 Ed Garren, thinker, writer and traveler. By Ryan Gierach. |
After Lunch at Wall Drug in Wall South Dakota, we resumed our travels. We drove south to see the four men on the mountain. Mt Rushmore now has a large complex of buildings, parking structures, a grand concourse leading to an amphitheater facing the mountain.
All of this grandeur is built of gray stones and concrete. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt all represent important aspects of the evolution of our constitutional republic. My friend and I, both historians, agreed that the next face on the mountain should be FDR, who was perhaps the most significant president of the 20th century.
Branded a communist by his detractors, FDR embodied most of what the Democratic Party is beginning to re-discover. Franklin understood the importance of having a chance to do productive work. After polio left him in a wheel chair, he wrestled with his future, and the possibility of continuing his work in politics. When he expressed his fear of failing to his wife, Eleanor simply replied, "Then don't fail."
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Eleanor truly was the wind beneath Franklin's wings. Growing up with an alcoholic father, and not being of beautiful face, she learned early the value of hard work, independence and service. It was Eleanor who first told America that the rest of the world was mostly non-white, and closely watching America to see how we treated people of color here. As first ambassador to the United Nations, she staunchly fought for human rights, equality, economic justice, and by her own personal example, the equality of women.
After leaving Mt. Rushmore, we drove on to Crazy Horse mountain. The monument to him started as a dream of the elders of the Sioux nation, to memorialize one of their own. It quickly took on a larger scope, a memorial to all Native American peoples, and their quest for dignity and equality. The monument is a privately funded endeavor, which refuses all government funding. Ironically, the family of the sculptor (who is now deceased), are all pale, blonde and on the outside very "white." Their dedication to completing their father's work stems not just from love of family, but something else that these mountains inspire, a love of truth. The monument is a large expression of remorse for the losses of the Native Americans at the hands of the whites who overran their lands.
 Shopkeeps in Wall. |
Crazy Horse, a deeply spiritual man, led his people in rebellion because he would rather be dead than compromise his dignity or freedom. He was stabbed in the back while bearing a white flag of truce negotiating a peace treaty.
I left a large donation for the work, feeling much more akin to Crazy Horse than the four men on the other mountain. They aren't bad men, but theirs is not the only story to be told.
After supper in Custer South Dakota, we headed west on a two lane road for Cody Wyoming. About twenty miles before Cody, we passed a large fenced in area with a gate. A large truck was poised to enter the road as we passed. The signs on both the truck and gate sent chills through me, "Halliburton."
The truck passed us down the highway, it's workmen inside probably oblivious to our political persuasions, but when we stopped for the night, Bob and I talked about our reactions. We both had a brief flash of the possibility of being "vaporized" by some experimental death ray, reserved for "uppity faggots" in Wyoming, Dick Cheney's home state. It was humor to veil fears, the constant fear that anyone who is "different" lives with in any society.
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It's this "White" thing. Bob is the retired gay police officer that I mentioned in an earlier article. He's the one who talked about being a minority at work and dealing with a glass ceiling so low he could never get off of his knees. We both decided that neither of us felt particularly "White."
Physically, he's darker than my pink skinned, silver haired, blue eyed self. I get to play camouflage with my "cover." Bob passes for Latino until he opens his mouth.
 Photo by Mikel Gerle. |
P>I occasionally have conversations with white people about the nuances of difference, the powerful aspects of being "them" (not us), particularly with regard to race. What I find amazing is that most white southerners are very conscious of class and race, and all the issues pertaining to it. Most white non-southerners seem oblivious to the whole thing. It's some version of, "I just don't understand why ("they") feel/act the way they do?" When I try to explain, I am usually countered with the proverbial, "Yes but." In shrink school, we call it the "ya-butts", the automatic deflection of the other persons experience or pain. It's something people do all the time. We don't want to feel another person's pain, our own is enough. Most "minority" people never share this stuff outside of their group. Doing so is an exercise in futility.
In the 70s, one of the issues often talked about was white male "privilege". It's rarely discussed anymore, but the issues haven't changed much. In my own case, I've never felt very "white." Let me explain.
