My First African

I know, sounds racist as hell, right? That's what this post is about, an exploration of my growing from no awareness of the topic to where I've gotten now. Growing up in "white bread Minnesota", as I think of it, there were no encounters and little information other than books.

While I was still a toddler my parents moved our family out of Minneapolis to a resort up in Hubbard County, then later into a nearby town, Park Rapids. No black people lived there, nor brown, nor yellow that I was aware of. Yeah, not PC labels, but that was way back then. It was still too soon after WWII to call Japanese anything but Japs and it wasn't in a nice way. We did have "redskins" however, the locals being Ojibwe, referred to as Chippewa. Mostly they still lived on the reservation, so I only saw them two ways. In school was the first. The second happened once, when I had a morning doctor's appointment. The car passed a bar where there were several men sleeping on the sidewalk outside. Having never seen anything like that, I asked about it. I was told they were Drunk Indians, those two words summing up their whole identity. End of story. It was how they were seen.

My own personal encounter involved the Boswell sisters. I was dimly aware of Phyllis, being in my grade. This particular afternoon I was walking home from school through the park where the local beach was. The beach was now closed and I was the only person there, until the three girls appeared. Unprovoked, they surrounded me and began shoving and hitting me. Being naive - aka stupid - I thought reasoning with them could keep me out of any further trouble, so I kept asking them why they were doing this. They only repeated that I knew what I had done. I didn't fight back, not just because I had no clue how, but it was, after all, three against one. Eventually they quit and left, whether from lack of further justification to continue, or just boredom. I never told my parents, 1) sure they would say it was my fault, a common pattern, and 2) having sustained only minor bruises that I figured I could hide from them, and a lingering bewilderment.

As an adult looking back on the incident, I figure the sisters were "paying it forward", the only way they could to deal with their surrounding society "keeping them in their place" with all the problems that imposed on their lives. I have long since forgiven them, hoping they have found what they need in their lives. They have never been forgotten, however, although they don't take up much space in my emotional life. A post on this topic brings it all back for a while as I struggle with how to accurately depict it.

Aside from that, the most exotic that people got in my world were from slightly different versions of Christianity. Being Methodists, Baptists were pretty strange, prohibiting dancing. "Why don't Baptists have sex standing up?"  (Wait, you can do that standing up?) "Because God might think they're dancing!" We thought that was hilarious. Dancing was the lifeblood of teenagers, though I didn't know how and never went to a dance until Prom. REALLY out there were the Catholics, somehow enemies to all that Protestants believed.

My best friend Charlene, who lived across the street, was Catholic. Hmmm. I knew that meant no meat on Fridays, a different school, and a large family, but she was pretty nice, and her father let us neighborhood kids watch while he butchered snapping turtles in their backyard for Friday meals. He even let my brother have a clutch of eggs to bury in the sand to hatch. So I snuck into her church with her one Sunday to see what a mass was all about, back when those were mostly in Latin. They got a lot of exercise, sitting, kneeling, standing, sitting. They also did very little singing and only meekly, something Methodists did full-throatedly. Charlene had told me what I was expected to do and was excused from doing, so sitting next to her I was completely comfortable.

Mom had thought I was heading out to our church as normal, and I'm not sure how she found out that wasn't so. I even walked to our church, before walking past and changing direction to the other church. Somehow she always found out what I was up to. When she confronted me her main point was about why I had to sneak around to do it. When I asked her whether she would have given me permission had I asked, she wasn't sure. Point made.

So where does "my first African" come into the picture? Church camp. Northern Pines was (is?) located along the Fishhook River, about a three miles drive from home. That same river meanders through town, a bay providing the public swimming beach, though some years ago a developer bought it out and no public beach still exists there. Camp had cabins, a dining hall, a beach of its own, a large campfire circle, and it nestled in a fairly large plot of northern woods, including some wonderfully large pine trees, hence the name.

I learned about camp in church. I'd started attending after we moved into town. It was partly a chance to socialize out of school at MYF, Sunday school, and Tuesday school, where back then kids were excused from school Tuesday mornings to receive their own church's training. Until band, it was my only real chance to socialize with kids my age, since Mom kept a tight rein on me. I also went to church in part as rebellion against my parents whom I labeled as hypocrites for only attending on Christmas and Easter. I was pretty smug about it too, something I've come to hate in other people, but never really got around to apologizing to my parents for. Mea culpa. Church came to mean more later, a chance to really sing, and to see the kid I had a tremendous crush on, the new preacher's son, David.

