Hope

I normally don't like to write about political views in my blog. I really don't want to alienate anyone, since my writing is more important than what party I'm in.

I'm hopeful because of our new president and his ideas and demeanor, but I'm really hopeful since I never thought I would live long enough to see an African American as president. Let me explain.

I don't remeber very many things about my youth. I suppose some of this lack of memory is protective, and some is of course attributable to my age. But I do remember one event with my mother (Boys and their mothers - so important) that to this day remains remarkably clear in my addled mind.

I grew up in a small borough of southeast Pennnsylvania, very close to Philadelphia. All my mother's 5 brothers and sisters and her mother and father lived within walking distance of one another. My grandmother and grandfather live on the street where both her immediate neighbors were African American, and my grandparents were very friendly with them. My first crush was on the daughter of the family whose duplex was attached to my grandparents. I was probably 4 and she was in her teens. Didn't work out, but I think of her occasionally. But that's not my story, only a little background.


I knew plent of families where I grew up that would use degratory lanmguage when it came to African Americans, but I never heard them from my family as I was growing up.

When I was around 5 or 6 I was playfriends with an African American who live next store to my Aunt on the same street where we lived. We did the usual things boys our age did and had fun.
After I had been playing with the young boy for a few weeks, I came home one dayand found my mother waiting for me. I gave her a hug and she sat me down obviously distressed at what she was going to say to me.

She said something like did you have a good time playing with Johnny (not his real name). I told her yes (probably "yeah"). She said "Aren't there any white boys you can play with?". I didn't understand what she was trying to say and my face said it.

"Anthony, I know Johnny is a nice boy, but people will talk about you for playing with a colored boy, and I don't want you to feel hurt". She wasn't upset that I was playing with Johnny, she didn't want people to pick on me because of it. I don't remember saying anymore to her.

But I kept on playing (and my mother never mentioned it again) with Johnny until I went to Catholic School and he went to Public (another example of religion separating us). I got new friends - he got new friends. He shortly moved away.


When I was in the Navy I had an African American friend who showed me everything i needed to know about pumps, motors, generators etc. to propel me on a career in the power industry.


While I was aboard that ship, I heard recordings of Malcom x that were startling in their ferocity. That spoke to the trials and tribulations of African Americans in this country.



I lived through the 60's and 70's where these struggles were amplified. I saw the freedom buses, assassinations of Kennedys and King. I saw desegredation and KKK marches.

I saw the slow progression of equal rights and I thought - maybe in another 100 years. I'm sure it was my pessismism and my experiences, but I truly believed it would be excrutiatingly slow.

And then this man, Obama, husband and father first and then this seemingly smart honest man convince the American people that he was the best person for the job. Not best black person or biracial person, but the best person. And most of us believed him. Do I believe that people vote for him and against him because he was black - sure, but many more white people voted for him that would not have voted for him 20 years ago because he was black.

It why I am hopeful for the first time since JFK and Martin Luther King Jr. It's why I'm going to try and forget the previous 8 years. It's why I think now and again about that little African American boy I used to play with - and what he is doing and what he is thinking now.