by: Marceline Donaldson
In the life of one African American family ——
To say my upbringing was unusual is an understatement. To look at the men and women who had substantial influence over my life and were my family is to look at people who were black, white, rich, poor, powerful, ordinary, hard working, worked almost never, etc. etc.
My grandfather – O. C. W. Taylor – was an educator, journalist, entrepreneur, politician, but most of all he made sure his family was exposed to and a part of everything he did. First my mother, then me, and then even my first child. We traveled in circles which we thought were normal, but were far from it.
Starting at about 10 years old, I was put into journalist circles and expected to be an accomplished journalist and perform.
Having co-founded the Louisiana Weekly with C. C. Dejoie, Sr. and being someone who was into radio and television journalism, my grandfather was a busy man and we went along with him wherever he went. We didn’t go as small children who had to be kept out of the way, but as participants in everything he did. We had jobs to do and we were expected to do those jobs – well.
As an educator, he was principal of a grammar school in New Orleans and brought that and his journalism together by breaking into radio and television with his program on WNOE radio and WNOE television on Sunday mornings. I was one of his reporters and was on the air at a very young age reporting on what happened in several of New Orleans schools. Usually, students from the different African American schools in New Orleans and sometimes outside of New Orleans, appeared on his programs “in person.” They sang, talked about what they were learning and what was happening in the rest of their lives. Faculty from the school being reported on accompanied them and were also a part of the program. If that school was my assignment that week I would have been expected to investigate, write up what the school was doing and be the moderator for that part of the program. I was in a position to see basic racial change or rather what we thought was going to be such a change.
WNOE was an all-white station and its programming, at that time, covered different areas with moderators talking about their particular areas, others reporting on what was happening around the city, and more. Intellectually speaking it was a rather high-minded station.
My excitement came from the fact that I thought we were bringing about major racial change, which would help to bring about an integrated world and “separate and equal” was experiencing yet another blow.
As I watched over the years, what I saw was something very different.
WNOE changed – but it changed from white to black and from this intellectual programming which was all talking about ideas, etc. to one which was a jazz, blues, spirituals, all black station, which it remains to this day.
What my grandfather did was to open the door to another room for African Americans and as they walked into the room through that door, whites walked out through another door. So, black reach expanded and had a toe into a form of media they did not have prior to that, but “separate and equal” was not harmed. It remained structurally unchanged.
As I grew older watching this change, It became clearer that whoever held the reins of power over society was safe in their need to maintain that society as “separatist” and “better than” in these United States. As I grew older I also saw that there is no change that would bring about the death of “separate and equal”. Society was set up to maintain itself as structurally racist. At first I thought this was about those white males – those northern Europeans who needed to maintain such a structure, but then I remembered my history and began to realize other groups maintained racism before those primitive peoples took over and moved themselves up using others in this separatist and unequal way. Other groups, before the appearance on the stage of the Northern Europeans, did the same thing. Perhaps in a different way, but it amounted to being “better than” as a part of their identity and condemning others who they saw as being different from, defining them as “less than” and fair game to be exploited.
Many in my family spent their lives trying to bring about a more open, caring, sharing society. They brought about change, but it was not the kind of change they set out to do. They opened a door to a larger, more sophisticated society, but one that was still very separatist, racist, sexist, etc.
We had Africans, American Indians, English, Irish, Italian, Spanish and more even in my generation. Some identified as “colored” and later as Black and then even later as African Americans and some passed – passé blanc – and would come home from their jobs as white to live with their very mixed family. That means we all worked very hard to bring about change, but that change was elusive and the separate and unequal society remained entrenched in its bigotry re-institutionalizing its separateness wherever something different threatened to break out.
I watched that happen as this world turned technical – with computers, etc. It was a deliberate, organized, structured racism that was maintained. Some had knowledge and access in an easy, functional way. Others were deliberately turned away when they tried to be a part of this coming AI society so today, groups can be “less than” who are outside of that new societal grouping. – “We have to ‘help’ them because they were not there from the beginning and more. All lies, but ones to which just about everyone subscribes.
May God forgive the inability we show to drop the evil in favor of the goodness to which the life of Jesus and many other saviors and prophets pointed us. I mention the life of Jesus first because most of the people involved called themselves Christians. The life they were leading was anything but. First recognize and respect the common, shared humanity and equal-ness of all God’s people and then one day you will be with me in paradise.
We follow the adage to be grateful that you are one of this Society’s chosen so tomorrow you will all be together in the hell that separate and unequal creates. Daily – minute by minute – life in that hell can go from exquisite to miserable and we never attribute that to its root cause – our need to be “better than” and the price we will pay to maintain that position.