Camp was a way of extending my knowledge of my religion, a place to have fun, take nature walks, swim, learn new crafts, but even more than that, a chance to get away from Mom for a week each summer. I'd also hoped to meet new kids who had no idea what a horrible person I was back home, as I saw myself then and figured everybody else did too. Maybe I could make new friends? Well, for a week, maybe. The best part was its approach to teaching religion. We'd meet for a short lesson, then scatter to individual places, whether in the woods or along the water, whatever we found as a spot to be alone with our thoughts, read the Bible, and to speak to God. Or maybe watch a squirrel. Perhaps there was no essential difference, the one being the creation of the other. God didn't need a church to speak with us.

One year there was a new counselor at camp, a young man from Africa, either Nigeria or Kenya, I think. He was good looking, very black skinned, with a lovely British accent, and a very pleasant personality. I took great pride in the challenge of learning to pronounce his name correctly, Olumuyaway Ossinami if I still have it right and as close as I can spell it by how it sounds. The accents are on "mu" and "nam", with all the u's being long vowels. The other counselors were very enthusiastic about him being there, and we took our cues from them. He was almost never without a group surrounding him, though I recall hanging back a bit, wondering if I had anything to contribute to the conversations. I was beginning to realize there were some gaps in my upbringing by then, still too ignorant to realize how large those gaps were. My idea of what it was to be "negro" was filling in just fine, thank you. My image of how that worked in this country was nil.

The next time that topic came up, it caused a conflict with my father. It was during Sunday school, and he was then our class's teacher. When some question was asked, he answered that yes, he did believe that they - Negros - did deserve equal treatment. Unfortunately, he went further, explaining that despite that, he would consider it the worst possible insult and disgrace if his daughter - me - were to ever marry one. I was totally shocked, being by then a firm believer in equal rights, something which was taught in school as our country's ideal. (Little of our country's reality was taught, however.) I challenged Daddy on why it would be an insult, and was promptly shut down. Once home, he soundly scolded me for embarrassing him in front of the whole class. It was how he was taught, was his excuse. I'm not sure if the embarrassment was because it might be wrong, or if it was just being challenged by his daughter? At least they hadn't bothered to raise me the same way, and by 8th grade, it was too late.

As it happened, I never did marry, nor even date, anyone black. We never needed that confrontation. I did, however, marry one who claimed secret Native American (Canadian) ancestry, which turned out to be a lie, per DNA testing of his kids, and a second one who traces his ancestry to The Trail, that stain on American history where Cherokee and others were forcibly relocated under the most brutal of conditions, "conveniently" resulting in huge numbers of them dying along the way. He's 1/32 Cherokee, and as the years go by, embraces more bits of his heritage, though without wanting to claim tribal status. I never did apprise Daddy of either one's heritage. He was able to hate or like each of them on their own merits, and was wiser, sooner, than I in each case.

In 1964 the family uprooted, moving to St. Paul. Central High School's population had a mix of white and black  kids. Walking down the halls between classes, the other 1800 people were a sea of mixed faces, mixed races. They had newly combined that year from Wilson and Highland Park schools, so for everybody at least half of them were familiar, half new. I was one of the few for whom all were new. If you were somebody who spoke up in one of my classes, I became at least a little familiar with  you. If you were in band or choir, I made actual connections. One of those was Carol, sitting next to me in the coronet section, who became my new best friend "next door." She actually lived about 4 blocks away, but when you walk two miles to school in all kinds of weather, "uphill both ways" as we used to joke, that's practically next door. 

Among her circle of existing friends and another band member was a young man named Louie, whom I came to understand was a Jew. History repeats, and I went to his Temple to see what that was like. This time Mom knew. I explained it as a school project. If she thought Catholics were far out there....

I had no problem with my fellow black students. I didn't actually make any friends with them, but I barely made friends period. I hated the city. I hated leaving the country. I hated the loneliness of being one (or maybe two with Carol though we really had very little in common) among 1800. This band was a poor substitute for the award winning marching one in Park Rapids. This choir director was very hoity-toity and kept trying to get me to sing through my nose, though Finian's Rainbow where I made chorus was fun to put on. Basically, I adjusted badly.

Fast forward decades.

About a dozen years ago I had the opportunity to attend and learn from a weekly Dakota language table in Minneapolis. It was led by a U of M professor of Dakota whose name I can't recall. My bad. He was Dakota himself, and spent as much time as he could conversing with the elders, learning language, traditions and history from them while he still could. He related to us going to them and asking what they would call a television, something nonexistent when the language flourished. They discussed it and figured out a proper term, using the way the language combines multiple ideas into complex words much like German does.

