If it is true that the very nature of the way that our brains functions determines how we view new information and causes us to unconsciously deny facts that do not fit with our prior patterns of expectations, then the greatest hope for change lies with influencing future generations.
The Watchdog was subject to this phenomenon forty-five years ago, but only became aware of what had taken place almost forty years later.
Although raised in all white neighborhoods first in Northern-East Philadelphia and later in the city’s western suburbs, the Watchdog worked during the summer at age fifteen with a good natured middle-aged African-American making deliveries for the family furniture store. Later the Watchdog both sold goods and collected accounts in inner-city, predominately black neighborhoods.
Between his freshman and sophomore years at Oberlin College, he had a summer job at the Lorain Steel Mill and one evening attended a showing of “Grapes of Wrath” at a drive in movie with other working students. On the drive home, he criticized the movie for overstating the plight of the “Oakies”, dismissive that such hardships had occurred.
This led to a long talk with the African-American student who was with him who had been raised on a Southern cotton plantation and had a few years earlier been ‘adopted’ by a Wisconsin minister and his wife who, recognizing his abilities, had invited him to live with them. Although later in life contact was lost with the individual by the college, he remembers his name: Obadiah Williamson, later school president but, if information is correct, tragically a senior drop out.
Just ten years later, the Watchdog was building an apartment complex in Lancaster. His manager was startled when, in response to a comment, the manager was directed to rent to an African-American couple.
It was four decades later in reading “A City Transformed: Redevelopment, Race, and suburbanization in Lancaster, Pennsylvania 1940-1980″ by former Franklin and Marshall professor David Schuyler that the Watchdog discovered he may have inadvertently desegregated suburban Lancaster without having given the decision a moments consideration. Furthermore, he wasn’t involved in the civil rights movement. He was simply representative of a new generation of leaders coming on stream who were not subject to past prejudices.
He recently discussed the matter with his eldest son who pointed out that the son’s generation had not been subject to his father’s generation prejudice concerning gays. In the same manner, often nonchalant, they too had had discarded a taboo.
The lesson: If we want to improve the world, we must invest in the proper education of our youth. If we don’t , less enlightened forces will.
