US AND THEM

One of our more endearing characteristics is our ability to bond with each other. We bond with our family members and our friends. We identify ourselves as being a part of our neighborhoods, our states, our nations, our races, our religions, our ethnicities, and our socio-economic classes. Our first loyalties are to our families and our friends. The other people who inspire our loyalty are the people with whom we associate. Which usually means people of the same race, religion, ethnicity, and socio-economic class. We think of those people as being like us. When a bigot waves the flag in celebration of our nation he or she is really celebrating white, Anglo-Saxon, America. As you can see, the people who we identify as being us can be rather exclusive. The more bigoted you are the more people you will define as being them. Defining them is antithetical to bonding. It is the other side of the coin, and we all know that coins have two sides. Two things have brought this to mind. The first thing was the arrest of Professor Gates by officer Crowley. The other thing was Ken Burn’s documentary on Mark Twain. I will explain the connections in a moment. First I want to tell you something about my background.

I was born and reared in Pasadena, California. It was a racist society, and there was de facto segregation. The target of the bigotry was not restricted to race. Believe me, I heard many anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic comments as well. If bigotry can ever be called polite, it was that in the Pasadena of my youth. What I mean is that bigoted comments were never made in front of the people who were being discriminated against. This was rather confusing when the discrimination was based on religion. It was not like the children in my elementary school carried signs identifying their faith, and my parents never told me not to play with this kid or that. The other kids attending my elementary school became my friends regardless of their faith.

Discrimination was an abstract concept until I reached junior high school. It was an incident in my gym class that first changed that. Jerry and I got into a dispute. The shouting escalated into insults, followed by shoving. It might have resulted in fisticuffs if another boy had not interfered. We were studying Shakespeare in our English class, and this boy told me to call Jerry a Shylock. Frankly, I was stunned. Jerry was not a Jew, which is to say he was not one of the bad Jews people talked about. For the first time the target of anti-Semitism had a face, and it was the face of a friend. All the fight went out of me. Whatever Jerry had done to make me angry did not matter. I dropped my guard. Jerry gave me half-hearted shove, and he looked into my eyes. He then turned and walked away. I really dreaded seeing him the next day. I should have said something to that other boy. I should have called out to Jerry and apologized. The next day Jerry acted as if nothing had happened. We should have talked about it, but we did not do it. I guess neither one of us knew what to say. I will never forget the hurt in Jerry’s eyes when that boy made the anti-Semitic comment. It was a wakeup call. My youthful innocence was replaced by the realization that prejudice hurts good people.

This brings us back to the arrest of Professor Gates. I have been following the reports of the incident, but I cannot say I really know what happened. The best I have to offer is a bit of food for thought by telling you what I think is likely. I can well imagine that Professor Gates has been the victim of racial prejudice and profiling in the past. I think we also have to bear in mind the fact that he was in his own home. I can also imagine Officer Crowley behaving the way cops behave. Police officers are taught to take control of the situation, and they are quick to react to any perceived challenge to their authority. I do not know if race was a factor in the arrest, but I suspect that it was.

My suspicion brings up the subject of Mark Twain because he had something very instructive to say about racism and slavery. The Ken Burn’s documentary included a discussion of Huckleberry Finn. What struck the people discussing this book in the documentary was the same thing that struck me when I first read it. We thought about how horrible it was for Huck Finn to actually believe that he would go to hell if he did not tell the master where the master’s slave had gone. The thing is that a child will believe the things he hears adults saying.

The prejudicial statements and actions a child witnesses or is taught during his or her formative years form a toxin that lodges itself in the unconscious mind. This poison then dulls reason and manifests itself in the form of ugly emotions. I am going to get personal about this. Because of de facto segregation I did not know any African-American children during my formative years. This meant that I did not have the face of a friend to serve as an antidote for the racial poison I was being fed. There were some African-American kids at the junior high school I attended, but this was after my most impressionable years. Furthermore, forming close bonds with people of other races was discouraged. The result was not pretty. To this day the statements of African-American leaders will occasionally trigger an adverse emotional response in me. I then have to take a deep breath and let the logical part of my mind kick in. I have to take into account what those leaders have experienced, and I have to carefully consider what they are saying. I think my adverse emotional responses have become less frequent and less severe over the years, but they are still there. I really hate to admit that. I am doing so because I think it is important for us to understand and help each other. We cannot do that if we are not being honest.

I believe there are too many people who have the same emotional responses I admit to having. I believe those responses are the last and most difficult barriers to making our society what it must become. President Obama was correct when he told the NAACP there are no excuses. This holds true for all races. It particularly holds true in regard to our relationships with each other. I have really struggled with the terms of African-American and black. Any term we use, no matter how polite it may be, is still making a distinction. It still indicates that we are thinking in terms of us and them. We must work to eliminate the concept of them. This is not something the government can do for us. It is the responsibility of each and every person to work on it individually and collectively. It does not help when there are people who will try to use the racial divide to their own advantage. It really makes me angry when I hear them call President Obama a racist. The people who are doing this should examine their own hearts and what passes for their minds. I know I said I would try to avoid politics in this blog, but racial issues transcend politics. If one of the major political parities does not realize that, then it is time for that party’s demise. Hopefully, another party will emerge to offer reasonable alternatives in regard to solving the other problems facing us.

