why don't working class men know their place?

From The Heart of the Maze - Appreciation 2:

...there's probably feminist analysis on how working class white men critique middle class white women--although I do not believe all the white allies in this discussion are middle class white women, I am one myself--but I just cannot be bothered with it at this point.

Ithiliana's comment amuses me because why I’m not anyone’s white ally says nothing about gender roles. Well, it says nothing explicitly, but since antiracists assume all encounters between people of different races are racial, she may think all encounters between people who accept different sexual identities are sexual.

I ignored that comment until last night, when I came across this:

(Anonymous) wrote:
You know, I think he thinks you're a guy because in his world, women are probably pretty little things who don't work and don't get poor. Because men take care of them, or something.
I wouldn't be surprised.

vom_marlowe wrote:
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised either. That, of he thinks women are always 'nice'.

I refered to Vom as male out of respect for her icon and handle. For decades, I've believed you should respect people's choice of gender, regardless of their genitals. It's just being polite. Though Vom's speculations about my ideas of women are clichéd, I'm grateful to her; she inspired me to write something for my mother and sister, which I should've done ages ago.

Vom may not know much about working class men because, as she says on her LJ, her middle class father abandoned their family to extreme hardship. Ithiliana may not know much about working class men because she's middle class. If they were the only people making assumptions about how working class men see women, I would say nothing.

But upper class and middle class people often assume working class people are just like them in bizarre ways. Perhaps the oddest is their notion that working class men think women should be "nice" and should be cared for. That's a luxury of wealth. Working class men know women have to work as hard or harder than they do. They expect women to kick ass, to do what needs to be done, whether it's a traditionally male or female job. And those men expect to do what needs to be done in turn—in my family, we all washed dishes, swept and mopped, hung clothes on the line, etc. Dad cooked more often than Mom. When I was stupid enough to hit Liz, I expected her to hit back, hard—and I totally knew that if I pissed her off, she would hit me first.

Domestic violence is a problem in all classes, but it takes different forms: abused middle class and upper class women were expected to do nothing, then hide what had been done to them. But working class women have always been more willing to meet violence with violence, to take no shit that they did not absolutely have to take to feed the people they loved.

Like Ithliana, I don't have time to address this subject properly, but I didn't want this bit of sexist classism to go neglected. Someone should write more about the ways upper and middle class women expect working class men to know their place.

The original comments on this post are here.

something for my mom and sister

I write about my father more often because he does things that get him in newspapers. My mom and sister are everyday heroes, which means I can't say why they're wonderful in a soundbite, but they (and my brother) are at least as heroic as Dad, and probably more. (If we're the Super Friends, Dad's Batman, Mike's Superman, Mom's Wonder Woman, Liz is Supergirl, and I'm Gleek the Space Monkey.)

When I think of Mom and Liz, I think of them working. At Dog Land, Mom hosed out dog pens, waited tables, guided tourists, kept the company's books.... She made it impossible for me to ever think a woman's place was anywhere other than where she wanted it to be. Mom supported the family as a secretary when Dad went back to college. She worked in the trading post in Ontario. Now she's living with my sister near Edmonton, and she always apologizes when she doesn't feel strong enough to help Liz with the flea market.

My sister combines the best of Mom and Dad. When I think back to all the work she's done, I know I was the wimp. She's driven bigger trucks than I have. She's a better shot. I can remember only one thing I ever did that Liz didn't that could be called manly. That was something where biology, not sexism, was the determining factor: if she had had the upper-body strength to haul one-hundred-pound bags of wild rice all day, she would've. Liz still drives big trucks and moves furniture for her flea market and cares for her dogs. I've seen her in a dress a few times, but that's not my mental image of her: I picture her in a flannel shirt and jeans. The only traditionally girly thing about her is her giggle, which reminds me that she had a Barbie or two back in the day, for all that she would steal my army men and cap guns when I wasn't looking.

My mom and sister. They are the awesome.

something for my mom and sister

I write about my father more often because he does things that get him in newspapers. My mom and sister are everyday heroes, which means I can't say why they're wonderful in a soundbite, but they (and my brother) are at least as heroic as Dad, and probably more. (If we're the Super Friends, Dad's Batman, Mike's Superman, Mom's Wonder Woman, Liz is Supergirl, and I'm Gleek the Space Monkey.)

When I think of Mom and Liz, I think of them working. At Dog Land, Mom hosed out dog pens, waited tables, guided tourists, kept the company's books.... She made it impossible for me to ever think a woman's place was anywhere other than where she wanted it to be. Mom supported the family as a secretary when Dad went back to college. She worked in the trading post in Ontario. Now she's living with my sister near Edmonton, and she always apologizes when she doesn't feel strong enough to help Liz with the flea market.

