious beliefs (or non-beliefs), what constitutes friendship and love, childrearing, favorite books, the importance of money. You'd be surprised what we talk about. And, disagree about. We know how to do that. We have to be good at that because we need each other, have to live more or less comfortably together."

"I must admit . . ."

"Don't let me mislead you. This isn't paradise here. There's also a lot of nasty stuff. A lot of family abuse, too much drug usage, some people cheat the system and lie to get public assistance. Fortunately, we don't see too many of them at Deb's. But they're here too. Some just up the road. But we try to be civil with them too." He shrugged. "They're our people and we have to want the best for them. And, if we can, be helpful. There's a lot of that. People helping out."

"Well Danny," Peggy said, "You've given me a lot to think about. And as to these two," she didn't turn to us, "back in the city I'll tell Meg not to worry about them." She let out one of her patented laughs.

"But one more thing," she said, "You mentioned politics. Don't tell me you're voting for Trump?"

"I'm very conservative, as you probably heard. That's true, and under other circumstances I would be open to that, but thanks in part to many conversations over coffee with them," he winked at Rona and me, "like you, I have a lot to think about."

Deb

January 23, 2014--Snowbirding: In the Ghetto (Concluded)

Back at the Foodtown checkout counter, I made sure we had the package of nans, thinking that heated up they'd go perfectly with the Jamaican-style pork chops.

"Those look interest to me," the woman behind us on line said. "They are please?"

"Nans," I said. "They're Indian. They're made in a tandoori oven."

"What kind oven that?" I couldn't place her accent.

"A clay one. They use them in India."

"Indians?"

"Yes, the ones in Asia. From India. Not American Indians. Though these nans do remind me of Navaho tacos."

"Now I am all confuse."

"Sorry. I'm so excited by this market and by the nicest thing another shopper, Anna, did for us that I'm not making myself understood. She told us all about this wonderful Jamaican pork chop recipe. We bought . . ."

"I no eat pork myself," she said, making a face. "Beef is good and chickens and fishes. Any kind of fishes."

"We like everything. And this store sure has that. Everything." I was still feeling euphoric about our experience with Anna.

"I think I maybe get some of those brets," she said, placing a package of nans in her basket.

"You'll like them," I said confidently.

"Toast maybe?"

"I think so. They should be delicious toasted. With a little butter or dipping oil."

"That kind of oil, dipping, I do not know."

"It's just a little olive oil in a dish that you . . ."

Then, as if no longer thinking about the nans, she moved closer to me and whispered, "Can I say something?"

"Sure. Anything," I said softly, fully facing her.

"Not many of your kind come here."

With those words I was instantly on guard, not happy to hear about my kind.

Sensing that, touching my arm, she said, "No offended. I mean to say people from your backgrounds." I felt reassured.

"See everyone here?" I looked around. "I do not see any who look like you and your niece."

"Rona. She's my wife."

"No offended again. You look like love people." Warmly, she smiled up at me. She was tiny. Well under five feet. "I mean they live with all those gates."

I was confused. "Gates?"

"Houses with gates."

"Oh, you mean gated communities."

"Those kind. Why they live there and never come out here?"

"You know, I sometimes wonder that myself. One of the things we like so much about spending time here is all the diversity." Puzzled she looked up at me again. "All the different kinds of people." She nodded enthusiastically. "From all over the world. From places where all these foods and spices and teas come from."

"And these gate-people. They do not like it here?"

"They like Florida, but maybe not this place."

"Why not? This is America, no?"

"Good question. Though I'm not sure you'd like my answer." I half turned away from her.

"I might surprise. I do not bite." She was grinning.

"I think they're afraid."

"Of what?"

"That's another good question."

"Of what afraid?" she repeated.

"Of you," I whispered so as not to be overheard.

"Me? I tiny and am only 90."

"Ninety?"

"Pounds. And they afraid of me?" She was genuinely perplexed.

"That's what I think. They are afraid of anything different. Anyone not like them."

"So they put themselves behind gates?"

"Yes. As I see things, unfortunately yes."

"You had that person running for president last year."

"Barack Obama?"

"The other one. Mitts.

"Mitt Romney."

"He said we should go back to where we came from."

"Yes he did. He called it self-deportation."

"Is that what I am remembering?"

"Yes."

"So here they are putting themselves again to where they came from. Behind their gates. You said because they are feared."

"Like self-deportation," I said sighing, "In their case they choose to go back to the ghetto. And I don't mean just my kind. People from other backgrounds too."

"I don't know what that means, ghetto," she looked confused, more sad than frustrated, "But if you say so."

I shrugged, smiling uncomfortably as if apologizing. "It also makes me sad," I said, "And sometimes angry. But . . ."

Rona was waiting for me with a bag full of tropical vegetables, spices, and those wonderful looking pork chops. She signaled it was almost time to go.

The woman said, imitating my shrug, "Maybe there will soon be change."

"I hope so," I said as we paid and turned to leave, "I hope so."

When we were outside, I looked back through the window and saw her still smiling and waving the package of nans.

"What a place," Rona said. "All the world is here."

January 21, 2104--Foodtown

Foodtown in West Palm Beach is not to be confused with all the Foodtown supermarkets in the northeast. The latter are traditional supermarkets selling everything from paper towels to Campbell soups; the former, in South Florida, is anything but.

Unless you are Jamaican, Haitian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Pakistani, Mexican, Honduran, Peruvian, Taiwanese, Sri Lankan, or Brazilian, this is not necessarily the place for you. That is unless you want a fascinating shopping experience or are looking for a special type and brand of Ceylonese tea.

In regard to tea, if you want to gain a picture of the New America, by far the most diverse country in the history of the world, spend a half hour, as we did on Sunday, in the 30-yard-long tea aisle in Foodtown West Palm where literally hundreds of different kinds of tea and many dozens of brands are on display.

Rona was searching for Ahmed English Afternoon tea. And found it at Foodtown after striking out in half-a-dozen other ethnic food markets.

But if you were searching for that special Ceylonese tea, you had these among other choices--

Black Vanilla
Earl Grey
English Breakfast
Green Jazzy Mint
Green Raspberry
Passion Fruit
Mango
Super Pekoe Black Tea
Oolong
Vanilla Roobius
Pomegranate White
Ginger Peach Roobius
Lemon Spice
Cranberry
Royal Elixer
Pu Erh
Chai Teas
Herbal
Ceylon Sonata
Darjeerling
Saint James
Nilgiri
Dimbula
Kenilworth
Uva
Nuwara Eliya
And, of course, Ceylon Blend

Then, from India, there was . . .

While wandering among a literal world of foods, including pork brains, I wondered what might be available from Sri Lanka.

Rona reminded me that Sri Lanka is the former Ceylon; but that, when if comes to food, Ceylon, not Sri Lanka, is still on the map.