Archives for January 2012

“We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.” I Have A Dream- Martin Luther King Jr.

She asked me if the Ku klux Klan shot Dr. King in the head or the chest.  I looked at this child of mine and marveled at the intensity in her eyes and watched her fingers flex the same way mine do when I am angry.

My girl, my daughter is outraged. She is angry and she wants answers. In a few days I am going to visit school to see the performance they are doing about Dr. King. She knows the name of the man that murdered him and she wants to know if he was part of the KKK.

She knows about Rosa Parks and she wants to know what I did about this. She wants to know if I tried to help her. She understands that we don’t live in the South and that I haven’t ever lived there, but still she wonders. She wonders because it is inconceivable that people could treat others this way.

At 7.5 she doesn’t completely understand that many of the seminal events of the civil rights movement took place before I was born. She is so angry about it she doesn’t remember that King was assassinated in ’68 and that I was born in ’69. But she is confident that I wouldn’t stand for any of these things and that I would have helped.

Painful Conversations

This conversation we have is easier than it was the first time but still uncomfortable. The first time was with her older brother and it was a bit more challenging because I wasn’t quite sure how to explain some things. Time and experience have helped me this time but it doesn’t remove the bitterness of watching layers of innocence disappear.

She has learned that not everyone is nice. She has learned that people will commit heinous acts towards others for reasons that no  one can really explain. She knows of hate and I can’t make jokes about it leading to The Dark Side.

And because she isn’t the oldest she benefits from his experience. He tells her a few stories he knows and she asks me about gas chambers and whether people really murder babies.  We talk about things and I work hard to confirm and clarify that she has accurate information.

The gas chamber isn’t related to this and she knows that. But she wants to know who comes up with that idea. She doesn’t get it. We have a Black president so it doesn’t make sense to her these stories she hears. I have her permission to beat people up who are mean and don’t let people sit where they want to on the bus.

Dad Says

We talk again about why we judge people and how. I look at her and make sure she understands that her dad says we judge people based upon how they act and nothing else but I know there are inconsistencies and questions on her mind.

I know that she is watching and listening. I know that she is wondering and looking for answers that are Black and White without shades of gray.

She tells me that the play they are doing at school quotes a famous speech about dreams and wants to know what I think. I tell her that I wish it was the speech that Martin Luther King Jr. never wrote and she asks why. “Because I wish that it was never needed or necessary.”

Her head nods and she says she agrees and then she tells me that it did happen so we need to remember it.  She is right about that. We remember the past so that we don’t make the same mistakes. I am proud of her but still there is a little piece of me that feels sad that she has to learn about this, innocence only lasts so long and I wish that I could protect hers just a little bit longer.

The dark haired beauty loves to dance, she always has.  I can’t tell you exactly when her love for dancing and music started but she and I have been dancing together forever.

We started when she was just a baby. I would put the theme to the Godfather on and then twirl around the room with her.

When she was about four or five she asked if I we would use that song to dance to at her wedding. I don’t know when or exactly why I chose that particular song. It might have been playing on iTunes or maybe it was a day when she was teething. I just know that it is something that she and I have always danced to.

Some years later she and her cousins danced to the ‘Butterfly song.” We heard it at a family party and for a while it was her favorite.

Sometimes I would just sit and watch her dance. She was joy incarnate.

Shuffling

That girl of mine has grown older and been exposed to all sorts of different music. She still loves the songs that she has always listened and danced to but new ones have come up. Time at summer camp and birthday parties has exposed her to all sorts of stuff.

Now she likes to try to teach me the new moves she has picked up and or learned. She wants me to learn how to “Shuffle” with her.

Sometimes I walk in the house and I find her and her brother dancing to this. They have more sense of rhythm than I have ever had. Actually that isn’t completely true, I hear the music, I feel the music but my body doesn’t move quite as smoothly.

Grace and I are often at odds. I am built for demolition.

When I play team sports like basketball and football I am given the blue collar grunt work. Need someone to rebound, protect the quarterback or take out an offensive lineman and I am your guy.

But not my kids, they float- and I love that.