(Scroll down to begin with Part One)
My childhood was a world of
white people with Anglo-Saxon names. Other races and ethnicities were in
the background. We were members of the working class or lower middle
class. So servants were out of the question, often an avenue to those
with money to interact with Blacks and Hispanics on a more personal level.
Paying bills was challenge enough; servants out of the question.
I think I must have taken in
a lot of prejudices through osmosis, for I often felt uneasy around Blacks and
Hispanics. But one incident remains indelible in my mind and osmosis played no
role. One day in elementary school after classes ended, I was surrounded
by eight Mexican boys, taunting me on the playground. I broke from the
circle and ran into the still open school and into the girls’ restroom.
In those days boys and girls dare not enter each other’s restrooms. So I
was safe. They gave up eventually and went away. This marked
me. For years and years I was extremely nervous around Hispanic
males. The few Hispanic females I came across seemed so aggressive,
spoiling for a fight. But gratefully I was never the object of their
anger. So…I was pre-disposed early on to see Blacks and Hispanics in a
less than positive light.
Religions other than Baptist
were not even on my radar early on. Catholicism was practiced by my
paternal grandparents, but my parents were divorced when I was six months old and
rarely did I set foot in a Catholic church. But I did hear all the
prejudicial remarks and slurs associated with Catholics especially when John F.
Kennedy was running for President. The impression I was left with was
Catholics were not to be trusted because they worshipped idols and did not have
a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Also many Protestants feared
the Pope would be giving orders to a Kennedy White House.
In 1960 in a confrontation
with Protestant minister of the Greater Houston Ministerial Association,
Kennedy said, "I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for
President who also happens to be a Catholic.
I do not speak for my Church on public matters--and the Church does not speak for
me."
In my youth Jews were the
money lenders, the ones who knew how to make a buck, to ‘jew’ you out of your
last dollar. They were clannish, used foreign words in their speech. I never
heard the term ‘Christ Killer’ growing up. That came later. Again
as a child I had no experiences that would warrant such beliefs, but they were
passed on like mother’s milk.
When I was 12 or so I read
John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. It is the first book I remember reading that asked of me that
I step outside myself and really see a wider world. At the end of the
novel Rose of Sharon, who has just lost a baby, offers her milk laden
breast to a starving man. That image shocked me --the baring of a breast,
the offering of it not to an infant but to a grown person, a stranger and
finally a man. How stripped of our trappings of civilized society must we
be to commit such an act! How desperate must our starved body be to
overcome the usual dictates of the mind.
Scene from THE GRAPES OF WRATH, February, 2015
Alistair Mc Donald and Gail Mangham
In time I understood some of
the levels of meaning in the image--the sacrifice of convention for survival,
the basic human need to replace loss with renewal and the sometimes surprising
and ultimately inspiring act to extend our humanity to include the stranger,
the Other. So it may well be John Steinbeck provided my earliest
inspiration to look beyond the universe of the Self. And that surely is a
step on the path towards becoming a Liberal.
As a side note almost 60
years after reading The Grapes of Wrath, I had the great, good fortune to play Ma Joad, the
matriarch who holds this Dust Bowl band of refugees together on their trek to
California and who in her wordless plea calls on Rose of Sharon to save the man.
High school was another
turning point for me. This was a suburban school that served working
and middle class families located along the highly polluted Houston Ship
Channel where one held one's breath on the way to school, passing the myriad
paper and chemical plants pouring out their poisons. But at the time I merely held my breath
giving little thought to the notion of clean air. That came decades later.
But to
continue-- on the first day of class in September of 1960, I was seated in the
small auditorium that served as the Speech and Debate classroom. I had
just sat down on the front row when a boy sat next to me. As I cut my
eyes over without moving my head, all I saw was a blue jeaned leg.
A few months ago on our 50th wedding anniversary (October 16, 2015), I learned for the first
time that he had noticed me the year before and now that we were in the same
class took the bold move of sitting next to me and saying hi. We married five years later. What I did not know at the time was that I
had just met a boy with an exceptional mind and heart that was often hidden
from others. How fortunate we have been
over the decades to grow in the same direction from those youthful beginnings.
Gail
Burroughs and Neal Mangham circa 1960
I mention this event because
Neal and I became debating partners that year and, while falling in love, began
a lifelong mutual interest in the world beyond this small stage on which we
took our first steps both as partners in life and in debate.
The two topics we debated in
our junior and senior years were respectively:
1960 Resolved: That the federal government should substantially
increase its regulation of labor unions.
1961 Resolved:
That the United Nations should be significantly strengthened.
Both topics propelled me out
of the provincial world I lived in, especially the second resolution.
Suddenly my world expanded to include concepts with which I had never
grappled. I learned how to research, how to write an effective speech, how
to deliver it. Our scope of training was somewhat limited, but
nevertheless we were set on a path of questing for knowledge, for
understanding, that still plays out in our morning discussions over coffee.
To be continued... An
Epiphany in an Elevator
