I am just a good ole Southern boy just trying to reconcile my heritage with reality | Eastern North Carolina Now

    The best way to electrocute yourself is to grab both the positive and negative ends of a highly charged transformer. The same may be true of some issues, but here I go.

    Like many boys born in the South, I had a steady diet of benign racism (from our perspective, but certainly not from the black perspective). My father's family was farmers from Carroll County in West Georgia. His mother's side of the family could trace their lineage all the way back to England and were what some would call "Landed Gentry." But by the time they had settled in Georgia they were just dirt-poor farmers with a story to tell. As was common in the early 1900's racism was the rule of the day. It was not too far removed from the Civil War and there were still smoldering resentments over race and Yankees (Spell check says I should capitalize this word).

    My dad was a simple, but complicated man. It sounds like a contradiction in terms but he was really a creature of class conscience upbringing. Since he was born and raised on the lower end of the totem pole. He knew where he stood in the pecking order. It was necessary for him to find someone below him. Naturally, Negros fit the bill. When it came to groups, he had many prejudices based on his view of the pecking order. These classification roles are still in existence today. I tried to explain and contrast in my post on profiling vs stereotyping but apparently failed.

    Examples of Dad's thinking or remembered quotes: (These are but a few, my brother Jim and I have compiled a whole glossary list of Dad's sayings. They have been edited for language content).

• "He's is nothing but a pencil pusher" --Used for the educated man who did not earn his living using a skill.
• "He's just a shyster Lawyer." I was probably 13 before I realized that a Shyster Lawyer was not a branch of the legal profession.
• "He's an Ak-Er. (pronounced one letter at a time). An ass kisser who can't get anything done without the help his boss. Today a brown noser.
• "He's the sorriest man who ever crapped behind a pair of Tom Mcchans." A popular brand of shoes and generally meant to say the guy was no go.
• "He couldn't poor pee out of a boot with the directions written on the heel and gravity on his side." A generally inept SOB.
• "He's a Grandstander." Someone who does nothing until there is a crowd around to see him.
• "He's a moocher." His term for someone who does not want to work for a living and always looking for a handout..

    One of the janitors at Emory where my dad got his start as an electrician was a mixed Cherokee and Black man named Dan Stokes. He lived in a small house off Lavista Road, which was pure country back then. My dad, brother and I went to visit him often as he had mules and a good size farm. His house was a two-room shack without electricity or plumbing. When they ran the electrical poles close enough to Dan's house, dad, Jim and I went and installed wiring and electrical service in his shack. I do not know for sure but I think the donation of materials came from Emory University using the midnight inventory principle. Dan and dad would sit in the front yard swapping the pint bottle telling stories. When we would get in the car to leave my dad would always say he is a good old boy, "he's got allot of Cherokee in him". Dad just could not pull himself out of his own prejudice.

   Dan’s land stayed in the family until the area developed into one of the most prestigious neighborhoods in Dekalb County. They finally sold the property but with the stipulation that one of the roads be named after the family. Today the road is still there, it is a short road and it runs right by the old Cemetery where Dan and his family are buried.

    I think my dad got a good taste of bigotries when he met and married my mother; she was a 1st generation Italian. His sister Clara, almost disowned him for marring a foreigner. Her husband Selby was a pharmacist from Mississippi and a true racist and drunk. He worked and later owned the Pharmacy in Little Five Points. His sister told dad that he degraded the family by marrying a "Damn WOP".

    I guess distrust of anyone not English, Irish or Scotch ran in the family as well as hatred between those three birthrights.

    Every Christmas we would have to go visit his sister. My mom insisted and told dad that they were the only family he had. His comment was always the same----'F--- Them", but he went anyway. Selby was a drunk and the one thing was clear to me thought, every time he got in trouble or had problems with the house the answer was always "Call Loyd." With mother's prodding he would bail them out or fix the house problems.

    My love of Motown Blues, and Jazz in the early sixties helped to broaden my horizons about different people. Growing up on the streets of Downtown Atlanta also helped, as we would often play sandlot football with the "other Side of the tracks".

    My own purging of racist attitudes began to soften because of one of my all-time favorite heroes. Cassius Clay who later became Muhammad Ali. I was a big fan of his boxing and braggadocios style. I was attending Georgia State College (Later University) when Ali refused induction into the Army in April 1967. It was a principled stance and his statement was something to the effect "Ain't no Vietcong ever called me Nigger". I think he could have gone in the Army and never seen any form of combat or rough duty. They probably would have him dong boxing exhibitions for the troupes . But he stood by his beliefs and submitted to whatever punishment was to come.

    After that, it was a conscious decision on my part to try to move away from the seeds of hatred sowed in the south into every young boy.

    I have covered this in my "Grandpa's Diaries" family history book about Basic Training which has not been posted here and may not make the cut for public consumption here on BCN. Here is an excerpt or paraphrase.

    When my draft notice came in August of 1967, there was never a question about being drafted and me appearing. It was just a part of the process of showing up, since the Draft was a well-known staple of American Society. My experience in basic training at Fort Benning reinforced my decision to try and put racist beliefs behind me. Several of my fellow draftees were black and from Chicago and Detroit. I do not know if the Army intentionally sent them south for their training but it sure was a culture shock to them. Since I had taken ROTC in both high school and college, I was made acting Squad Leader in basic training and several of my squad were these black guys from the north. It was my first intimate contact with northern blacks. We had one guy named Clyde who was a real hoot. He reminded me of Ali without the Muslim beliefs. We also had a black guy from Alabama in my squad and the contrast between the two of them was stark.

    We never did get any liberty during basic so they never were able to go off base to Columbus, Ga. or the infamous Phenix City, Al. just across the river. I did, however have to explain to them that some things just were not done in the south. One of our Drill Sergeants was a black E7 Sergeant First Class and he would take the northern blacks aside hold meetings to explain to them the nuisance of the southern way of dealing with "uppity Negros".

After I got to Vietnam, I had a good buddy Bronte Smith from Odessa Texas in my unit. Once during a firefight, several of us were pinned down behind a berm and were giving out of ammunition. Old Bronte crawled out to us to bring more ammo. If there was ever any wavering in my mind that cemented it for me, I would never try to judge someone by the skin color again if possible.

    I am not trying to offer up the "some of my best friends' argument here". I am trying to illustrate that learned prejudices can be unlearned. It takes a willingness to examine yourself and be on guard against your embedded tendencies.

    However, old prejudices die-hard. Every now and then, I have a fleeting thought about the problems in America today and the old stereotypes begin to rise up. Always, there is Bronte with those bandoliers of ammo in my mind jerks me back to reality. The cause and fix to our problems is a subject for discussions and not one-sided writings or thought provoking. Interaction is one of the ways to overcome preconceived notions on both sides.

    And just for the Record, Bronte Smith made it back to the world, I have lost contact with him over the years and quite often run a web search trying to locate him.