My sister combines the best of Mom and Dad. When I think back to all the work she's done, I know I was the wimp. She's driven bigger trucks than I have. She's a better shot. I can remember only one thing I ever did that Liz didn't that could be called manly. That was something where biology, not sexism, was the determining factor: if she had had the upper-body strength to haul one-hundred-pound bags of wild rice all day, she would've. Liz still drives big trucks and moves furniture for her flea market and cares for her dogs. I've seen her in a dress a few times, but that's not my mental image of her: I picture her in a flannel shirt and jeans. The only traditionally girly thing about her is her giggle, which reminds me that she had a Barbie or two back in the day, for all that she would steal my army men and cap guns when I wasn't looking.

My mom and sister. They are the awesome.

if you may lose your home

Today, I heard about another good person facing eviction, so I'm making this post to put my best advice in one place.

* Look into bankruptcy. Nolo Press is a great resource: http://www.nolo.com/ Many states will let you keep your home, depending on your circumstances. In a land with empty houses, no one should be homeless.

* Demand to be shown the original mortgage paperwork. See ABC News: Homeowners’ Rallying Cry: Produce the Note:

Kathy Lovelace lost her job and was about to lose her house, too. But then she made a seemingly simple request of the bank: Show me the original mortgage paperwork.

* Talk to your neighbors and friends. During the Great Depression, there were places where no one dared to evict anyone. There are places now where police departments are refusing to evict anyone.

* Do not blame yourself. The world's financial situation is a political problem created by our economic system. Governments are talking about helping people who are struggling now, so be hopeful.

* Do not let this isolate you. That may be the hardest part of economic hard times in this society. You're not in this alone. See, for example, bobisbankrupt, where one man has blogged his bankruptcy.

* Do not let creditors harass you. See Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which has pointers on limiting the ways creditors and their agents can harass debtors.

* If you consider yourself religious or spiritual or philosophical, know that debts should be forgiven. I've collected quotes about this from as many sources as I can find here.

* If you're Jewish or Christian, know that the Jubilee is long overdue. In our tradition, all debts are supposed to be forgiven every seven years. See all debts are forgiven means all debts are forgiven.

well, I think it's funny

My most vitriolic critic wrote me, asking me to remove her last name from my response to her so she wouldn't look bad when Google-searched.

You can't make these things up.

It was a surprisingly tough call. On the one hand, I believe if you don't have the courage to identify yourself, you should shut the hell up. On the other hand, it's nice to be nice. So I snarled and growled a little, then deleted her name.

This seems especially amusing given the number of people in the Great Silliness who criticized friends of mine for deleting information from the web.

ETA #1: I realize that some people's circumstances force them to choose between anonymity and silence. In those cases, which choice is right depends on what they hope to say. There are many kinds of identity. Sometimes an online name is as valid as any name you claim for yourself. It all depends on what you do under the cloak of that name.

ETA #2: I also realize that if I was a nice guy, I would've deleted her name and never said a thing about it. But since I've realized that justice is personal, I'm beginning to think being nice is overrated. I'm not going to say "it's nice to be nice" again. I will say "it's good to be kind," because I deleted her name out of kindness, not niceness. Niceness is never surly or grudging. Kindness is better when it's whole-hearted, but grudging kindness is better than none.

ETA #3: I am petty. She asked me to shield her while she attacked me, and when I did, she didn't even thank me. I've encountered a great deal of upper class entitlement in my life, but hers has managed to surprise me.

ETA #4: I just googled Coffeeandink's first and last name. The second hit connects her to her LiveJournal. Then I googled what she has publically there, "coffeeandink [her legal first name]." The third and fourth hits brought up her last name. Now I'm totally baffled by her request. Oh, well. We all have our quirks.

a moment of self-awareness: for me, justice is personal

Until the great LiveJournal froufra, I thought my passion for justice was impersonal. I believed it simply came from experience, that my principles were learned, not felt. With racial rights, how could it be personal? I'm white. With gender rights? I'm straight and male. With class rights? I can pass for upper class briefly and upper middle-class indefinitely, if I choose to play those parts. How could social justice be personal for me?

I've always admired people whose struggle transcended the personal. I loved Martin Luther King and Malcolm X/Malik El-Shabazz because they both saw in the last years of their lives that the struggle isn't ultimately about race—it's about everyone at the bottom of our economic pyramid. That's why I love Doctors Without Borders and Cuba's doctors who serve in 68 countries and everyone who helps others simply because helping is the right thing to do.

But I'm not as good as those folks. I got the civil rights thing from my father's involvement. I got women's rights from my sister and mother. I got gay rights from gay friends. And I got class because I was aware of being poor, not at Choate, but earlier, in Gainesville in junior high school, where I would visit the homes of middle class friends and marvel at luxuries like air conditioning and color television.

