[Futurework] Fw: Phew!

[Ray Evans Harrell]

 A Meditation on the past,   In the 1960s I studied voice with one of the greatest voice teachers in America in the ghetto of Washington, D.C.    He was half Black and half Cherokee.   He was an alcoholic and homosexual.   When I first went to study, I couldn't handle the fact that he always had a Vodka/Fresca which he sipped constantly.   I also was not secure in my own ethnic identity and so it was difficult being around a man who was secure in his.   So I stopped the lessons for a time and tried all of the other teachers in the area in the colleges, universities, etc. but it came down to one thing.   The man produced great singers and his love of music and voice was total.   His studio roster read as a list of the greatest singers in America from Paul Robeson to Frank Sinatra and my best colleagues in the Army Chorus were also his students.   Later I was to find that he had pulled many wonderful artists literally out of the gutter and onto the stages of the US and Europe.      When I went into the Army Chorus there were no Blacks because they had just instituted that we had to have a White House Top Secret Security Clearence and all of the Blacks had Civil Rights issues that scared the FBI with Martin Luther King being shadowed by J. Edgar Hoover.    So they kicked all of the Black Singers out of the chorus.    They promptly went into the opera houses of Europe where they have prospered.   Meanwhile the chorus scrambled to find Blacks that they considered "clean".     I got my clearance because I was just a country boy and I had a Cherokee counselor who knew how to talk to the FBI and got me through.   One of the people that my voice teacher had rescued was a young prostitute named Maya Angelou.   Maya went on to become one of the nation's great poets and thinkers.    There is a beautiful story that is told on the internet at many Christian sites about Maya and Wilkie and how he had her study a text that led her to understand that God loved her but that she had to learn to love herself if she was to survive.    They don't know that this beautiful story is about a man that they wouldn't have approved of since he was both alcoholic and Gay.      He was also one of the best that America had to offer.   He deliberately set up his voice studio in the heart of one of the then scariest neighborhoods in Washington and made his ignorant and in many cases racist students come to his house.   Coming from Picher, I was perfectly at home there and never felt in danger although I did understand that it could be dangerous if you didn't pay attention.       Washington's woes are often laid on the backs of the Black population but it was even more of a captive population then than it is now.   It still has no vote in Congress although it has more people in it that many states.    The financial situation puts most Blacks into a peasant situation and the black intelligensia has a glass ceiling.    I remember the man that everyone makes fun of for his drug busts and still being elected mayor, Marion Barry.    But when I remember him he was a fiery Civil Rights Lawyer and activist.   It was sad to see what the constant battle in D.C. eventually did to him.    Although the Black community stayed loyal to through many of his troubles for what he had done for them once.    On that level they are as loyal as Republicans are to each other.   Well, this is not about Barry but my teacher Wilkie.    Wilkie taught me for five years and in those years many of my prejudices melted away in the light of experience.    I learned not to be threatened or afraid of homosexuals as I had been taught in Oklahoma.   Even though I had Gay schoolmates and friends in Tulsa I still had been a believer in their "illness".   I should have known better when a psychologist wanted me to "rat" on some Gay friends in Tulsa "for their own good."    I spoke to Dad about it and even though he shared the prejudice he advised me that their lives were their own and it wasn't any of my business.    As a Doctoral student of psychology, I think he was beginning to get another picture on what the issue was and like some of the other "sexual stories" about mental "illness" that the preachers preached there was actually nothing to it.  I've always been glad that he circumvented my doing anything about that.   Although I know that he felt that heterosexuals were happier in the world, kind of like his Indian mother felt about "White Folks",  he wouldn't let me mistreat anyone unless they did so to me.   So I came back to study with Wilkie after looking for a more "acceptable" teacher, but I couldn't find a more "successful" teacher and that is all that counts in the glutted voice labor market where only two people out of 100 graduates make a living in their trained profession.   You had better be trained well.   I was to find that there were many terrible things that Wilkie had to bear as a result of segregation and his race including his teaching at a large Southern University that had no place where he could go to the bathroom or eat on campus.   They gave him an old couch and then put papers down so he wouldn't dirty it.   He was not a dirty man but very clean.    They were just hicks.     During the time I was in his studio I did meet some very sleezy people.    They were all studying voice and I learned to consider people not by the place they came from but by their talent and desire for growth.    He did a lot of therapy with people like my friend in the Army Chorus who later would commit suicide.    He was from Alabama and his father had driven a car for a wealthy man, like in the movie "Driving Ms. Daisy."    One night he didn't have his chauffer's uniform on and he was driving the car back from the shop and had a flat tire.   He got out to fix it and while fixing it the police came along and shot him in the head.    They said that "No Negra would ever have a car that nice and so he must have stole it."    My friend had to deal with that growing up and eventually, although he had a beautiful voice and Wilkie worked hard on his spirit,  he just couldn't overcome the knowledge of his excellent quality and the limits of his potential to manifest it given the racial climate.   He killed himself one day.    When I saw the police scene in "Ms. Daisy" I remembered my friend Leon.  (Name changed)   I never thought that I might seem pretty sleazy or a hayseed coming from Picher but I had a lot to overcome in Washington, including learning about Blacks, Homosexuals, Jews, the Wealthy, Presidents, Congressmen and on and on and oh yes, what the government always says about war.   I listened today to Donald Rumsfeld talking about the sleaze around Sadaam Hussien.   About how they were driving their big cars and mistreating the poor.    About how children died because of their policies.   How the infant mortality rate in Iraq is 60.05 per 1000 live births.   And how the US is 6.76 per 1000 live births.    Well the average for the whole world is 52.61 and Iraq has been under the sanctions that have cut back on vital medical supplies that the Doctors without Borders have constantly complained about.   But then Cuba has also been under sanctions and their deaths are less than one more than the US.  7.39 per 1000 live births.   Hmmm.      And then where does the richest country in the world fall compared to the rest of world for infant mortality?    