MAINSTREAM After graduating from college he was recruited by one of the largest, most prestigious investment firms in the country. He was one of only three Negroes in the entire firm, and the first Negro investment counselor. The salary was the same as any white entry level employee would have received. He lunched with his fellow investment counselors daily, and talked shop. Now and then hed run into a bigot, usually he would ignore the whole situation, sometimes one of the white guys stood up in his defense, eventually he became immune. Blacks were making great strides and the firm was moving with the times. Thirty percent of the employees were Black. He was called in for a big promotion. The first Black senior investment counselor in the business! Life was great, he was a member of the country club, a registered republican, attended an integrated Episcopal church. His was a two car family, with a beautiful home in the suburbs. He had assimilated quite well. It must have started the day his son told him how they learned about the continents in school that day. How his teacher told his classmates they were from Ireland, Italy, and Poland in Europe, but could only tell him he was from Africa. Where in Africa Dad? He asked eagerly. He told his son all about slavery, how we were stolen from the Motherland and were probably from somewhere in West Africa - Ghana or the Ivory Coast, maybe Mali. He told him about segregation and Martin Luther King, Jr., and how much our people were progressing. We can vote and our equal rights are protected by law. Soon all Afro-Americans would be able to share in the American Dream. His son accepted the answer and was off to play, but he wondered if his answer was satisfactory. Well maybe when his son got older they would trace their roots back to Africa. Maybe… One evening on the way home from the club he was pulled over by a law enforcement officer. He couldnt have been speeding, these late model luxury cars have cruise control. What could be the problem? The officer asked if he could search the car, he was frisked and detained while his license was checked. A humiliating experience for a man of his position, however the immunity hed built up over the years sustained him. He never once complained, but the incident made him think about what he told his son about the American dream. For the first time since he graduated college, he glimpsed a crack in the myth. For the first time he wondered if Afro-Americans would ever really be accepted in this society. For the first time someone breached the wall of assimilation hed built around himself, and it made him feel the pain of identity crises that is so common amongst our people. Maybe he had excelled far too well at integration. The more he thought about his son, the more he questioned his own identity. He questioned everything from his choice of friends (the majority of which were his white co-workers) to his religion (did Christ really look like the effeminate carpenter depicted in Da Vincis last supper). The questions were endless and he never fully recovered from the crises. He stopped going to the club, he stopped going to church, he alienated his friends and his career stagnated because he had tried to separate the important social aspect of his career from his personal life. Another soul lost in the rushing current of the mainstream. Old habits die hard. Though many of his questions remained unanswered, he remained a staunch advocate of integration and couldnt understand why his son chose to attend Howard instead of Harvard. He majored in marketing, minored in African Studies. He could not understand why after graduating college his son moved into the city, opened an African import shop, and started a community center for inner-city teens. Jr. recruited his fellow grads to assist and teach in his job training program. He never knew his son had vowed to never be like him. He would teach his children everything he knew about their heritage and they would never abandon the community that spawned them. And most importantly he would never lose his identity in the murky waters of the mainstream. Peace Patrice Gibbs
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 06:06:35 +0000
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