When I thought justice was merely a matter of being willing to look, I could work relentlessly, trusting that eventually, most people would see that if all people are equal, all people should share. I knew that many people can't see what their comfort requires them to overlook, but I thought enough people could come to see to change things, if only enough of us could find the way to help the rest see.

But now I fear most people must feel the system fail before they can understand its nature. (Insert my idea of a joke: If the elephant falls on the blind men trying to understand what it is, they'll be enlightened immediately: it's a damn elephant!)

I keep coming back to this: we're prisoners of our perspective. But I haven't given up. There must be a way to find a peace meme or a sharing meme, something that will make enough people see the cruel nature of hierarchy and end it.

when googling "upper class in India"

Mumbai Attacks Politicize Long-Isolated Elite - NYTimes.com

The three-day siege of Mumbai, which ended a week ago, was a watershed for India’s prosperous classes. It prompted many of those who live in their own private Indias, largely insulated from the country’s dysfunction, to demand a vital public service: safety.

Bombers targeted India's upper class - International Herald Tribune

The bombers, it turned out, systematically targeted first-class men's compartments, poking a poisoned finger in the eye of the city's well-heeled white- collar establishment. The victims were overwhelmingly male; judging by the lists of dead and injured posted at city hospitals, they were mostly of working age; judging by the testimony of their friends and relatives, most of them were habitual first-class passengers.

Upper middle class seceding from India

in 1990, only a handful of students with very rich parents went abroad for undergraduate degrees. Now over 10,000, with indubitably middle class parents, do.

The True Face of India: Get your upper-class blood here!

India's notorious social distinctions based on caste and class have spilled into the blood donation sector. Even reputable blood banks now advertise blood that is guaranteed not to come from the dregs of society.

The arithmetic of India’s poverty « A Zillion reasons to escape from India

When I tried to talk to Mangabhai about his financial planning for the time he can no longer work, he looked at me with glazed eyes. He had absolutely no idea. “The poor don’t have the luxury of looking into the future,” Bhavnaben said to me.

looking at a few of my critics, champions of the upper class

I was a bit surprised when Micole coffeeandink Sudberg responded so angrily to my social concerns in 2007. The other day, I learned she's an Ivy Leaguer, so now I understand. Those who are born to the upper class, and those who join the upper class, love being in that class. Liberal capitalists want the upper class to "reflect America" in terms of race and gender, so they'll be proudly antiracist and antisexist, but people who have the privileges of wealth don't want to lose them, and people who dream of those privileges don't want to lose that dream.

Learning Micole's class made me wonder about the class of some of my other critics, so I did a couple minutes of googling to see what they'd said on the subject. The answer, not surprisingly, is very little.

• K. Tempest Bradford graduated from the nation's second-most expensive private school, New York University. She says in the comments here:

I rarely mention class because it’s not an issue I’m particularly familiar with. As I’ve said before, I come from a pretty comfortable middle class upbringing and, even though I don’t make a lot of money at the moment, I am pretty comfortable, financially. I have family and friends who would give me a place to stay and food to eat if I were to suddenly lose my job or, heaven forfend, get hit by a car and have my legs removed or something. I’m not overly familiar with the ways in which being lower class affects anything, including race (though I have some idea). Therefore, I don’t feel qualified to go on about it.

and, quoting me (in italics) in the same comment thread:

Would you say you’re limited in your awareness of class because of your class privilege?

Indeed, yes. I’m not completely unaware of class because it is a factor is racial issues, but I do have that privilege.

My problem is the exclusion of class from the analysis of other isms, as though class is irrelevant to them, when I think it’s central to all of them.

I don’t agree that it’s *central* to all of them, and I think that’s where we diverge most of all. Maybe I think this way because I see that even lower class whites are still afforded privileges that upper class blacks aren’t. From that perspective, it’s easy to see why many blacks dismiss class issues.

Her notion that a homeless white guy has privileges that Condi Rice or Oprah Winfrey does not will always baffle me.

• Vom_marlowe's grandmother and mine (on my father's side) could share hardship stories. Her college cost $30,000. She clarifies her class situation in the comments here. (After the latest wild speculations about me at her site, I wrote something for my mom and sister.)

• Veejane is a graduate of Choate, the prep school I was kicked out of. At Making Light, veejane said, "The trouble with having all the DAR-type reseach done (by a great-grandfather) for my family is that it brings to light all of the unpleasant stories as well as the funny ones. One branch of the family lived in Maryland for a long, long time, before decamping suddenly to Brazil in the 1860s, and then returned to Maryland in the early 1890s. Officially? Missionaries. Unofficially, in some really obvious ways? Couldn't bear the idea of Maryland being a free state, and moved to the last country in the New World to outlaw slavery (which Brazil did in 1888)." The Shetterlys were mostly farmers until my father's time.

