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4-10-08, 10:31 am
THE PLATFORM was crowded again, and there she was, the woman who reminded me so much of my own mother. Not in appearance, but in attitude.
'Hello, Alice,' I said.
'Hello, George,' the diminutive, pale, grey-haired woman responded.
'How was your day?' I asked.
'Oh, busy as usual,' Alice said. 'How was yours?'
'Well, the phones were ringing off the hook, as they often do,' I answered.
'Hey! Here comes the train!' she exclaimed.
'That's great. I can't wait to get home,' I sighed.
'Was your day really that bad?' Alice asked, as we boarded the crowded car and maneuvered toward the only two empty seats in sight.
I looked at her and said, 'You know. I get tired of dealing with people.'
'Especially THOSE people!' Alice cried.
'Which people?' I asked.
'You know. THOSE people,' Alice answered.
'No, I don't. Which people?' I queried.
'You going to force me to say it? The Blacks, of course. And the Hispanics.' Alice both looked and sounded exasperated, her lower lip curling downward. While she wasn't young, the deep lines on her face made her look even older than her sixtyish years.
'Why them in particular?' I persisted.
'You know very well, George,' Alice said, as we pulled into the first stop since we got on. It promised to be a long ride, for more than one reason. 'They're treated special. They don't work. They have baby after baby without getting married like the rest of us.'
'You know, Alice,' I said, 'African Americans were brought to these shores as slaves and remained as slaves for hundreds of years, suffering unspeakable cruelties. Then they were lynched, put down and denied the right to vote for another hundred years after that.'
'Is that my fault?' Alice challenged.
'Not your personal fault,' I replied,' but we as a society owe their descendants reparations, not only in the form of money, but in everything else we can do, like affirmative action, subsidized health care and housing, real education and outreach.'
'Yeah? And who's supposed to pay for all that' Alice demanded. She was getting noticeably upset, the lines around her forehead deepening. Her fingers nervously curled and uncurled about the strap of her pocketbook.
In the meantime, as we pulled into the third stop of out trip homeward, a horrible whine assaulted our ears, coming from some sort of electrical system on the subway platform. We both cringed and held our ears, until the train finally left the station.
'How're your ears, Alice?' I queried. 'Mine are going to take a little while to recover.'
'Mine, too,' she said.
We sat in silence for another stop. Then I tried to answer her question.
'You asked me who's going to pay for ameliorative programs, Alice." I put forth. 'I'd say all the taxpayers of America should shoulder the burden, because it's a problem faced by our whole society. And earlier you asked me about Hispanics, or Latinos.'
She said, looking a little more tired than usual,'I'm not sure I want to hear what you have to say.'
'C'mon!' I urged. 'You're the one who's always talking about the value of rational argument. Anyway, I'd like to remind you that we stole probably more than half of Mexico in the 1840s. Plus our trade policies, forced on weak governments, have cause lots of Latin Americans to lose their livelihoods. They have no choice but to come north in search of jobs.'
'How's that my fault?' Alice challenged.
'Well, in a way it's the fault of all of us, because we elected the presidents and congresspeople who forced those policies through.' I argued. 'Of course, we didn't really elect Bush, but so far we haven't risen up and overthrown him, so it is partly our fault.'
' 'Risen up and overthrown him'??' She said, appearing increasingly agitated. 'Who'm I talking to, any way?'
I said, as gently as I could, 'Now, you know me, Alice. We've certainly talked enough. I believe firmly in the ideals of our Founding Fathers. I just wish they could be made more of a reality. To paraphrase the Declaration, it says that whenever a government becomes oppressive, it's the right of the people to abolish it.'
'I'm sorry,' said Alice. 'I don't want to talk to you any more.' She looked somewhat sad.
We were pulling into the last stop. I said, "I'm sorry, Alice. I hope you'll at least think about what I said." I was pretty disappointed by the outcome of our talk. I considered that Alice may be pretty representative. That meant a lot of work remained to be done before brother- and sisterhood became realities.
She walked off in silence and was soon swallowed up by the crowd. It was a multi-ethnic mass. People of different backgrounds were laughing and joking with one another, especially the students.
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