CONFESSIONS OF A SMOKER

I am a grumpy old man. I am a grumpy old man who really wants a cigarette. The addiction to tobacco is insidious, alluring, and demanding. When you start smoking you can easily go for hours or even days between cigarettes. You think you can take them or leave them. That is the insidious part. The alluring part comes when the addiction is more apparent. It occurs when you have smoked frequently enough to establish an addiction level. When the nicotine in your system drops below that level you feel uncomfortable. When the nicotine in your system rises to that level you feel good. Your unconscious mind then makes the correlation. Nicotine equals comfort and pleasure, and cigarettes quickly and efficiently deliver the nicotine. The addiction becomes psychological as well as physical. If you are feeling stress, you seek comfort by smoking a cigarette. Cigarettes become part of your good times as well, and you soon find yourself lighting one up after sex or a good meal. Smoking also becomes a feel good pause between tasks, and it gives you something to do while you are waiting for your car to warm up on those cold winter mornings. If you are doing something that takes a lot concentration, such as writing, you will automatically reach for a cigarette. The point is that the physical addiction prompts a psychological addiction that causes you to smoke more, thereby increasing the physical addiction. I reached the point where it was difficult to imagine myself doing anything without a cigarette in my hand.

I am sure people knew about the addictive nature of tobacco when I started smoking, but it was not something they talked about. The truth about tobacco was concealed in a cloud of smoke. Now the truth is buried in a shroud of political correctness. Court cases and anti-smoking advertisements have made the manipulations and lies of the tobacco industry so apparent that here is no need to discuss the deceptions here. The falsehoods perpetrated by the anti-smoking crowd are another matter. The first studies the government cited regarding second hand smoke actually stated that the data does not support the conclusion that second hand smoke poses a significant health risk. Our government manipulated the data from those studies to reach a different conclusion. The manipulation was so blatant that the government’s own scientists said: “The dangers of second hand smoke are greatly exaggerated.” In other words, the governmental agency that is supposed to rely on science to provide us with the best health information lied to us. This fact taints all subsequent studies. The government provides the researchers with funds, and the government wants the research to support the contention that second hand smoke poses a serious health threat. The studies that the government cites must be considered as advocacy rather than science for the same reason that we consider the studies by the tobacco industry to be advocacy rather than science. As someone who wants to be informed, I think I deserve better. Regardless of whether the facts can or cannot be used to justify coercing smokers into quitting, the country should demand the truth. Unfortunately, determining the truth at this point would require an organization that receives no funds from the government or the tobacco industry, and that organization would have to conduct double blind tests to eliminate any biases the researchers might have.

The other thing I find very annoying about the smoking controversy is the hypocrisy. Arguments supporting the exorbitant taxes on tobacco are nothing more than sanctimonious justifications for getting something for nothing by foisting the cost of pet programs off onto people who are too weak to kick their addiction to a heavily advertised substance that was subsidized by our government throughout most of my lifetime. Saying that those taxes will encourage people to quit smoking is hypocritical because the people saying it are depending on the addiction to force smokers to fund programs the general population is not willing to pay for.

It is only natural for smokers to resent the hypocrisy and the deliberate deceptions being used to justify the taxes and the coercion. It is also natural for smokers to resist the coercion by continuing to smoke. I am giving up cigarettes in spite of the resentment I feel. I am quitting because of the one thing I do know about smoking. It has terrible health consequences for the smoker. People I love depend on me. I owe it to my family to try to avoid a catastrophic illness and a premature death. I hope the next generation does not react to the exaggerations about the dangers of second hand smoke the same way that my generation reacted to the exaggerations about the dangers of marijuana. If they do, far too many of them will suffer the consequences for ignoring the real reason for not smoking.

Two days ago I gave in to the temptation. I bought a pack of cigarettes, and I have been rationing them. Fortunately, my family has not given me any grief about that. They know there is no argument they can make that I have not heard. They are smart enough to realize that my addiction to tobacco is my demon, and that I am the only one who can defeat it. My struggle is not a single battle; it is a war. I cannot let a setback dictate the outcome. There are three cigarettes left in the pack. I threw them into the trash this morning. The urge to retrieve those cigarettes is pretty strong right now. Smoking has been such a large part of my life for so long that I am feeling almost as lost as I felt when I was divorced. I have to deal with the psychological addiction as well as the physical addiction. I have to develop new responses to events and situations. It is not an easy thing to do. The logical part of my brain is telling me to ignore the urge and to put some distance between myself and the cigarettes in the trash. I never thought it would come to this. I never thought I would be tempted to suffer the indignity of digging through the trash for a cigarette. I am going for a walk. I am going to think about how much better I feel when I am not polluting my lungs and irritating my sinuses. They tell me the struggle becomes easier after a while. I hope that happens soon!