7 Quick Takes Friday #8

This has been another week of tripping. So much has sped by so fast that I cannot believe that it is time again already to contribute to the 7 Quick Takes Friday meme hosted by Jennifer at Conversion Diary. So, here goes with a quick review of the life of a gypsy, as I seem to have become.

1. Friday saw me in Georgia, where I did some training for the employees of a branch of our organization. They usually get trained trainers, people who are assigned to our training division, but I love training, so I had picked a particularly difficult problem for them and had put it into an interactive, case-study format for reflection and discussion. They clearly enjoyed it because they begged to work late to do more of the problems that I had brought. For me, doing some training along with my “inspection” time takes the sting off the visit by the “big boss” and lets me get to know our branch personnel as individuals. I did feel somewhat embarrassed before them because I come so rarely (once every 1-2 years) that I could not remember all their names, but they forgave me for that. They left with hugs and the comment that now that Lizzie lives close by perhaps I would come more often. It is nice to be wanted. It is nice to have people ask for more of my time, not less of it! It is nice to be viewed not as the “big boss” but as the “great supporter.”

2. The weekend was lovely. I spent it with Lizzie and Blaine just over the line in South Carolina, where Blaine seems to meet with some anti-Mexican prejudice but is holding his own nonetheless and claims to be generally happy there. Lizzie came to my rescue through a shopping trip. I always forget something when I pack. This time it was my underwear. Given a week-long trip, that definitely needed to be replenished. Princesse, the cat from Tunis (see Twitterlets on the sidebar) who had been flattened by a falling mattress was, Lizzie thought, ready to have the wire removed from her jaw, so we went together to pick her up from the vet after Lizzie had dropped her off enroute to my hotel. No such luck! A slow healer, Princesse has to wait another three weeks. She is not quite herself. She usually attacks visitors – I guess she thinks she is a dog – but she calmly let me pick her up and pet her. Perhaps having had to rely on humans for a lot of support the past two months will have mellowed her permanently. That would be a positive outcome although Lizzie says she thinks it is the feisty spirit that brought her through when the vet was uncertain whether she would survive. At any rate, the weekend was a great joy and success, except for the hour I spent with Lizzie at her gym – I still hurt! It is difficult for mothers to keep up with daughters. Perhaps I should not try!

3. Supper on Sunday was a special event. We ate at a Mexican restaurant in South Carolina, so we did: Lizzie, Blaine, the director of our Georgian branch, his wife, his immediate supervisor who had traveled east with me, and me. The branch director has always been cautious around me, and therefore it has been difficult to get to know him. His wife, on the other hand, turned out to be a pleasant extrovert who had no hesitation in plunging into any topic at hand. She, for whom my rank was meaningless, and I clicked, as they say, and that, along with the ease in atmosphere quickly established by Blaine and Lizzie, led to the director, for the first time ever, lowering his affective filter, enjoying the dinner, and losing his caution in my presence. That changed relationship was evident during our next-day meetings. He had apparently been reluctant to bring his wife. I am certainly glad that he chose on the side of lack of caution.

4. Tuesday found me in Alabama, where I met a long-time friend who has recently moved to a center that is co-located with our Alabama branch. That evening our branch employees and I went to dinner at a seafood restaurant -- well, almost went to dinner. Right after our appetizers were delivered, the restaurant kitchen caught on fire, and we were all chased out into the street. The fire trucks came while we waited and then finally the manager said it would be another hour or two and forgave us our bills. That was not the way I would have wanted to get a free meal! Actually, the situation was a tad more complex. Everyone wanted to march off to another restaurant as soon as we had egressed from the restaurant, but "ruthless ethical" me (as I have sometimes been called insisted that we wait until we had a decision from the manager as to whether we should pay for the meal. We ended up with a free meal (or start of it) nonetheless, but with clear consciences, which can be more nourishing than food.

5. While at our branch office, I ran into someone who worked in another corridor, a very special corridor not occupied by anyone from my organization. It was a special program for school students about space travel. NASA helped set it up, and astronauts come periodically to help make presentations on space to school students. (NASA's involvement in K-12 education impressed me when I was working at NASA-Houston ten years ago, and it still impresses me.) This particular project had put together a relief of the Mars surface in a special room made to feel like you are in outer space, and the students build their own rovers. The overseer of this project had a background in engineering. How ideal! More ideal -- he exuded excitement in the possibilities of children to explore outer space either later in life as astronauts or right now on a mock planet.

6. After 11 hours of flying, I made it back home to California Wednesday evening -- yippee! -- just in time for an evening of Bible study with the group I meet with each week that includes Sr. M, a family who attends the Spanish mass at Old Mission church, several active attendees of the English masses, and two fellow secular Franciscans. Ah, that is what I love about California, the blending of various population groups, where we can learn from each other and grow together. Wednesday night we also had a special Bible scholar guest. While it had been a long day, following my late-to-bed-early-to-rise sleepless start of the day as a result of our late-night Tuesday search for a restaurant that was not on fire, the interesting discussions that ensued at our study group kept my attention flowing when I otherwise might easily have ebbed into sleep.