• Icecreamempress describes herself as being from a "very upper-middle-class white WASP family." Her understanding of class is charmingly feudal: "My family didn't have much money growing up, but I was still marinating in upper-middle-class white American privilege, and the fact that we were broke didn't mitigate that." She calls herself "a rich white WASP woman" here.

• Deepad said, "going to an English medium school and being upper class means that I am not fluent enough to be able to write fiction in my mother tongues". India's upper class includes the owner of the most expensive home in the world. Deepad may have been careless in her terminology and is only upper middle class—she's a student in the US, so she may be one of the people mentioned in Upper middle class seceding from India: "The most dramatic manifestation of this is the manner in which they have begun to export their children straight from school." Her comments inspired me to make a couple of posts about India and class. She complained about the earlier version of this post, saying, "When he made assumptions about my economic and social identity..." Apparently, she thinks that quotations are assumptions.

My critics' class privilege does not mean they are bad people, of course. They see injustices that I've seen all my life. Until I was forty or so, I was just another liberal Democrat, with no more concern for class issues than they have. It's pleasant to dream that someday hierarchies will be built on merit. But it's better to work to end hierarchies.

Disclaimer: If any of my critics complain that I'm speculating about them, please note that I have not speculated as wildly as they have speculated about me. They are free to correct the record here, a courtesy they have not chosen to grant me.

The original comments to this post are here.

what is upper class "in India"?

In the recent LiveJournal brouhaha between old school opponents of racism and younger upper and middle class antiracists, the question of upper class "in India" came up.

A few weeks ago, my knowledge of India was relatively superficial. I knew it was a growing economic power, and I'd seen articles like last year's Richest Man In India Builds $1 Billion House:

What would you do if your net worth were $22 billion? If you were Indian businessman Mukesh Ambani, you might build yourself the world's most expensive home.

And I knew a bit about caste injustice from articles like Untouchable @ National Geographic Magazine:

Discrimination against India's lowest Hindu castes is technically illegal. But try telling that to the 160 million Untouchables, who face violent reprisals if they forget their place.

More recently, I saw this in Too Much weekly:

You won’t find a shopping mall any more lavish than the six-month-old Emporio in India’s New Delhi. Gold-plated ceilings. Atriums with crystal chandeliers. Boutiques offering every top luxury brand on the planet. You probably won’t find a mall any more exclusive either. The Emporio carries an entrance fee that equals, the Birmingham Post noted last week, “about one week’s salary for 80 percent of India’s billion-plus population.” Guards everywhere make sure that no one tries to sneak in without paying up for the $5 entrance ticket. With hundreds of millions of Indians living on less than a dollar a day, sociologist Satish Deshpande points out, India is “tending more and more towards a kind of apartheid, a kind of separation” now “sharply visible in our cities.”

Today, I saw Informed Comment: They aren't Dogs, in those Slums:

Within India's more than one billion population, there is a middle-class country of 80 million, the size of Germany--with satellite televisions, nice cars, well-appointed homes, and white collar jobs hooked into the world economy

Which included a link to mall talk: Arundhati slams Slumdog:

"English writers in India come from a particular class, but if they do not make an effort to come out of it, they are bound to be superficial.”

Obviously, I love the last quote. But the question remains: what's the border between middle and upper class in India? If Juan Cole's vague definition of India's middle class is accurate, it's quite comparable to the US's. Which would suggest that India's upper class is like the US's also. I've thought that the world's upper class is effectively international, coming from different cultures but sharing similar privileges. Am I wrong? If so, I welcome the chance to learn the truth.

ETA: Gandhi said, "All amassing of wealth or hoarding of wealth above and beyond one’s legitimate needs is theft." However you define India's upper class, Gandhi defined them as thieves.

Original comments on this post are here.

"This is not a race thing. It is a money thing and it is a power thing."

The Associated Press: Unrest in Caribbean has roots in slavery past

"They've got the money, they've got the power, they've got Guadeloupe," snapped protester Lollia Naily. "This is not a race thing. It is a money thing and it is a power thing."

Dog Land

Call it a tourist attraction. Call it a tourist trap. We called it home.

My novel, Dogland, is about a family that moves to Florida in 1959 to start a tourist attraction. It's based on a place that I knew well; my family moved to Florida in 1959 to start a tourist attraction called Dog Land. (I wish I could say I changed the spelling to make the fictional Dogland different from the real Dog Land. But the truth is I forgot how my family spelled it.) At Dog Land's height, we had over 100 breeds on display, plus a three-legged mutt named Pirate.
The following bit of map is from Traveling North in Florida On U.S. Highway 27 From Miami to Georgia Line. It's not very helpful if you want to find Dog Land, but I love the art.

