In line with my upcoming panel with other writers who’ve written books about Chicago (Saturday, Dec. 2, 11 a.m., The Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton St.), I made a list of some “great (Chicago) books” — off the top of my head.

Naturally, I got the top of my head taken off.

HOW, for crying out loud, could I have overlooked The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charlie MacArthur? A play and a movie (not a novel), but one of the funniest you’ll ever experience. (The movie, in black and white with Cary Grant and Roz Russell, turns star reporter Hildy Johnson from a charming rogue to a charming rogue-ette, but for once it’s OK. The movie is almost as much of a delight as the play.) This story has extra resonance for me, because it’s about the old hell-raising keyhole-journalism days in Chicago — something I was in on at the tail end — and it takes place in the Criminal Courts press room, a place I actually worked briefly. Also, the character “Bensinger” is modeled on one of my City News Bureau bosses, the late Larry Mulay. Larry was a compulsive hand-washer, phobic about germs. Story goes that when he was a kid covering Criminal Courts, Larry used to de-germ his telephone by swabbing the mouthpiece with benzene … and that’s how the character got the name “Bensinger”.

HOW, for crying out loud, could I have overlooked Sandra Cisneros, the bard of the Mexican-American experience in Chicago? Her big book is her first novel The House on Mango Street, which I have not read, but I did read Caramelo, her memoir of her childhood with frequent car trips back to Mexico, and how Mexico and Chicago mooshed together in her child mind. It is heartfelt, full of great characters (trust a novelist to make people more interesting on the page than they probably were in life), and written with the touch of a poet.

HOW, for crying out loud, could I have overlooked Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (also a play and later a rather ground-breaking 1961 movie featuring an all-star black cast including Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Lou Gossett Jr.)? Especially since Lorraine Hansberry’s father reportedly played a major role in the “kitchenetting” of the black Bronzeville ghetto. The story is recounted in the historical Afterword of my novel To Love Mercy (pp. 260-262).

Others overlooked:

· The great, untouchable Gwendolyn Brooks, poet laureate of Chicago. Screw Carl Sandburg. Read “The Pool Players. Seven at the Golden Shuffle.” Then read “In the Mecca.” A great regret of my life is that I never met Ms. Brooks, and that she died (in 2000) without reading To Love Mercy.

· The Jungle, Upton Sinclair’s 1906 expose of conditions at the Chicago Stock Yards that led to passage of the Pure Food & Drug Act and creation of the FDA.

· Anything by Cyrus Colter. Colter, who died in 2002, was a professor at Northwestern. His most-often-cited title is The Beach Umbrella, a story collection. He is said to be one of the best interpreters of the African-American experience. He’s pretty obscure, I’m afraid, but he is high on my must-read list.

· The Spook Who Sat by the Door, Sam Greenlee. I don’t know anything about this one, but if Marilyn Hollman says it’s good, you gotta believe her. More Marilyn picks: Norman McClean (but I thought he wrote about rivers running through things, and I’m sure he wasn’t writing about the Chicago River), Edna Ferber (the Giant lady), and “An American Romance by John Casey, set in Hyde Park and Iowa City — one of the best novels about the Midwest ever.”

· Mr. Achilles by Jeannette Lee (1912). A novel about a Greek immigrant, one I hadn’t heard of until Mairi Breen Rothman brought it to my attention. I Wiki’d it and it sounds like it qualifies for my list.

· Davida Kristy submits The Time Traveler’s Wife by Seena Jeter Naslund, a hot current author. It is set partly in Chicago (the protagonist is a librarian at The Newberry Library!), but I dunno — sounds to me like the Chicago setting is rather incidental. Still, the woman is right about V.I. Warshawski — she’s a P.I., not a cop. I stand corrected. Thanks, Dee.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. Last night I spoke to the book club at the Edgebrook branch of the Chicago Public Library. All but one of the 12-15 attendees had read To Love Mercy. Great questions, great comments. Almost everyone loved it, and for the right reasons. What bliss.

P.P.S. Tonight I’m in the Northtown branch of the CPL (and actually sitting in said library writing this). The topic is “How to get your first book published.” Hope you’ll come out in the rain and catch me — Northtown is at 6435 N. California. Then onward to:

· Barnes & Noble-Old Orchard, Skokie, Thursday Nov. 30, 7 pm
· Borders, 1144 Lake St., Oak Park, Friday Dec. 1, 7 pm
· Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton, Chicago, Saturday Dec. 2, 11 am
· Centuries & Sleuths, 7419 W. Madison, Forest Park, Saturday Dec. 2, 2 pm
· Chicago Sinai Congregation, Sunday Dec. 3, 10:30 am
· Evanston (IL) Public Library, 1703 Orrington Ave., Monday Dec. 4, 7 pm
· Chicago Ridge (IL) Public Library, 10400 S. Oxford Ave., Tuesday Dec. 4, 7 pm
· Blackstone branch, Chicago Public Library, 4904 S. Lake Park Ave., Wednesday Dec. 5, 7 pm

Next Saturday (Dec. 2, 11 a.m.) I’m on a fascinating panel at the Newberry Library with two other Chicago authors who’ve written about their childhoods.

