Things Remembered: I Don't Understand Black America

I don't understand Black America. There, I finally said it. I don't understand Black America or Black Americans.

Growing up in Odessa, because my father ran a service station, blacks were in my life from the time I was 6. As I recalled, there were always two men, one worked as the car washer and the other worked in the grease bay. When they were not working in the bay, they made service calls, and waited on the front. They always worked hard. Mom hired a house keeper/cleaner who she trusted to clean, cook and supervise three boys(which Mom would tell you was no small feat). When I look back, I remember three short snippets. I remember never, never being called “Mike” by any of our black employees. I think it was instead preferenced with “Mr.” It was the way of things. I remember Mae cooking a meal for me and having put it on the table, did not sit down and eat with me. I pressed her on why she would not sit with me and eat with me, and all she could say, “It's not done.”

Of course, years later continuing to the present, I would learn about the chronic life choking disease with which America afflicted itself and continues to suffer the ravages of called “slavery.” It is a cancer which began as the foundations were laid and a whole group of people, a huge group of people were ignored regarding the civil rights we enshrined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. It is one of the reasons I reject the revisionist narrative that America was founded as a “Christian nation.” Our founding fathers were men like us full of courage and clay, willing to fight the British but afraid to fight slavery. It became a cancer on the soul of America.

This is what I don't understand. I understand why Minneapolis is burning, I understand why Watts burned and there was rioting and looting. What I don't understand is why there are not more. I don't understand why we have moved at glacial speed to address this social scourge.

You could say, my going to prison was my real education on Black America. See link below (http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/05-02_REP_TXRaceImprisonment_AC-RD.pdf )
I found in the prison in which I ran the Mental Health Department about 70% non white offenders primarily Latino and African American. Over the nearly 7 years I was there, I got a profoundly sobering look into the African American family and culture. Frankly, it was not a culture of hope but a culture of violence, of unfocused rage, and sadly, incredibly fractured families. I carry in my heart the stories of some of these men and grieve over some of the choices they made, the incredible brokenness that comes from a culture of prejudice and unreachable opportunities. It must be like a children looking through the window of a candy store eyes big with all the choices, mouth savoring, thoughts of favorite choices, but finding the door locked but realizing even if it were not locked, the child had no money to buy what their eyes feasted upon.

I regret deeply I lost track of a young father who came to my “psych” cell shortly after I arrived at Polunsky. I stopped by at the end of the day and took too long to talk to him. It broke my heart and still does to this day. He was from Lubbock, attending Texas Tech, married with a young son. He was black. He had not been at Polunsky long or even in the system long, but it was enough to break him. Men don't weep in prison. He wept. And wept and wept. His life was in ruins, his son left without a father, He had tried his whole life to do it “right.” And now he was in prison for a crime he did not commit. It had become too much and he gave into despair. I don't remember the nature of his suicidal behavior, whether it was just thinking about it, telling a security guard, or an attempt. All I remember was I saw a broken man without hope. I remember having absolutely nothing to say from my storehouse of empathetic statements from 30+ years of working with people in difficult places. What I remember was it was about 6:00 in the evening, our staff was supposed to have left at 4:30 but all I could say was, “I am going to sit with you a while, if you don't mind.” So I sat down on the cold floor, pulled out my ever present hankie and he wept and I wept. And I prayed for wisdom.
We had 3,000 offenders which were constantly being moved around. You might ask, how do you remember that one. Well, because all these years later, after working with all the offenders I worked with, the suicidal patients who were manipulating(it is the way of prison) and insincere, I remember this young father and husband but I still believe, he was truly broken. And telling his story still hurts my heart.