We are 39th, higher than almost every developed country in the world.    But Mr. Rumsfeld was giving the reasons that we were the good guys and the rescuers.   This is too depressing for me to go on with it.   The figures for Infant Mortality are at http://www.bartleby.com/151/a28.html     Just who is the most advanced medical system in the world helping in America if we have that many children dying after they are born alive?     The people who are "overtaxed" at the top?    Well let me just say that listening to Rumsfeld today pointed out a real problem for me with his group.      That's why I keep indentifying with the people that Sadaam is oppressing, except its the same group here of which Rumsfeld is not and has never been a part.        So as I said earlier about pre-emption.    Let me put it another way.    If you are going to go around the world for a righteous cause and kill a whole bunch of women and children in order to save the greater good then you had better be taking care of the greater good back home or you are just a hypocrite and a murderer yourself.    What follows is a column from the Washington Post by Colbert I. King.   I'm sending this along just to let you know that these things I've been thinking about are not just me - your wild New York Cousin or Uncle.    It was sent to me by another veteran on our veteran's network on the internet.   But before I give you Colbert let me tell you a little about my own Father.   In my father's later life, he dressed wonderfully.    Had a suit for every day and was as spiffy as mom always was.    Their house was impeccably clean and they continually improved it.    They were careful with money and left my sister and I a decent birthright at their deaths as well as the Grandchildren.    My mother was as good as anyone at business and doubled her teacher's retirement in the Carter years playing the Money Market.   They were aware of taxes as much as anyone and they were as careful with a dime as any banker.    But with all of that said, I will tell you what neither one of them ever was nor could I imagine them ever being, because they were people of tradition who loved their parents and their parent's roots.   I could never imagine either one of them being what dad called a "Moss-back Liberal."      So what is a "Moss-back Liberal"?      A "Moss-back Liberal" is a modern Conservative.   So what I could never imagine either of them being was a Republican.   And that's the truth.    As my father told me.    His father was a Democrat and his Father's Father was a Democrat and he was a proud delegate to the Democratic Convention and he was also the first non-racist that I ever knew.     He was the man that the minority children came to for their counseling because he wasn't a racist and never could be, having grown up amongst the Creek Freedman.   But it took Wilkie to bring me back to the ways of my Father for the society taught me something different.    That speech about his father and grandfather was a speech that he gave to the Washington County Republicans when they asked him why he dressed so much like one of them and had their taste for the finer things and that is what he said.     As for taxes, I will quote my Mother's brother who may have been a Republican or not.   (I truly don't know)   But he was also one of the finest gentlemen I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.    Martin said that he believed that everyone owed rent for what the country and their community has made available to them to grow success.    Rent is taxes +.    Today these folks think they did it all themselves.   That is not my tradition and I don't believe it.   Instead my tradition is with these heroes that I have known and grown with.   Unfortunately they are all gone and what that now means is that we must be the heroes for our children or they won't have any.   So we can't act like Sadaam and be worth a Daam.   (Sorry Mom, I just couldn't resist one of your puns.)   So here is a column from the Black version of the people that we came from ourselves, except they have no representation and so are not able to have the financial capital that Martin spoke about and that makes all the difference.    Our barbershop was Dude Rowe's.   Ray Evans Harrell     Colbert I. King, a superb Washington Post writer who lives in the benighted District of Columbia has occasionally chronicled the considerable wit and wisdom of the African-American habitués of Darrell's Barber Shop. (these columns are said to have inspired the recent movie, Barber Shop.)                          War Talk at Darrell's Barbershop              Darrell said, "Bush administration officials and certain Clinton Democrats in exile, have decided that the United States not only must take out Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction but also should bear the burden of rebuilding the Iraqi economy and a new Iraqi political system."                  Mr. Jackson, the Washington old-timer and neighborhood historian, and probably the most well-read man in the community, had been standing at the window gazing at the dilapidated school and public housing project across the street. When he turned around, there were tears in his eyes.                  "When this war is over," Mr. Jackson said, "we are going to patrol and protect large Iraqi cities, keeping the citizens safe. We've already picked out U.S. construction giants to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to build roads and bridges and schools and hospitals," he said. "I even read where we have plans to print textbooks and pay and train Iraqi teachers.        "We're going to guide them to a democratic form of government where the rights of people are recognized and guaranteed, where people have a voice and vote in their government," Mr. Jackson said.                 "And who gets to pay for it?" he asked. "We do," he thundered. "We, the people of Washington, D.C., who have no vote in Congress, no voice in the Senate and no say in whether or not we go to war, are going to help bear the cost of rebuilding Iraq and giving the people of Baghdad more rights than we enjoy in the nation's capital. And we're going to do all that even as we in this city -- because of budget shortfalls -- close libraries and recreation centers, shortchange schools and struggle to keep a hospital open."                You could hear a pin drop.                "I read somewhere," Mr. Jackson said, "that the reconstruction of Iraq will require billions of dollars over several years. Estimates ranged from 50 to 150 billion dollars. If you trust a table produced by a group calling itself the National Priorities Project, based on our portion of individual income taxes, the District of Columbia's share of the cost of a $100 billion war and rehabilitation of Iraq comes to $225 million," he said. "Why, that's more than Montana, North and South Dakota, Vermont or Wyoming individually contribute in taxes to the U.S. Treasury," Mr. Jackson said.        At that moment a hand shot up at the rear of the shop. It belonged to L. Rodney Bull, a local entrepreneur and consultant. "Mr. Jackson, did I hear you say the Bush administration is about to award contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to begin remaking Iraq? Do you know if they have a minority set-aside program?"       A tear rolled down Mr. Jackson's face.