One, Billy Lombardo, a teacher at Chicago Latin School, has written a book of autobiographical short stories, The Logic of a Rose, about growing up Italian in Bridgeport, the mostly-Irish-Catholic working-class neighborhood famed as the home of the Mayors Daley. (Bridgeport also is the neighborhood adjacent to Bronzeville that blacks dared not enter, and is so mentioned in To Love Mercy, my novel).

The other, Elaine Soloway, a public relations consultant, has written a memoir, The Division Street Princess, about growing up Jewish on West Division Street.

I’m reading and enjoying both books. Both are available on Amazon and in bookstores, but I’ll bet you can get an autographed copy by ordering directly from the Newberry bookstore at www.newberry.org/general/bookstore.html.

Our books comprise a small but noteworthy genre — the Chicago book. Here are some others occupying the Fiction portion of this little shelf:

– Native Son by Richard Wright. I can’t say enough great things about Native Son. Written in 1945, it reads like today’s newspaper. Its protagonist, Bigger Thomas, is one of the most chilling, heartbreaking characters ever invented. Bigger’s descent from not-much to nothing-at-all will make you mourn. I wrote about Bronzeville and the black experience as an outsider, but Wright knows it in his soul. Everyone in America ought to read this, the greatest Chicago novel of them all.

– Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser. I haven’t read it. I tried to read something by Dreiser once and found the writing wooden. But my friend David Holden, a keen student of Chicago and many other things, says this is a novel to stick with, whose flaws ought to be tolerated because of its utterly accurate portrait of a young woman in pre-feminist (pre-suffragist for that matter) times, making her way in an unfriendly city.

– It was on David’s say-so that I picked up Young Lonigan, the first book in the Lonigan trilogy by James T. Farrell (Young Lonigan, The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan and Judgment Day). When I was a kid, these novels, written in the ’20s and ’30s, were sold in lurid-covered paperbacks as dirty books. They’re not. I read Young Lonigan recently and it knocked me out. I felt like I was reading a predecessor to To Love Mercy. Studs is an aimless punk, but Farrell knows him inside-out and probes his heart with a scalpel. Although the writing is antiquated in ways, Farrell is a terrific naturalistic writer who’s painted a brilliant psychological portrait. And it’s clear why David was drawn to this book — it’s Irish Catholic Chicago, 60th and Dorchester, Mount Carmel High School, where David grew up.

– The Man with the Golden Arm, Nelson Algren. Algren is one of the great bards of rundown crappy Chicago, a kitchen-sink explorer of the dark side whose heyday was the ’40s and ’50s. He’s written other Chicago books too, but Man with the Golden Arm, about a small-time drug dealer, is the only one I’ve read. It impressed me, but I read it a LONG time ago. Given how much we’ve learned about the drug culture, and the strange and giant role narcotics now play in American life, it would be worth reading Golden Arm again to see how it holds up.

– The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow. Oh boy, what a book. Bellow’s first novel (1953), it follows a Jewish tough-guy from the West Side in his picaresque life. One of the all-time-great opening paragraphs: “I am an American, Chicago born — Chicago, that somber city — and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent.” I think Bellow became a much less interesting writer as he got more famous and more literary; but you’ll never read a novel with more vigor and verve than Augie March.

– The Coast of Chicago, Stuart Dybek. I own this short-story collection but haven’t read it yet. Dybek has a great reputation as a “writer’s writer” — in other words, a lot of talent but not a lot of commercial success. Still, Coast of Chicago was a selection for “One Book One Chicago,” which must’ve sold a lot of copies for Stuart. He mines his childhood growing up Eastern-European-ethnic on the near Southwest Side. (By the way, if anyone out there would like to nominate To Love Mercy for “One Book One Chicago,” the city-wide reading club, please do so by sending an e-mail to 1book@chipublib.org.)

– Crossing California, Adam Langer. Odd, isn’t it, how all these books so far come out of the South and West Sides, the grittiest parts of town? Langer’s coming-of-age novel is an exception. He writes about growing up Jewish in West Ridge and Rogers Park, two areas that used to be heavily Jewish but now, fascinatingly enough, have turned in places into a South Asian bazaar. I started Crossing California and enjoyed it, but my copy was from the library and I didn’t read fast enough. I had to take it back without finishing it. Too bad — it’s funny, bracing and insightful. And it’s contemporary — it came out in 2004.

– Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow. This is the only one of Turow’s novels I’ve read. It was his first, came out in 1987. It is VERY good. Turow is a successful practicing lawyer in Chicago and a former prosecutor. As such, he knows a lot of inside stuff. He puts it to great use in his fiction, which is full of crime dope, but also full of wonderful characters, moving prose, and, most important, profound ethical dilemmas. Jeez, why am I writing this when I could be reading another Scott Turow novel?

– Shadow Ball: A Novel of Baseball and Chicago, by Peter M. Rutkoff. What if the White Sox had been the first major league team to field a black player? Rutkoff, a historian at Kenyon College, imagines it, populating his rich story with people both real and imagined. Among the real, an imperious, double-dealing Chuck Comiskey, owner of the White Sox. Among the imagined: The Negro League hero who makes the leap into the majors; a black blues singer from Memphis whose heartbreaking tragedy is a riveting subplot; and the Jewish fixer who finds himself in the middle. You’ve never heard of this small-press novel, and what a pity; it deserves a wide audience. Order it at http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Ball-Novel-Baseball-Chicago/dp/0786409819/sr=1-7/qid=1164381140/ref=sr_1_7/102-0702894-4718547?ie=UTF8&s=books

This is a REALLY partial list. Some of you probably want to jump me for not mentioning the V.I. Warshawski cop novels of Sara Paretsky (haven’t read them, supposed to be fun). Alex Kotlowitz (There Are no Children Here) writes brave, insightful nonfiction about (again) kids in Bronzeville. David Mamet, a Chicagoan down to his socks, doesn’t set his stuff in Chicago (or anywhere specific, just the State of Anomie), but Chicago is where he learned his tricks. Erik Larson has written a blockbuster book of Chicago history, The Devil in the White City, that  I own but (again) haven’t yet read; everyone I know says it’s great (and South Side again!). Jim Grossman’s Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration, was hugely helpful in the writing of To Love Mercy. (Jim is now director of research at the Newberry Library and my host there. He is also lead author of The Encyclopedia of Chicago, which is selling like hotcakes all around town.) Thomas Cottle’s memoir When the Music Stopped: Discovering my Mother is a wonderful portrait of a slice of the Gold Coast, focusing on a brilliant concert pianist who forsook her career. And who could forget Joseph Epstein? Anyone who could think up a title like Fabulous Small Jews deserves a special spot on anyone’s shelf. Studs Terkel. St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton. Tim Black. Carl Sandburg. Charles Bukowski. Where does one stop?

Well, where does one? What’s your nominee?

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. The Newberry gig is Saturday, Dec. 2, 11 a.m. The Newberry Library is at 60 W. Walton at State Street, on the Gold Coast. Hope to see you there.

P.P.S. Or come to one of these other big apperances next week:

– Barnes & Noble-Old Orchard, Thursday, Nov. 30, 7 p.m. Mary Anne Diehl, community relations manager, is Chi-Town’s author impresario extraordinaire. B&N-OO is the venue for authors in Chicago. This gig is a real honor. This is where Studs reads.

– Chicago Sinai Congregation, Sunday, Dec. 3, 10:30 a.m. I went to Sunday School and was confirmed at Sinai. My mom and dad were married there by Dr. Louis L. Mann, one of Sinai’s illustrious rabbis. I’ve slaved over the Sinai presentation for weeks. I think it’s going to be a good one.

– Borders, 1144 Lake St., Oak Park, Friday, Dec. 1, 7 p.m. Those who’ve been on this list a while know what troubles my publisher has had with Borders in the Chicago area. But this Borders, bless its heart, discovered To Love Mercy on its own and deemed it meritorious enough for a Friday-night appearance.

– Two Chicago Public Library branches — Edgebrook on the far Northwest Side (5331 W. Devon, Tuesday, Nov. 28, 7 p.m.) and Northtown in “Crossing California” country (6435 N. California, Wednesday, Nov. 29, 7 p.m.).

– A feisty independent bookstore, Centuries & Sleuths, in Forest Park on Saturday, Dec. 2 (2 p.m., 7419 W. Madison).

For the past month, this virtual space has hosted a fascinating debate about race in America. My tale of being “trashed by freshmen” at my old high school lit the tinder. But you brought the fuel for the fire. 

Your responses have forced me to consider such questions even more deeply than when I was writing my novel To Love Mercy. What would it take for black and whites to understand each other a bit better? The novel suggests only questions; your responses suggest answers.

It will take honesty, but honesty alone may not be enough. As your responses showed, many whites of good will honestly believe one thing, and many blacks of good will honestly believe the precise opposite. Both sides, while being honest, are talking past one another.

