The recent disaster that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia, has sparked strong emotions and brought back important memories of the past for me. Watching American citizens marching through the streets of an American city waving flags with swastikas drawn on them while said marchers loudly screamed the venomous words used by groups like the Ku Klux Klan, White Nationalists, White Supremacists and others was not a happy moment for me.
I grew up with a dad who gave me a view of our world far different from the racist, anti-Semitic and bigoted humans that have long lived on this earth. He never lectured me about the need for humans to treat each other with dignity and respect, he led by example.
One example that will always speak to me was an experience he had with his work. My dad started out as a shoe salesman in Philadelphia and over a period of thirty years, he worked his way up to the top position in the company. When, in 1955, he was named as the executive director of the company that ran eight separate shoe stores in the Philadelphia area, my dad did something that no other person in that company ever had done. Until then, people of color were limited to two kinds of work for the company; running an elevator and shining shoes. When my dad became the executive director, he hired a number of people of color as shoe salesmen for a number of the stores. That was the good news. The bad news followed four years later when in 1959 and prior to the civil rights law of 1964, my dad’s company was sold by the owners to a shoe manufacturer, and a short time thereafter, all of the black shoe salesmen were fired.
At that point, my dad left the company and after a while, he opened up his own shoe store. He also took the time to teach me a lesson. He taught me that all of us humans, every one of us, are 99.9% the same. We have the same body structure, the same internal body parts and the same brain. The color of the skin of any human, my dad taught me, amounted to such a miniscule difference when comparing one to another of us. Therefore, my dad taught me, judge others based upon their actions and not upon their looks, their religion or the color of their skin.
I love my country, my America, and I am hoping that the vast majority of our American citizens, many of whom claim to be deeply religious, will stand up, in a strong and peaceful way against the viciousness of racism and every other form of bigotry that holds no legitimate place in a nation that was created to welcome to its shores all people who were willing to accept what is found in our Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
I grew up with a dad who gave me a view of our world far different from the racist, anti-Semitic and bigoted humans that have long lived on this earth. He never lectured me about the need for humans to treat each other with dignity and respect, he led by example.
One example that will always speak to me was an experience he had with his work. My dad started out as a shoe salesman in Philadelphia and over a period of thirty years, he worked his way up to the top position in the company. When, in 1955, he was named as the executive director of the company that ran eight separate shoe stores in the Philadelphia area, my dad did something that no other person in that company ever had done. Until then, people of color were limited to two kinds of work for the company; running an elevator and shining shoes. When my dad became the executive director, he hired a number of people of color as shoe salesmen for a number of the stores. That was the good news. The bad news followed four years later when in 1959 and prior to the civil rights law of 1964, my dad’s company was sold by the owners to a shoe manufacturer, and a short time thereafter, all of the black shoe salesmen were fired.
At that point, my dad left the company and after a while, he opened up his own shoe store. He also took the time to teach me a lesson. He taught me that all of us humans, every one of us, are 99.9% the same. We have the same body structure, the same internal body parts and the same brain. The color of the skin of any human, my dad taught me, amounted to such a miniscule difference when comparing one to another of us. Therefore, my dad taught me, judge others based upon their actions and not upon their looks, their religion or the color of their skin.
I love my country, my America, and I am hoping that the vast majority of our American citizens, many of whom claim to be deeply religious, will stand up, in a strong and peaceful way against the viciousness of racism and every other form of bigotry that holds no legitimate place in a nation that was created to welcome to its shores all people who were willing to accept what is found in our Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
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