Back in the 1950s, my father had been a “Beat Patrol Man” for the city of Pittsburgh’s Police Department. Pittsburgh, albeit a Northern city, still suffered the consequences of unofficial segregated neighborhoods, one of which was called Homewood, and whose population consisted of at 99% African Americans. Back in the day, it was a single patrol, with the hours of patrol varying week to week. It was about 1955, when I truly grasped what my father did for a living, as he became famous for delivering a baby to a single mother living in Homewood. The Pittsburgh Press took a picture, wrote an article, and there was my father holding a new born baby, sitting next to her new mom. My neighborhood in Pittsburgh was almost 99%Caucasian, and had a majority of Jewish Families living there. As far as I knew, life was white, life was Jewish and life was safe. But, seeing the picture of my father and the baby, I grew curious. All I had known from television was that, “Colored” neighborhoods were dangerous, which meant that, “Colored” people had to be bad. There was never any talk about bad “Colored” people in my house, but somehow I became disturbed as to where my father had been working. After all, how could television and even the movies lie about things as important as to whois good and who is bad? My fairer and I had a brief discussion regarding is “Beat”, and he said, “The thing about life is, to believe that there IS always someone, smart enough to do the right thing. Try hard to ignore the noise, so you can listen to the quiet words where wisdom live.”
This is now 2017, and I am afraid. I am afraid for my family, my friends, my belief in democracy and my country. All I hear is noise. Noise in the form of NOW censored words by the Government, lack difference, and deference to those whose only goal in life is to hate. Laws ignored, overlooked, or completely removed. Lies as truth, truth as if was something to debate. The lack of checks and balances, so blatant, that an inquiry into collusion, corruption and the introduction of fascism into our nations foundations. All I seem to hear is the noise of the guilty and the gullible. I have believed in the many words my father provided me, but the longer the republicans permit Trump to remain in the White House, thew more I doubt that there WILL BE someone smart enough to do the right thing!