So, in this time of political and social change and rebirth, I’ve worked out the following proposal:

I propose there be declared a National Time of Acknowledgment and Atonement. For a week or a month, or maybe a year — certainly more than a day — all Americans, black and white, and their leaders, would acknowledge that it was cruel, inhuman and unforgivable to enslave the hundreds of thousands of people whose misfortune was to be born with dark skin and enslaved out of Africa centuries ago, the people whom we now call African-Americans or, more simply, blacks.

I would challenge all Americans, white and black, to make a sincere effort to put themselves in the shoes of the other -– to understand and empathize with their present situation and worldview, regardless of whether the whites thought the blacks were right or wrong, or vice versa.

That’s Part I of my proposal. Here is Part II.

That black Americans acknowledge that slavery was a long time ago, that the slave-masters are long dead, and that most white Americans of today probably didn’t even descend from said slave-masters, so it’s pointless and divisive to hold said whites personally responsible for slavery; that many whites today wish to heal the relationship and move forward just as badly as blacks do: and that white Americans in turn acknowledge that even though slavery ended a long time ago, we all live every day with its malign after-effects; and that whites further acknowledge, grieve over, and resolve to work toward ending the continued and continuing discrimination against blacks.

My National Time of Acknowledgment and Atonement would include a resolution on the part of everyone, black and white, to stop making accusations about who did what to whom and who shot first, and accept whatever degree of personal responsibility they feel in their hearts is appropriate. Because accusations, even when true, just get people’s backs up. They shut down the dialogue I’d like to like to start up.

I am not proposing monetary reparations. I think monetary reparations are a terrible idea — unfair, inflammatory, certain to be subject to massive fraud and abuse, and politically about as likely to gain approval as the chances of a snowball surviving two seconds in hell.

But the impulse behind reparations is the right one — that a formal, official acknowledgement of hundreds of years of injustice, plus an expression of remorse that we all, black and white alike, attempt to feel in our hearts, has never been offered; and that it is the necessary first step to healing what divides black from white.

In other words, we will need mercy.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. I’ll be in the Chicago area in just a week and a half. Hope some of you will be on hand to cheer me on –

 

· Tuesday, Nov. 28, 7 p.m. - Edgebrook Branch, Chicago Public Library, 5331 W. Devon Ave., Chicago

· Wednesday, Nov. 29, 7 p.m. - Northtown Branch, Chicago Public Library, 6435 N. California Ave., Chicago

· Thursday, Nov. 30, 7 p.m. - Barnes & Noble, 55 Old Orchard Center, Skokie 

· Friday, Dec. 1, 7:30 p.m. - Borders, 1144 Lake St., Oak Park

· Saturday, Dec. 2, 11:00 a.m. - Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton St., Chicago 

· Saturday, Dec. 2, 2 p.m. - Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore, 7419 W. Madison St., Forest Park

· Sunday, Dec. 3, 10:30 a.m. - Chicago Sinai Congregation, 15 W. Delaware Pl., Chicago

· Monday, Dec. 4, 7:00 p.m. - Evanston Public Library, 1703 Orrington Ave., Evanston

· Tuesday, Dec. 5, 7:00 p.m. - Chicago Ridge Public Library, 10400 S. Oxford Ave., Chicago Ridge

· Wednesday, Dec. 6, 7:00 p.m. - Blackstone Branch, Chicago Public Library, 4904 S. Lake Park Ave., Chicago

This is the thread that will not die.

In case you forgot how it all started, three weeks ago I sent out a post
called “Trashed by freshmen” that recounted how I’d been dissed by a
group of freshmen when I spoke at my old high school, Rich East in Park
Forest IL. Most of those freshmen were black.

The post triggered a heartfelt outpouring from a huge number of
recipients — about 8% of everyone on this list. “Trashed by freshmen
Part II” and “Trashed by freshmen Part III”, mostly edited versions of
those responses, followed.

This time I’m posting yet more extraordinary responses from you.
I had hoped to move on. After all, race relations in America is a heavy
topic. But it’s clear I’m not the only person on this list who cares
deeply about it.

So read these excerpts from the latest batch of e-mails, and stand by.
I’m still polishing my words, but by next week I ought to have ready
my modest proposal for actually moving all of us Americans, black
and white, a few inches forward.

– From a [white female] fellow member of the Rich High Class of ‘58:

“Thursday afternoon I was sitting in my car with my two dogs waiting for
my cousin to come out of a store. A woman (black) came over to my car
to see my dogs and tell me how cute she thought they were. Her name is
Jamie.

“She said she was looking to adopt a Cocker Spaniel. I told her that I
had seen one yesterday at my veterinarian’s clinic who was up for
adoption. She asked me if I would check and see if he was still
available so I called and the receptionist said yes he was still there.