Dog Land was built at Fannin Springs on "21 wooded acres near the Suwannee River" near the intersection of U.S. Highways 19, 98, 27, and 127. You can never know why a business fails, but when I-75 opened, many tourist attractions on the old roads went out of business.
This photo may be from 1959:

This one was probably taken a couple of years later:

And this is what Dog Land looked like around the time that my family sold it:

Ranger the Kuvasz and my sister, Liz, were on the cover of the 1962 Edition of the Florida Guide:

This is from Joginder Singh Rekhi's "A Sikh Discovers America" in the October, 1964 issue of National Geographic. I think the St. Bernard was named Pete. I was always impressed by how much he could slobber. And a little later, when my day began with cleaning dog pens, I was impressed by— Well. He was a great dog. They all were.

Ranger pulls a cart in a family snapshot. My brother Mike sits between Liz and me.

The next two are from the May 15, 1960 Gainesville Daily Sun. That's Don Gallite the Ibizan Hound washing my ear and Niki the Afghan Hound trotting after me.


We sold a lot of cr— um, merchandise to tourists. This aluminum trivet is the only example that I still have:

Every member of the family worked hard to keep Dog Land going. In the last couple of years, I had chores every day before school and after. Life became a little easier after we moved to Gainesville in 1966. But I'll always be grateful that I had the chance to live in a special place at a special time.

Possibly of interest: Bob Shetterly, the only liberal in Levy County.

Bob Shetterly, the only liberal in Levy County

I recently went digging through files I haven't looked at in years—and I learned something slightly sad that I never knew. More about that after a newspaper article and a snippet from a second one:
 

from the St. Petersburg Times, Monday, March 7, 1966: Section B, Page 1

Florida Report: Levy Liberal Unusual
by Bob Stiff, Times State Editor

Florida is noted for many unusual things, but Bob Shetterly is one of the most unusual of all. He’s a liberal who lives in Levy County.

There is nothing quite so rare as a liberal in Levy County, a north Suncoast county of perhaps 14,000 persons.

Shetterly didn’t start out as a liberal. He places himself at somewhere between a moderate and a conservative when he moved to Levy County about nine years ago, but even that proved quite liberal for the political spectrum of this area of Florida.

Owner and operator of Dogland, a U.S. 19 tourist attraction in Suwannee River, Shetterly recalls, “I noticed things after I had been here for awhile, but I just kept my mouth shut. Then I saw how Negroes were being treated around here and the many injustices there were in many areas so I opened my big mouth.”

“And he hasn’t closed it since,” his wife adds.

Shetterly, frying chicken at the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise restaurant he operates in conjunction with Dogland and a self-service gasoline station, agrees with a hearty laugh.

People in Chiefland approach Mrs. Shetterly and say, “You don’t believe in all those things your husband says, do you Mrs. Shetterly? I just can’t believe you do because you’re too nice a lady.”
“I tell them, ‘up to a point,’ and I tell him (motioning to her husky husband) that he talks too much.”

Shetterly has joined civil rights pickets in Gainesville, spoken up for equal rights at every conceivable meeting place in Levy County and is a tireless writer of letters to the editor columns of area daily and weekly newspapers espousing his many causes.

This wins him the same popularity among his neighbors that might be accorded Martin Luther King.
One former friend says it this way:

“Now, Bob is always talking the way he does at every meeting around here and every time, there’s somebody around to listen—even if it’s only one or two people—and we don’t mind that. He goes over to Gainesville to picket with the colored people and writes all those letters to the newspapers and we don’t mind that either. He don’t convince us any and we don’t convince him, but he believes that way and it’s okay.

“But now he done something that has really cut it. This is a religious community here and the folks didn’t like it none when the Supreme Court came out with the thing against prayin’ in the schools. The kids had always said a little prayer at school and just kept on doing it because what harm was there in it really?

“Well, Bob, he goes over to the School Board and tell them they’ve got to quit prayin’. Now folks didn’t take to that at all and I don’t think Bob’s got three friends left this whole county. He brung it on himself.”

Shetterly regrets the prayer issue. “I didn’t want to get into this, but we’re Unitarians and I just didn’t want my kids having to say those prayers every morning. The Supreme Court said it’s wrong and it’s the law of the land. If we break this law by ignoring it, which law will we do this with next?

“I went to the principal and he said I ought to go to the superintendent. I went to him and he seemed to be agreeable, but said it ought to be brought up to the School Board. So I did.

“One member wanted to just stop the prayers in the classrooms where my children were and that really would have satisfied me. But he couldn’t even get a second to his motion and then somebody said the law isn’t meant for atheists and Unitarians and I got my back up.”

Shetterly says he gets blamed for everything now. “If a Negro traveling to Miami from New Jersey stops at a restaurant in Chiefland, everyone figures I must have sent him. I don’t want any trouble. I just want everybody to operate under the same laws.”

When the powerfully built Shetterly walks down the street, few acknowledge his cheery “Good Morning.” His children have lost most of their playmates. He receives many unsigned threatening letters and middle-of-the-night obscene telephone calls. But he persists.

