No rest for the weary

16 Jan

Riding the midnight train from San Francisco to Palo Alto the other night, a man sat across from me and politely asked if I was expecting anyone to take the seat next to mine.  When I said no, he stretched his legs out, placed his sneakered feet on the seat and proceeded to take a nap.

My blood boiled. Not with the anticipation that I was going to have to wake him up when it was time for me to get off the train (which I did).  Not because he was old enough (50 plus) to know that his feet, no matter how clean they seemed, did not belong on the “furniture.”

My blood boiled because he could enjoy the privilege of resting easy because he was white.

I should add that he was white, apparently middle class and well groomed; no one would mistake him for a homeless person in search of a night’s shelter.

My blood boiled because had he been a black or Latino man of any age, well-groomed or not, had he been a passenger on a New York subway rather than Caltrain, he would likely have been arrested and carted off to jail.

A New York Times article “Relax, if you want, but don’t put your feet up,” published earlier this month, precipitated my rage.  The article chronicles the New York Police Department’s practice of arresting passengers who take up more than one seat, deliberately or inadvertently, or block the movement of the doors. Continue reading →

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Kaara Baptiste’s first assignment

12 Jan

Last summer when Kaara Baptiste asked for my advice about getting into journalism, I refrained from telling the young Stanford graduate to run as fast as she could from a field that seems to be on life support.

What I did suggest was that she get out there and write, do some freelancing.  I don’t remember whether it was Baptiste or I who first introduced the idea of  contacting  Henrietta Burroughs, a tireless wonder who publishes East Palo Alto Today, a community newspaper.  It was Baptiste who followed up with Burroughs and landed her first assignment: Me.

Here’s a link to the article, “Journalist Elaine Ray finds her roots.”

Great job, Kaara.

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‘I have learned to be racial’ and other observations after 11 years in America

31 Dec

In a column my father wrote on the eve of the new year in 1934, he recalls seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time 11 years earlier. He arrived on Ellis Island aboard the SS Fort Victoria on Nov. 1, 1923 at age 26, 48 hours after leaving Bermuda, where he worked as a printer for six months.

His entry seemed relatively easy. From the sound of it, he passed the physical and intelligence tests and the interrogations immigrants were put through fairly handily and headed straight for Harlem.

The biggest tests were yet to come: As he put it, he had to learn to be racial, to understand Jim Crow, both the southern and northern varieties. He had to weather the Great Depression and witness America’s promise and its shortcomings.

Although I lived in New York for several years in the 80s and still often see the city as a second home, it was not until this week that I set out like a tourist and visited the Ellis Island Museum and Liberty Island, where I finally saw the Lady up close.

It was probably divine intervention that kept me from there until now. It has so much more resonance.

Happy New Year, dear readers. Thanks for taking this journey with me.

Continue reading →

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Langston Hughes, my father, Joseph Stalin and Jesus

23 Dec

I don’t yet know what my father thought of Langston Hughes‘ work in general, or whether their circles crossed in Harlem. But just after  Christmas Day in 1940, Ebenezer had some choice words for one of  Hughes’ most controversial poems, titled Goodbye Christ. Here’s the poem:

Listen, Christ,
You did alright in your day, I reckon—
But that day’s gone now.
They ghosted you up a swell story, too,
Called it Bible—
But it’s dead now,
The popes and the preachers’ve
Made too much money from it.
They’ve sold you to too many

Kings, generals, robbers, and killers—
Even to the Tzar and the Cossacks,
Even to Rockefeller’s Church,
Even to THE SATURDAY EVENING POST.
You ain’t no good no more.
They’ve pawned you
Till you’ve done wore out.

Goodbye,
Christ Jesus Lord God Jehova,
Beat it on away from here now.
Make way for a new guy with no religion at all—
A real guy named
Marx Communist Lenin Peasant Stalin Worker ME—
I said, ME!
Continue reading →

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Not a different government, but a better one

11 Dec

Since Wednesday, Dec. 7, the 70th anniversary of  Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, I’ve been trying to get to the library to see what my father wrote about the bombing and/or the United State’s entry into World War II.

Here’s what he wrote in a column published in the New York Age Dec. 20, 1941:

“The war which has engulfed all Europe for the past two years and brought about the downfall of about five times as many nations, has come to these United States. At times it has been said to be a white man’s war, but more often it has been conceded to be a war which effects all peoples. The latter is especially true at this time.

“Japan, in its tri-partite alliance with Mr. Hitler and Il Duce, is the one to strike the blow; her two partners in crime join the fracas with expected precision. Mr. Hitler has designs on dominating the world in what he calls a ‘new order,’ which is the same old slavery humans have known down the ages dressed up in twentieth century clothes. Mr. Hitler includes all peoples of the world in his new order, and that includes Japan and Italy which, because of its military weakness and Mussolini’s gullibility, is already under Hitler’s heel. He includes the people of the U.S.  because the ultra-freedom they enjoy would have psychological effect on his slaves in Europe.  They would yearn for the same things.”

Ebenezer takes on fellow columnist George Schuyler, who apparently continued to view Hitler as little different from imperialist Britain.  In the early years of the war, many other black journalists had urged America to not throw stones at Hitler while injustice marred its own glass house. Many changed their minds when U.S. Navy ships were  attacked.
Continue reading →

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