“Jamie went the next day to see the dog and fill out an adoption
application. She loved the dog and wanted to take him home right then.
The tech at the clinic said they could not release the dog until the
doctor checked the application. …

“After a nice conversation with Jamie about our past and present pets,
she asked if it could be a racial thing that she didn’t get the dog. She
said she told her mother she found a dog she loved but they wouldn’t let
her take it home immediately because they have a policy to check out the
application first.

“[Jamie’s] mother asked her if the people at the clinic were white and
when she said Yes, the mother said: ‘Forget it child. You’re not gonna
get the dog.’

“(Jamie isn’t a young girl. She looks to be at least in her 40’s and
she told me she has grandchildren.)

“I called my vet’s office today because I had a question about one of my
dog’s meds, and without telling them that I had talked to Jamie I asked
if a woman ever showed up to see the Cocker Spaniel.

“The tech said yes she had been there and she seemed to be a nice person
and she loved the dog but, until my vet checks with Jamie’s former vet
to see if she’s a responsible pet owner, she will not release the dog.
They told me (but not Jamie) that one of the reasons they want to check
with Jamie’s former vet to see if she’s a responsible pet owner is
because Jamie put on her application that she gave away her last dog.
(I did not and will not tell Jamie what the tech said about her giving
her dog away.)

“So, my questions to you are: Does that sound racist to you? Is racism
really this prevalent? Do you think black people really attribute any
negative reaction to them to be based on race?

“Jamie seems to me to be a nice person and loves dogs (I could be wrong)
and I’m not questioning my vet or her policies. I just hope this
doesn’t turn into some nose-out-of-joint racial crap and the Cocker
Spaniel misses out on a good home.”

– From the [black] woman who sent the email accusing me of being a racist:

“Every white person in this country benefits from keeping blacks and
non-whites down. You get the births, the hospital rooms, the doctors,
the schools, the jobs, and the funeral directors, all at our expense.
… It is amazing that we have been able to work, live, smile, work and
die with all the burdens.

“That [white] guy [who] mentioned when he didn’t join the sit-ins? Of
course not. He, his father, friends, etc. had enjoyed the privilege of
sitting there (and he hadn’t even noticed — which you as a white person
can’t notice — that there were no blacks sitting there eating, living,
working).

“Ninety-eight per cent of [the Veterans Administration] money went to
white soldiers after WWII. Having a house gave them even another leg up
– using as usual government (everyone’s, blacks’) tax money.

“I was thrown out of an Alexandria [VA] (All-American city winner in
1965) restaurant. Jumped up and went to the police station. No help for
Virginia’s tax-paying black citizens there. Had to go to the Federal
level for protection. … Have a friend who lives in Greenbelt [MD],
planned city in 1930s — allowed Jews, no blacks — tax-supported
planned city. Want me to go on?? …

“There are still housing testers. They send a black couple and white
couple separate[ly] — same income, etc. The whites are encouraged,
helped — the blacks are told only of problems. …

“The saddest thing is that you continue to be defensive — just give in
– you live in America — and you’re not open to see, to learn, to
understand the dynamics of privilege.”

– From the [white female] neighbor who told the story about her
husband’s pro bono case:

“My oldest daughter, who is a brilliant scientist, a microbiologist, who
holds a research management position at U.C.L.A. Medical Center,
recently married a brilliant, super overachiever, like herself, a M.D.
who happens to be African-American. My husband and I want our daughter
to be happy and we want grandchildren. That’s our concern. We don’t want
discussions, like this on-line one, to discourage two beautiful people
from adding to the rainbow coalition. By 2049, this country is supposed
to be over 40% dark skinned or mixed race. We’re all mixed race. …

“[M]y new son-in-law … was raised in Chicago in private schools
because he showed early promise of being a prodigy. He is brilliant. His
mother did something right. She got him out of the neighborhood, out of
the ghetto, out of conformity. He has mixed feelings about that but not
too many. He likes his life. He likes being a doctor. He likes making
money.

“Remember Keith Richburg’s book, Out of America? He [Richburg, who is
black] grew up in Detroit. Washington Post bureau chief to Africa, now
with Hong Kong bureau. He wrote, that … he’s glad his ancestors
endured through slavery so that he could enjoy the advantages America
offered him rather than live with what Africa is today. He’s honest.”

– From a [white male] high school guidance counselor:

“I find in schools, that kids who use the racist label to describe
someone, are frustrated by the material that is being presented or they
are on overload. Each year the demands on our childrens’ abilities
increase. … We give kids tools to work with, but don’t give them time
to understand the need for the knowledge. …

“The racist label has lost a lot of meaning for kids. It’s similar to
kids who ask for the car on Friday night and are told they can’t have
it. The response is usually that so and so’s parents give them theirs on
Fridays so you’re a … whatever. Racist can be fit into that sentence
just as easily as any other hurtful expression. But to me, it has lost
the meaning it had in the 1950’s. Racism was overt. Racism was in your
face.”