To me "White" is a state of mind. It usually accompanies skin color, but not always. It is much more about not questioning the status quo, accepting what one is told about how things work, participating in the power structure, cooperating with "the system." It is also about the abuse of power, either abusing it, or looking the other way when someone else is being abused. It is selling out to the material world at the expense of the spiritual one. It is making the pursuit of "an easier, softer way" the focus of one's life, even if it means selling one's soul.
Perhaps the consummate example of this in our time is the current Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice. Regardless of her complexion, she is the "Whitest" woman in Washington these days.
 Photo by Mikel Gerle. |
None of us like to contemplate how closely we live to our own oppression. I suspect it's why some members of minority groups "sell out", like some say Dr. Rice has done. It's like the closeted Gay men in positions of power who aggressively abuse and vilify Gay and Lesbian persons, Roy Cohn being another glaring example. If you don't know who Roy was, watch either "Citizen Cohn" or "Angels in America."
"If you can't lick em, join em" seems to have been the way to live since Ronald Reagan and the 1980s. It has made for some very strange politics.
I suspect this relates to the country's recent love affair with greed. Everywhere I have traveled words like "upscale", "limited", "for a select few" and of course "luxury" are used to sell everything from places to live to groceries. No one seems content with comfort and utility anymore. We want excess and the illusion of privilege. From our love affair with the SUV, all of the other excesses of our society, we have become a very gluttonous nation, obsessed with presumptuous consumption.
I guess that the ascent of Dr. Rice to the Bush cabinet merely proves that anyone can suck their way up to the top these days. Just play to the wealthy and powerful and become oblivious to those who get left behind. Villainize the poor and the downtrodden, make them pay for the sins of poverty and lack of access to privilege, "after all, they just don't have any initiative. It's their fault."
Granted Dr. Rice has education and is intelligent, but so do a lot of other black women in the United States, most of whom find her situation abhorrent and repulsive, the ultimate sell out of her race.
A recent documentary on CNN about the breakdown of intelligence with regard to the decision to declare war on Iraq talked over and over again about how any of President Bush's advisors who didn't tell him what he wanted were either asked to resign or fired. Most of those fired were white men.
 Photo by Mikel Gerle. |
A friend recently told me about last Monday night's West Hollywood City Council meeting. The friend vividly described his disgust over watching various "leaders" in town declare their sorrow about Abbe's recent loss, blaming outside forces and influence, praising her for running a "clean" campaign, and even saying that if she had not run a clean campaign she would have won.
I've repeatedly stated, even before I was a candidate for city council three years ago, what is "clean" about encouraging homelessness in a city that was created to protect renters from land owner greed? Clearly the agenda of the majority on city council is to displace the lower and middle classes in the city and replace them with people who can afford $800,000 "luxury" condos. A few token "affordable" units may be built, to be handed out as political favors to those who chant praises to The Empire. Perhaps that explains the litany of praise last Monday night.
Many in the city find it interesting that one member of the chorus recently "won" a lottery to move into a highly visible affordable unit. No one seems to know when the lottery was held, who witnessed it, who managed it.
But the whole country seems in love with the concept of greed these days. For me it has become the new "white", people who are out of touch with their own oppression, and are only concerned with beating out everyone else in order to "get ahead". When China pulls the plug on all this cheap credit, and the Bush war bill comes due, it's going to be a very ugly mess. As Whoopi Goldberg said recently, "When the shit hits the fan, it lands on everybody."
There is hope however. I recently discovered iAva Lowery, a 15 year old white girl from Auburn Alabama. Ava has put up a web site called "Peace Takes Courage" (www.peacetakescourage.com). In it she clearly and eloquently underscores the current hypocrisies of the war in Iraq and the Bush administration.
I encourage you to take a look at her work, and the consciousness that has created it. Ironically, she is white and southern. I guess "White" isn't so white anymore.
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There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times - Molly Ivins.
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Edward "Ed" Garren, MFT, is a Family Therapist, justice activist, former West Hollywood City Council candidate, writer and sojourner. He is originally from the Tampa Bay area of central Florida. Ed has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Frontiers news magazine, and other books, including "Out of My Mind,” a pictorial memoir by Kris Nelson. He is currently working on a book about Addiction in America.
Ed Garren can be reached, even in the Red America’s wilds, at