One of Shetterly’s latest letters says:

“Some people in the community still believe I am responsible for CORE and the NAACP being in our area. As I understand it they are here for four reasons. (1.) More than a dozen restaurants in Levy County have been reported as failing to comply with the law. (2.) There are no Negroes in the Chiefland school and there are Negroes riding a bus more than 50 miles daily to a school in Williston. (3.) There is a low percentage of Negroes registered to vote and few, if any, on the jury roll. (4.) There is no Negro or biracial organization in the county to reflect the views of the approximately 33 per cent of our population that is Negro.

“I can accept no responsibility for any of these conditions. These organizations are not kept out by force or threats. They are kept out by working to eliminate the conditions that would bring them.
“I have done everything I could to take steps that would have effectively prevented their becoming active in this area. My restaurant obeys the law. I actively tried to get at least token Negro enrollment in the Chiefland School. I tried nearly three years ago to get a bi-racial committee set up through the chamber of commerce. I have met quietly with county officials to encourage that Negroes be placed on the jury roll.

“I sincerely believe that had I been even partially successful in my efforts, CORE and the NAACP would not be active in Levy County today—yet I am the one blamed for their appearance.
“I cannot change my moral commitments to win your approval or to avoid your abuse and curses,” he concludes.

But sticking his chin out this way doesn’t make the Negro community look on him as a leader. The self-educated high school dropout laughs and says, “They think I’m a nut. They never saw a white man carry on this way before. They just don’t know what to think.”

Becoming reflective, Shetterly says, “I never intended it this way. I thought I could change things by reasoning with people and, you know how it is, the more you argue, the more you strengthen your own convictions.

“My arguments aren’t effective anymore. Nobody will really listen because their minds are poisoned against me, but I can agitate. And I’m doing quite a bit of that.”

Asked if he is the only liberal in Levy County, the bespectacled businessman puts down a spatula and says, “Gosh, I guess I am. I’ve never heard of another one anyway.”

Then brightening, he grins. “If you ever find another one, let me know, would you? I can use the help.”

* * *

from the Gainesville Sun, Wednesday, March 9, 1966

Levy School Prayer Issue: Prefers to Let Courts Decide

At a meeting of the board last September, B. E. Shetterly of Chiefland had requested that the board “comply with the law” and eliminate devotionals from the public schools.

It was reported yesterday that Shetterly had taken his children out of the Chiefland school and that they are now living with a relative in Wisconsin and attending school there.

John Peace, School Board attorney, said that since Shetterly has taken his school out of the Chiefland school, the ACLU probably would drop its threat of a suit.

* * *

The sad thing? Dad would have loved to see the ACLU bring that suit. But our family could not get fire insurance because word was out that the Ku Klux Klan would burn us down. He had to choose between his kids and a greater justice. He chose his kids. We were sent to finish the school year in Minnesota (not Wisconsin—all newspaper accounts have errors). If Dad ever had a second thought about that, he never mentioned it.

We left Dog Land after that. The Klan never showed up, maybe because Dad let it be known that he had a shotgun and was prepared to use it. The school was integrated, and the daily prayers ended. Whether that would've happened the same year if Dad had stayed silent, I can't say. All I know is that he was on the side of justice, and I'll always be proud of him.

P.S. I'm just as proud of Mom. She opened some of those letters and answered some of those phone calls and stayed brave before her children.

Around He Goes: Bob Shetterly, oldest solo circumnavigator

Dad left La Paz, Baja California, Mexico, on May 15, 1998, sailed once around the world in a small sailboat, the Vaya, then decided to do it again "now that I know how." He returned to La Paz on his 78th birday, July 9, 2004, then sailed on. His circumnavigations ended at the age of 79; he hurt his leg in the Philippines, gave the boat to the people who helped him there, and flew home to Edmonton in July, 2006, shortly after his 80th birthday.

Before he began his voyages, he wrote his children:

To die in a storm with the adrenalin pumping, fighting for survival, seems far better than anything civilized hospital care has to offer—even a collision at sea would be preferable. If I go unreported, I hope no one starts or creates any search. Ships that run down small boats do not report the fact, even if they are aware of what happened. On the other hand, a coastal wreck is usually reported, unless everything is smashed to bits in surf and rocks. In either event, I see no need to waste anyone's time and effort.To sum up: I am grateful to the Gods and the people who have provided and supported an interesting life. I have many regrets—more for things not done, than for those done badly.
I recognize that this letter is only about my concern, but I am aware of the concern of others. Having made the selfish decision to live out my declining years on my own terms (as much as possible), this letter is simply to try to answer "Why?" and to make it clear the "why" has almost nothing to do with others.