The language table was held in a church basement just south of downtown Minneapolis. I'd heard about it from a work friend who had close connections to several Dakota, assuring me it was open to all. He even met his wife while learning to speak Dakota. She'd approached him after hearing people repeat "washte" frequently, wondering what it meant, which is "good", commonly said in class in praise of somebody mastering pronunciation or meaning of a word. He just riffed on about how it was "wash day" and they were discussing laundry, but it caught her attention and she forgave him the joke. Some of the professor's students also came to the table, both to learn and assist, and like me were washichu, white. Only one person tried to make me feel unwelcome, and was politely corrected. The language itself is a holy thing and should always be spoken only with respect. 

We also learned culture and local history along the way. Each meeting started with a pot luck. The first plate filled was for the spirits, with a tobacco offering sprinkled over the top, a Dakota prayer to them said, then placed outside. The empty plate was cleaned up after the meeting so as not to litter. Who or whatever cleaned it up was sent by the spirits. It was at this table I first heard of "The Mankato 38", another terrible time in local history, not taught in schools. About this same time NPR started talking about it, so I took extra note, and wound up taking my granddaughter down there for their annual commemorative wachipi, what we call powwow. I even taught her to say, "Mi kunshi kchi wai", the last word two syllables, wa-ee, the whole sentence meaning my grandmother brought me here. 

It was truly a privilege to be able to take part in that language table. Pidamayaye!

This happened some time after Dances With Wolves came out. So many films about Native Americans get everything wrong, from storyline to casting to language. One infamous movie has a war party talking among themselves in their native language supposedly about strategy, where the actual translation has them mocking the tiny penises of the white people.  The makers of Dances took pains to have Lakota spoken properly during it, but our table was informed they did it wrong. This was after teaching us the difference between Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota. They are related tribes, but the language has minor differences. In Dakota, some words have a "d" sound. In Lakota, those words are the same but the "d" is replaced by "l". If you can't have guessed it yet, in Nakota, those same words are pronounced with "n". That part of Lakota the film got right, using the "l". 

What gets language speakers giggling is something else. You noticed I used a Dakota word "pidamayaye" above. It means thank you. Sentences in the three languages, to be polite, end in "ye" or "yedo" (or yelo or yeno). "Ye" denotes that the speaker is female. "Yedo" etc., indicates the speaker is male. Everybody in the movie ends their sentences in "ye" as if they were all women. Oops.

A few years before my retirement, the company hired a number of recent Somali immigrants as drivers. Of those, a group subcontracted as dedicated drivers with a pharmacy company which specifically serves nursing homes on a route basis. I came in at the end of the day as an on-call driver, hoping for one of their frequent runs up to my home part of the world, a way of avoiding the dead-head home. Those given me were emergency runs for residents newly admitted or newly sick who weren't yet included in the regular routes. Often they even led me well into Wisconsin, making for some very late nights - and nice paychecks. But these runs weren't guaranteed, so there was often a wait, even a deadhead. I had a chance to meet and talk with both the drivers in their spare moments and their supervisor.

Most of them were devout Muslims. Prayer rugs were kept in or above lockers in the waiting area, and I would see them pulled down for quiet prayers at the far end of the room when I happened to be there at the right time. All present who were not praying were respectfully silent, or whispering about work they were getting. The bathroom in the waiting area was remodeled to add a faucet and basin/drain at floor level for washing feet. 

One man wore a beautiful white and blue cap called a kufi, prompting a conversation on the elaborate sewing/embroidery its maker had put into it. Every time we met after that, he smiled at me, and we exchanged "how are you"s. There was never time for more. Those times when the other drivers were out and the supervisor wasn't busy, we had long chats about family life. He takes his paycheck home to his wife, she controls how it is spent to take care of the family first, then gives him an allowance from what is left to spend as he chooses. But always, family first.

I never saw Muslim women where I worked, but downtown Minneapolis and the near south area was full of them, their hijabs and long skirts in brilliant colors and beautiful patterns. In winter, they'd be worn over puffy parkas for warmth. In summer the women were still covered despite the heat and humidity. They were beautiful, always walking in twos or more, either silent or pleasantly conversing, occasionally leading children. Dressed as I always was in the company uniform of a man's blue shirt, and pants of restricted colors, I often envied them of those wonderful fabrics and their comfort with their brightness. It was quickly tempered by my awareness of the struggles we imposed upon them after 9-11 and the strict roles their religion imposed as well. Not for me, but also not to hate or fear. All I ever met were better human beings than many I already knew. Maybe even me.