7. Today I had off from work! Yeah! I love when I have off from work and am in town because I can attend the daily mass. I had to drop off something for our Thanksgiving outreach at the parish office, did not talk as long as often I do, and so ended up in the chapel a few minutes early (a rare occurrence). Sr. M grabbed me as I came in and asked if I would do the reading. (Sure. I always remember the readings better when I am the one doing the reading! Who doesn't?) After mass, I spent a leisurely afternoon over coffee (for her) and milk (for me) with a fellow parishioner whom I had not seen for a long time. She is, in fact, the parishioner who always helps out with RCIA and had been very supportive for me during my time in RCIA. She told me that she had signed up for clean-up after the church-sponsored, town-wide Thanksgiving dinner next week because I am always on the clean-up crew and it had been too long since she had had a chance to work with me. Since she usually helps with something other than clean-up, I felt very honored. Finally, the perfect day off ended with catechism class. Since I had not expected to complete my work in Alabama so quickly, I had not expected to be back in time to teach catechism, but, lo, there I was! My wonderful co-teacher had the lesson plan under control, and I could relax and enjoy interacting with the teenagers. (I just found an interesting book that I am eager to begin including in our class work: If God Loves Me, Why Can't I Get My Locker Open?).

And now, I think I had better follow the drift that has been carrying me while I have been writing this post forth and back, to and from the land of slumber. At this point, I shall only sally forth into slumber and wait until morning for any return to a life and day that will start with 503 emails to be answered (I peeked!)

Good evening -- or good day, as it may be in your part of the world, and my God bless you whatever time it is!

DWM: Driving While Mexican

Years have passed -- 35 of them, to be precise -- since I trained at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina as an initial entry soldier. I went on, over time, to receive a direct commission and become an officer, leaving behind enlisted days (though I benefited from that experience tremendously) and South Carolina. I have not been back until this year -- earlier to visit our Columbia-area campus briefly and today to visit my daughter Lizzie and my son-in-law Blaine. Lizzie and Blaine have been living in southern South Carolina now for three months. While they like it, they have run into a phenomenon with which they had never had to contend while living in California: racial discrimination.

Lizzie, my little professor (another Dr. Mahlou), reports that her classrooms contain mixed races who work together peaceably but self-segregate, with African Americans sitting on one side of the classroom, Caucasians on the other, and the others in the middle. She has talked to them about desegregation in their classroom, but they insist on sitting with their friends -- and their friends generally come from the same ethnic/racial group. Lizzie, who has found this voluntary segregation to be disconcerting, has intermixed them for projects, but for regular lecture-listening, they go back to their color-coded seats. By comparison, Lizzie grew up in an area that was racially blended, not merely mixed. As a result, her two closest girlfriends were Hispanic and Asian, and her boyfriends were (in order) African American, Hispanic, African American, Caucasian, Hispanic. She married Blaine, who is Hispanic. Typical Californians, my other children also grew up racially blind. Shane also married Hispanic, and Noelle's significant other, Ray, is African American. Donnie is as Caucasian as they come, and I am mostly Caucasian with a drop of Native American blood that "took" as far as my facial features are concerned.

Years ago when Lizzie graduated from the University of California at San Diego, President Clinton (in office at the time) asked to be the graduation speaker. (That created an interesting atmosphere for graduation: thorough searches and secret service men armed with machine guns sitting on the rooftop overlooking the graduation field.) For unknown reasons, President Clinton had chosen UCSD as the place to roll out his diversity policy. Lizzie and her classmates found the president's speech odd as they looked around the graduation rows and could hardly find any two students of the same race sitting together. Now, seeing the situation here in South Carolina in which the Caucasians generally hold the best jobs, the African Americans generally work in the service field, and the Mexicans constitute the labor pool (of course, not 100% of the time, but the general tendency is in this direction), she understands why the president felt a need for a diversity policy.

Blaine, however, feels the small prejudices the most because he is of Mexican descent. He gets pulled over by the police about once a week for unknown reasons. They run his license or plates and then let him go without explanation. He is convinced that he is pulled over for DWM (what he calls "Driving While Mexican") which cannot, of course, be fined. He drives the kind of car that Caucasians typically drive, and he dresses in ways that the Caucasians generally dress. He holds a supervisory position within the university system, and so he talks the way that Caucasians generally talk. He was born and raised in California; he did not know that he was supposed to act differently from the mainstream population. When Lizzie's department chair met Blaine briefly, she reacted mostly to his skin color. Trying to help Lizzie decide to accept the job offer, an acceptance that would be based on Blaine finding a job, the chair mentioned that Lizzie should talk to one of the sociology professors who had done a lot of research on the immigrant pool in South Carolina. When Lizzie explained that Blaine was not an immigrant, that he had been born and raised in the USA (albeit to parents who were Mexican immigrants), the chair amended her response to note that this sociology professor speaks Spanish. She did not know how to respond when Lizzie said that Blaine does not.

One wonders if this kind of thinking is a legacy from pre-Civil War days. Does attitude last a century and a half?

Lizzie and Blaine yearn to come back to California where their mixed-ethnicity marriage is common. There is value, though, I believe in remaining in South Carolina and being an example (maybe even trend-setter) to others.

Yes, I know that all people from South Carolina -- as all people anywhere -- are not necessarily alike. Still, I am praying for the SC police force to look past skin color and stop unfairly pulling Blaine over for DWM.

I would love to hear from any South Carolinians. Is my/our perception wrong? Is there some explanation that I do not know? Please weigh in!