Since he left, he has been sailing solo in a small boat—not so much following the winds as chasing them. He wrecked a 20-foot boat off the coast of Mexico when he was attacked by killer bees, and swore that he would not sail again. He set out on a bicycle from Canada, intending to reach Tierra del Fuego, but he was beaten and robbed in Central America. After a heart attack, a doctor told him that given his age, his diabetes, and his partial deafness, he should take it easy.
Then a friend gave him an old 26-foot, 10,000 pound fiberglass boat built in the 1960s that he named the Vaya. In 1998, he spent 85 days crossing from Baja California to Australia. Near the end of the voyage, his automatic steering failed, so he spent the last days constantly on the tiller, sleeping only for a few hours at a time. His journal notes:

My rear end is suffering from all this sitting, and constantly wet from salt water. Just no way to stay dry in cockpit when wind and waves are up. Using vaseline liberally. Keep thinking of those galley slaves chained to their oars—my situation not comparable, but I'm developing an empathy for them.

My mom met him in Australia. They bought a used camper van and spent the winter seeing the country. In the spring, Dad set out again in the Vaya. His adventures included three nights with the boat on a reef, until a very high tide carried him off. He spent an idyllic month on the Chagos Archipelago in the middle of the Indian Ocean, then sailed on.


On Sept. 3, 1999, I got a fax:

I am in Mayotte, a French possession. The French-made Navik wind vane steering broke again about 600 miles from here. I consider the self-steering essential for a 73-year-old single-hander. As this was the nearest port, I entered on an emergency base for repairs.

The authorities in Mayotte thought the Vaya's registration papers weren't in order. Dad's response:

I told them if they did not want me, I would leave—they said only after I paid a fine. I said that did not seem right. If someone drives up to the French border and customs does not like the registration papers, they can certainly refuse entry, but it would not seem to me the car could be seized. After I absolutely refused to pay a fine, they are thinking it over and will apparently get back to me in a couple of days. Meanwhile, I am restricted to the boat, and the boat must stay at anchor.Call the Canadian embassy and ask what office I should contact if this nonsense continues.

After a few days and a few phone calls, the authorities decided that life would be much simpler if they let Dad continue his voyage.
He sailed on to South Africa. Mom met him there for some travels on land. In March, he sailed on to St. Helena, and then Tobago, Trinidad, and the coast of Venezuela.


On August 13, he wrote:

Carupano, Venezuela. I must have been sleeping the sleep of the dead, or they must have come on board very quietly, but I woke with a body on top of me and a knife at my throat.There were three young banditos. They soon had me tied hand and foot and pulled up against the entrance-way, with the knife still at my throat. When I realized it was the dull edge of the knife pressing on my neck, my sense of terror receded slightly, but when they demanded "A donde dinero!" (Where is the money!"), I rather quickly indicated where my billfold was. It only contained $15.00 U.S. and about an equal value of Bolivars.
I explained I had been robbed in Trinidad and that was all I had. I also went into my 74-yr.-old bad heart routine. As things calmed down a bit, my courage returned a bit, and I screamed "Ayuda!" ("Help!"). Probably a mistake as it prompted a rather forceful and prompt gagging and manhandling.
I slumped down, more or less semi-conscious, and the young bandito who seemed to be assigned to controlling me loosened the gag. He kept repreating "Tranquilo" ("Quiet").
I said "Si, si," and he quickly removed the gag. I asked for my "medicino" and pointed out that if I died, my problems were over, but mas problemas for them.
As I understood it, the fellow holding me wanted to give the medicine, but the others were ransacking the boat. As best I could, I tried to convince my minder that three young guys robbing an old man was not very heroic, and I began to get the feeling he was not too happy with the situation. After a short time, he shouted something I could not understand, and the other two went barreling past us into the cockpit. He held up the gag and once more said, "tranquilo." I said, "Si, si," and he quickly left without gagging me.
It took me a little while to get myself untied. False teeth are not designed for untying knots. By the time I got to the cockpit, I could not see anything—and still don't know what frightened them off. All things considered, I got off rather lightly. Some bruises in and out of my mouth, and wrists bruised, slightly swollen, but nothing serious.
The list of things taken is rather interesting: all flashlights, 3 amp-meters, binoculars, Sony Walkman, radio-tape player (but not my small or large HF radios), 2 watches, 2 L brandy, 1 fire extinguisher (I had two, one discharged—and that was the one they took), my good hand-held compass (it was mounted in the cabin so I could check course without going out), my blood pressure kit (it was inoperative). When you consider that they handled two hand-held Global Positioning Units, as well as other valuable equipment, the things they took are relatively minor.
Obviously, I will need to start closing and barring the door, despite the lack of fresh air, and begin devising more deterring efforts. Will get fog horn, 12 volt, with switch by bed, so that once turned on will not be easily silenced.