– From a [black male] fashion model I met at BookExpo America in June:

“America is built off of race and most racism now is more
institutionalized than a burning cross in someone’s yard. And with the
recreation of Blacks during slavery (the Black holocaust) … people
lost languages, culture, identity and family … something you can never
return just like a physical rape … it was similar and … also caused
psychic damage. To read your words knowing American and African
history in the last few hundred years — it seems like a slap in the face.

“If you must continue with this limited view of Black people, please
take me off your email list.”

– From a [white female] guerrilla high-school English teacher:

“I am appalled throughout the [e-mail] responses you received at the
attitudes toward young people. Such hostility and lack of understanding.
If I were a kid, I’d diss them all.”

– From a [white female] author: “I think everyone needs to LIGHTEN UP!
(and I am NOT talking about skin tone). Remember Rule #6. For those who
don’t know, Rule #6 (in Ben Zander’s book, ‘The Art of Possibility’) is.
DON’T TAKE YOURSELF SO GODDAMN SERIOUSLY.”

– From a [white female] bookstore manager:

“This is the kind of conversation — from all sides — that Bill Clinton
was trying to start up with the ‘conversation on race’ (or whatever he
called it). Having grown up in Little Rock, Arkansas, well after the
Central High fiasco, I’ve always believed it is critical to our society
that we have this exchange — with the self-examination that it implies.
Judgmental comments will fly in that conversation, but if we keep
talking — and more importantly, listening — we’ll come out the other
end with greater understanding.”

That’s just what I hope to do.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. Turns out my old buddy Mark Amtower has a radio show, and
last week he interviewed me. It was a warm, friendly exchange –
one of the best broadcast encounters I’ve had to date. The show
was on WBIS-FM in Annapolis MD, a weak signal few people heard
when it was broadcast live. But we’ve posted the interview on our
website. The first half, I talk a lot about my life prior to writing To
Love Mercy. People who don’t know me well might be especially
interested in this portion. The entire interview lasts 40 minutes.
Listen at http://tolovemercy.com/frank_joseph_radio.html

P.P.S. Amazon, damn their eyes, has raised the price of To Love
Mercy again, back to $10.17. It’s still a screaming deal, but hell,
if you’re going to buy a copy, why not buy it directly from me so
I can autograph it for you? Full retail is $14.95, but I only charge
$2 additional for postage (and postage is free on multiple-copy
orders). Such a deal. Send a check ($16.95 single copy) to 5617
Warwick Pl., Chevy Chase MD 20815-5503, or click here:
http://tolovemercy.com/to_love_mercy_online_sales.html

P.P.P.S. In case you’re wondering why Jim Webb won Virginia by a
hair, and Democrats gained control of the Senate, here is the answer.
In the last weeks of the campaign, I sent Jim Webb $250. Who says
one person can’t make a difference?

The responses to “Trashed by freshmen” are inching toward 50, or
about 8% of the 600 or so persons on this list. Talk about touching a
nerve. Last time I gave the teachers their voices. This time, it’s everyone
else’s turn.

To refresh you, the original rant was about my visit to my old high
school, Rich East (formerly Rich Township) in Park Forest IL, where the
demographic has shifted from 100% lily-white middle-class when I lived
there (the ’50s), to heavily, possibly majority, African-American and
not-certain-what-social-class today. At Rich, I had the unpleasant
experiences of (a) being disrespected by a group of mostly African-
American freshmen and (b) being called a racist by a handful of other
African-American students because I’d used the term “white flight” to
describe my (white) family’s move from Chicago’s South Side to “PF.”

The first voices you will hear are, rightly, those of three of my fellow
Rich High graduates.

From the [white] woman who overheard, then challenged, the black kids
who’d called me a racist: “I don’t think it’s possible for anybody from our
class (and probably other classes too) to not notice the ratio of blacks to
whites [at Rich High today]. It’s so different. It’s not bad. It’s not good.
It just is.

“In my opinion, it’s too bad that fact cannot be mentioned without
sounding racist. I don’t know about you but I feel like I have to walk
on eggshells if I talk about race crap so I don’t sound racist but maybe
just mentioning it makes me racist. (I don’t think I am. I never
thought I was.) Who knows.

“I believe way tooooo many people are far too sensitive to comments
about race. Like the kids who took offense at some of your remarks about
‘White Flight’, ‘Cross Burning’, etc. I say you were just stating
facts, making observations and sharing your experiences. Too bad some
of the kids didn’t see it that way. It seems like so many of these kids
have a chip on their shoulder and don’t even know why (i.e., not even
knowing about the Klan or cross burning).

