There Is Hope

There is hope. A few days ago I wrote this on Facebook: Many of my former students are speaking out about what they see as the racial and economic disparities in our country. They are speaking their truths about that and other issues dear to them. They are taking stands and actions to promote those causes, whatever they may be. I may question some of their thoughts. I do, after all, have my own conscience that guides me. I don't think I forced my own values on my former students. Rather, I think I tried to get them to realize their own values and their own value as human beings, that they should try to be good people. In these trying times when we need to be united more than ever, I just want to say I am f*&king proud of you all. One particular one, however, Wisconsin State Representative Robin Vos, I am not proud of because of the damage he and his GOP colleagues have caused for teachers, unions, workers, and voters in Wisconsin. He remains a disappointment. But, for the most part, I am proud of my former students. There is hope. Racism and homophobia certainly existed in my old Polish neighborhood in Chicago. Blacks weren’t in the bungalows and flats that made up our block. The only time my friends and I would see a black man in the area was when one might be part of a work crew. Then the names would come from the mouths of my friends. “Cannonball”, “Jigaboo”, and “NIgger” were the most common that Iut remember. I honestly don’t remember if I joined in, but given the nature of youth and peer pressure, I would not be surprised if I did. I do know that I never heard either of my parents using such pejoratives. I remember my mother complaining that she didn’t know how to refer to blacks. Her argument stemmed from not being sure to use Negro, colored, black, or African American. During the open housing movement in the 1960s, a number of our neighbors were afraid that blacks would move in. Dad’s only concern was, he said to me one day, “I don’t care who’s living next to me as long as they cut their grass.” Made sense to me then. Still does. There is hope I learned a lot from my Dad. He was my touchstone on how to treat others with respect and fairness. He made a point of introducing me to his black co-workers at company picnics and in the can factory where I joined him in labor one summer. I learned much from those fellow union men that year. During that open housing movement, Martin Luther King Jr. planned a march down Fullerton Avenue, just two blocks away from our bungalow on Latrobe. I know several of my friends and their parents planned to go watch the march with the intention of throwing rocks at King. Or, as they said, “We’re gonna show that nigger he doesn’t belong here.” Dad took me aside a day or two ahead and told me to stay out of it, to stay away from Fullerton. He basically said, “He’s not doing anything wrong and has a right to fight for what he believes in.” I don’t know if he had similar conversations with my brothers or sister. But, there is hope. When KIng delivered his “I have a dream” speech in Washington, they estimated 250-500000 people were there. In 1970 I hopped on a train to Washington to take part in a protest against the Vietnam war. I had participated in events in Chicago a few times, but this one garnered about 100000 peaceful marchers. Today with the Internet and social media, it is easy to get a message out. “Let’s meet up here and march. Sometimes people show up. In the 60s and 70s, before the instantaneous communication methods, people must have had awesome phone trees to get out the word. I don’t even remember how I heard of the Washington protest other than by word of mouth. Or maybe I saw an ad in a Chicago underground paper, much like I saw an ad for the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival and thought it would be good to go. I didn’t, but I did go to Washington. I guess hope finds a way. Grayslake, IL, where my wife and I now reside in what we call our home before the home, is located in Lake County. Grayslake has about 21000 people. The village is almost the geographic center of the county. It’s a little closer to Chicago than Milwaukee. This is its racial makeup:

• White: 80.88%
• Asian: 7.50%
• Black or African American: 3.95%
• Two or more races: 3.86%
• Other race: 3.63%
• Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 0.17%
• Native American: 0.00%

All hell has broken out recently following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of the police. Protests, rioting, looting has taken place in numerous cities around the United States. Numerous videos of encounters between cops and protesters are filling our TV screens, reactions of police that are reminiscent of the police actions in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic Convention. The Attorney General ordered that peaceful protesters be vacated from Lafayette Park in Washington. Mounted police herded them, fired pepper bullets, and used smoke bombs just to clear a path for the President to walk from the White House and have a photo op at a church in the Park, ironically called the Church of the Presidents. The Secret Service is finally building that wall Trump promised, only this one is a fortified fence around the White House. Trump called in the military. There are unidentified uniformed agents that nobody knows. A bunch of crap is going on. But in Grayslake, IL? Yesterday, they held a protest march to express support for the Black Lives Matter and the change that is needed to end the systemic racism in this country. As far as I know, there were no problems with the march, other than that some people thought it was too long. No confrontations with police. My wife and I walked. We saw whites, blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and probably part of every of the racial demographics of the community we chose to live in. And we saw kids. Lots of kids. LIttle kids in strollers, a couple of kids on bicycles, and I think the entire population of the two high schools in the city. A young female senior, a recent grad that didn’t get a graduation ceremony because of the pandemic, put a post on Facebook. She got replies. A Lot of replies. She organized the whole thing. She got the police to block off streets. She got the merchants along the route to offer bottles of water. A high school kid. I wrote that I was proud of the students I taught. I am. I suspect that the teachers in Grayslake who didn’t get to say goodbye to this year’s class are proud, too. Their job is done. I’ve had the adventure of protesting for the causes of my day. More causes still exist. More will exist. But I am heartened by the students I had, and by the ones I saw yesterday. The struggle is real. The cause is just. My heart is still willing. And now I see a light. There is hope.