Dad then writes about the next day's discovery, which seems to have been more interesting to him than the robbery:

Saturday I went to the local market... most exciting, one booth was selling tobacco by the leaf, and when I asked about cigars, he produced a bag of 100 for $4 U.S. They are not bad, much better than cheap U.S. made and certainly half as good as $3 Cubans.

(The Cuban cigars Dad refers to were selling for $3 in Cuba, where he spent a winter in the boat that he lost in the killer bee attack. For a man who values a cigar as much as my father does, this may've been the most important thing that happened that week.) He concludes:

Despite the bandito episode, I think I will enjoy Venezuela, as with that one exception, everyone has been very nice.

He went on to Curaçao, where Mom visited him, and then headed through the Panama Canal to finish the Vaya's first trip around the world. A few days after Christmas, he began his second. He sailed on to Pitcairn, Gambier, Raivavae, Tubai, Raratonga—
When you see a small sailboat, think of him.

Bob and the Vaya in Baja California.

Visiting in the Indian Ocean. That's not the yacht's dinghy that Bob and another fellow are on. That's the Vaya.

A visitor at sea.

The burning sea.

Joan and Will near Ensenada, Mexico.

Vaya at sea

Opponents of racism, part 2

The last time I was beaten by racists was when I was fourteen. Until this week, I had never thought of that beating as racial, but I’ve been thinking about the way antiracists see everything that touches on race as racial, and I suppose it applies.

I had gone with my family to visit my grandmother in a small town in northern Minnesota. I felt safe there, where we had visited for a few days every year. I was a would-be hippie, proud of my long hair and bellbottom jeans and especially a loose yellow shirt with wide lapels and billowing sleeves. I knew the locals had only seen people like me on television. That made me self-conscious. It didn’t occur to me that anyone would do more than laugh at me.

One night, wanting to get away from my family, I decided to walk through town. As I passed an alley, a boy that I knew casually called to me, so I went in to see what he wanted.

He was shorter than me and a year younger. I knew he was the sort who called people niggers and queers because those were the most insulting words he knew, but he had a pretty older sister, and only a few years before, we had played games in the neighborhood like hide and seek and dodgeball. I thought of him as someone who was not a friend, but was friendly. When he asked if I wanted to fight, I was sure I hadn’t heard him right, and asked him what he had said.

Then two other boys came out of a side alley. I didn’t recognize them. They were both bigger and older than me, and I understood the dynamic right away: the kid I knew hung around with the older ones and amused them. Tonight, he was amusing them with the gift of a hippie to play with.

Northern bigots aren’t very different than southern ones. They tried to get me to hit first by calling me a nigger and a niggerlover—northern bigots aren’t quite as constrained by racist logic as southern ones—and the usual names teenagers used then to anger each other. One asked how far I had to chase a nigger to get my shirt. I tried to walk away, but they surrounded me. The smaller kid punched me first. Then the other two joined in. After a minute or two, I managed to break free and run home.

I was bleeding from my nose and lip, but nothing was broken. I washed up at a garden spigot, waited until I stopped bleeding, then tried to sneak into the house without anyone noticing. My torn shirt and battered face gave me away. I almost never lied to my mother, but I lied then, saying that I had been running and tripped on something and fell. I was too embarrassed to say that I hadn’t fought back, that I had run like a coward, that boys in her home town had hated what I represented, so they had jumped me.

The boys saw me as racially suspect, but beating me wasn’t really about racism. It was just something bored, brutal boys did for fun on a quiet summer night. Still, they were racists. I mention them now to stress what racists were in that time, and to note the price anyone who opposed racism expected to pay. We marched, and we spoke up, and sometimes we got hurt. We knew that. We'd seen cops sic dogs on civil rights marchers. We heard the stories of blacks and whites who were beaten horribly, or cut, or killed. It was just how it was.

Today, to science fiction fandom’s antiracists, all whites are inherently racist because they live in a racist society, and the way to oppose racism is to blog. Understanding that has made it much easier for me to accept their definition and say, “Okay, I’m racist.”

Still, I read their writing and see a worldview that’s incompatible with mine. A quote that especially struck me:

“Will, everyone works to perpetuate their privilege. This is a clue.”

I haven’t asked if the speaker is an Ayn Rand fan. I’m just saddened that he or she has never noticed all the people who work to end privilege, including their own.

And another quote:

"academic discourse is inherently biased against PoC"

If everything is racial, that makes sense, but it seems insulting to the people of color who thrive in academia. Even if it isn't meant to insult them, it ignores the poor whites who face a related bias. Academia is designed for the middle and upper classes. Whether you come from Watts or Appalachia, the odds of succeeding in academia are very, very poor.

I didn't bother to address either of those statements where I saw them. I’m done talking about class with capitalist antiracists. With the world's economy on its present course, they’ll be talking about class issues soon enough.

Possibly of interest: my death threat

The original comments on this post are here.