“At the risk of sounding like a really big racist I must say — I don’t
like the fact that blacks can say whatever they please but if whites
speak their mind, ‘They’re Racist!’ I don’t get it. Set me straight …”

From a [white] woman who graduated a few years after me: “I remember
when the first Black family moved to ‘PF.’ As a kid growing up in that
all-white village, I had not been exposed to overt racism until then.
My wonderful mother baked a pan of chocolate chip cookies and brought
them to the new family in an attempt to let them know that not all PFers
were bigots. Though we, too, had left Chicago as part of the so-called
‘white flight,’ my parents’ goal was to offer their daughters a cleaner,
safer environment than we had in the near north side. … I had lost my
lunch money too many times to Beansy and Butch, who hung out in the
viaduct near my school. Beansy and Butch, BB-gun-toting preteens,
were white.

“I was fortunate to be raised by my fiercely liberal and unprejudiced
mother (Dad was another matter). And her lessons of tolerance paid off.
When my older daughter was in nursery school, she came home raving
about her new boyfriend, Charlie, who, she said, had brown eyes, dark
curly hair and a bright blue jacket. The next day, I took Mara to
school and asked to meet Charlie. Charlie was African-American, but
Mara was skin-colorblind.”

From a [white] guy in my graduating class: “I lived through the ’60s and
in fact I was attending Guilford College in Greensboro NC when the first
sit-in took place at the Walgreen Drug Store soda fountain in (was it?)
1959. I must admit that I was not among the first of the white boys to
volunteer to march with them, but then how many of us knew the
importance of the events that took place under our very noses? …
And how many of us took the time to teach our children about it? I
did. We home-schooled our two daughters and made sure that they
knew from whence they came. …

“Methinks that the very ones who call you racist have not taken the
reflective time to really uncover the deeper meanings in your book.
That is, if they have even read it.”

From the [black] woman who responded to my e-mails by accusing
me of being a racist. [Note: We’ve had several exchanges since then
and she seems to have softened somewhat.] “I think things are
somewhat better after the civil rights law of 1965, but so many
blacks, among themselves, are saying that it’s still so bad. And
you never know when you cross ‘the line’ with whites.

“I thought all of this would be over, behind — that you could deal
with people no matter what their color, etc. — but I feel it’s still
really bad. … You don’t know why and when someone doesn’t hire,
speak to, live next to, rent to, sell to, … because whites know not
to write/say/etc. aloud. … It just drives black people to feel as
though they are crazy.”

From a [white] guy I’ve known for many long years in an amazing number
of different connections: “The kids found in the back of the room after
freshman year are there for a reason. A good number of them will stay
antisocial. Some will drift back, but they are all there because a
‘leader’ in their crew, a hopeless loser with charisma, is telling them
that sensible, socialized behavior and achievement are uncool.

“I think the problem lies more deeply. Take away the opportunities that
came with a smaller America, and some kids give up and fail. If at the
same time you take away the risk of starving, then that number of
failures grows, because some people are motivated solely or largely by fear.

“Also, I suspect that those kids who dissed you have nothing to lose
from their behavior. So why not act like you’re bad and they’re so much
better? Hell, they probably do it all the time. It earns points with
their peers.

“One thing you can blame is the emphasis on granting self-esteem where
it’s not earned. In that, both the educational system and inner-city
parents, who scream bloody murder if their kids are granted only the
educational status they earn, are both to blame. I think the
conservatives are right about some things. One reason they don’t want
their kids in public education is the scene you witnessed, in which
ignorant kids feel entitled to trash you. …

“I think you were a bit naive to expect better from inner-city kids, who
have faced little of the racist hardships their parents did (in fact,
they get the opposite: coddling and congratulations AND they are widely
handed the excuse that their problem is racism).”

From a recently retired [white male] clergyman: “When you play your
role, you are pushing emotional buttons that don’t usually get touched,
and may even be unknown. This does not produce a warm fuzzy experience.
(Like: ‘I don’t want to hear that a cross was [burned] on the lawn of
my school. Ever! It makes me too scared and too mad. I hate hearing that.’)

“Finally, there is a difference between people applauding you and people
getting something meaningful that will in the end matter to them. The
first is nice, but the second is important. Try for the meaningful and
withstand the yuk. The cost of making a difference sometimes.”

From a [white female] neighbor: “My husband, a lawyer, represented a
black woman pro bono in a civil case. … My husband was happy to take
the case, especially since it was [his] first-ever jury trial. His joy was
tempered, however, because his client — who obviously wasn’t paying
for his services — did not show up on time for court and had no excuse.
She also was unavailable the day before the trial, when she and my
husband were supposed to go over her testimony, even though they
had agreed on a time.

“He was trying to explain to our daughter, a 24-year-old Ph.D. candidate
in history at Berkeley, what happened. He mentioned the fact that he
thought the primary problem with his client was that hers was a
different culture, one that didn’t always take personal responsibility
seriously. Needless to say, our daughter jumped down his throat and
accused him — and me — of racism. She said that if there was a
difference in ‘culture,’ it was the fault of white people who oppressed
black people. She also blamed the American justice system for
discriminating against blacks. I suggested that we all agree to
disagree, and basically that’s what we did.

“How can we make our children understand what the world is really like?
By the way, my husband won the case, and his client was very grateful.”

From a [black female] Chicagoan, referring to my inability to
understand that black freshmen who stood and responded to my
presentation. I’d said I didn’t think she and I were speaking the same
dialect. My respondent responded: “Her English is your English.
Educational levels aside, the main reasons for your difficulty in
understanding the female student are cadence, inflection and speed.
These characteristics are often cultural and consequently dismissed
as being inferior and unintelligible.

“Now, I am not naive. I know that noun-verb agreements are often flawed
and tenses mangled. However,just as you can understand (because you want
to understand) a newly bilingual Chinese immigrant who epitomizes the
‘American Dream’, so can you understand a moderately intelligent
African-American teenager impaired by dreamless nights. It really boils
down to familiarity and motivation.

“I was saddened by this anecdote. The fact that this girl had the
fortitude to stand up amongst her peers and ask a question during a
non-popular activity was overshadowed by your fear of failure. The focus
was on the clarity of her speech versus the fact that she was empathetic
to your plight and was trying to help. I hope she did not sense your
condescension.

“I write this in the spirit of intellectual exchange, not judgement.”

From a [white] guy whom I’ve known since City News Bureau days:

“I am filled with rage at the idea that these young punks should think
that you are a racist. … The fact is, the biggest threat to African-
Americans today is certainly not racism. Racism is a distraction, a
sideshow. The main event — the real enemy — of African-Americans
is African-Americans themselves. …

“Black people are not living up to their end of the bargain. They are
blaming other people — including you, of all people — for failures that
they largely responsible for and which they can remedy. It is not racism
that causes kids to drop out of school. It is failure of nerve. It is surrender.
It is sloth. It is accidie. It is the sin against the holy ghost.

“It is, I believe, depression. The self-destructive behavior — the suicides,
the shootings, the drug abuse, the teen-pregnancy, all the rest of it. …
I once mentioned this to a public-health professional and suggested that
black high school kids be given anti-depressants. She said I might be onto
something.”

From a [white] guy, a lawyer and fair-housing activist in the Chicago
area: “Don’t let the kids get you down. They are children — and they
are pretty much uneducated when it comes to the sociology of race. They
are quick to call ‘racist’ phenomena they don’t understand. They pretty
much don’t have a clue as to what Malcolm X or Martin Luther King were
all about (nor do most Caucasians of any age). Not to get too down on
them, but teen-agers of any race and social class by and large don’t
give a damn about much outside of their immediate environment and
experience.

“And when you write or speak about racial issues, something is seriously
wrong if nobody calls you ‘racist’ at least once in a while.”

This same guy offered the definitive word on that pesky term “white
flight.” Let’s close with it, and my thanks to all of you — friends,
acquaintances, supporters, critics — for your outpouring of response
on this topic:

“Good gads, there is nothing, absolutely nothing racist about the term
‘white flight,’ nor was it a term created by blacks. It’s a technical
term from basic sociology to describe one of the parts of the racial
resegregation of a community from all-white to all-black. Most
neighborhoods that resegregate experience white flight in which a
disproportionately large percentage of white residents leave the
neighborhood due to the in-migration of African-American households.
During this period landlords tend to rent exclusively to blacks — even
refusing to rent to whites — because they can extort a higher rent from
African-Americans while cutting back on maintenance (because rental
conditions are much worse within the black ghetto — bet the kids would
call [the term] ‘ghetto’ racist too, the ignorant children that they
are). Drop by http://www.planningcommunications.com and download …
‘Ending American Apartheid …’ It gives you excruciating detail on how
this all worked and continued to work.”

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. I’ll be back in Chicago in less than four weeks. I’ll be appearing at
Barnes & Noble-Old Orchard, Borders-Oak Park, Centuries & Sleuths-
River Forest, Chicago Sinai Congregation, the Newberry Library, plus
five public library branches in Chicago, Evanston and Chicago Ridge.
If you can make it to any of these appearances, I’d love to see you.
Mark your calendar now. Check my exact schedule at
http://tolovemercy.com/frank_joseph_appearances.html.

P.P.S. Vote Tuesday as if your life depended on it. Because it does.