Please tell me that you missed me, or haven’t you noticed that I’ve been gone?

The last time I wrote, Haiti had just been devastated by a series of major earthquakes. At that time, no one seemed able to quickly do what the world community most wanted, to help the poor and wounded and homeless people of that tortured country.

There is still much to be done. In fact, real recovery is just beginning, and things are looking up for Haiti. Most importantly of all, President Bill Clinton pledged to focus the next three years of his life on rebuilding the country. Throughout next year, the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission, headed by Clinton, will oversee the rebuilding dollars pledged by many nations. Additionally, on the last day of June, came the news that several large monetary funds were forgiving $1.2 Billion dollars of Haiti’s debt. That means $50 million more can now be used to help the poverty stricken nation.
While not writing about Haiti and other local and national issues, I have been writing, fiercely, trying to finish my memoir. It has a name and a publisher now. PoliPoint Press will be publishing Never in my Wildest Dreams. More… in fact lots more… on that in the future.

What bought me back to my computer was last Monday’s big dust-up with former Georgia director of rural development Shirley Sherrod, or rather it was the web conversations that started and continue, and deserve to be noted.
Many thoughtful people have taken this incident as a Teaching Moment, whatever that means. From the multitude of postings I’ve read, it was Sunday’s piece in the Washington Post by Michelle Singletary that turned the conversation for me. Add a line from last Wednesday’s column by Michael Gerson, who was President George W. Bush’s favorite speechwriter, and maybe something important has happened, something deserving of letting this story live a little longer.

You would have had to be out of the country not to know the story, but in summary, Shirley Sherrod was speaking at the National Convention of the NAACP. She made a speech about racial reconciliation. It was later edited by a right wing blogger and exploited by the Fox News network to make it appear she had been making racist remarks about white farmers. Sherrod was immediately fired. The NAACP affirmed that it did not endorse racism by anyone before investigating to see if that was the case here. The White House joined in the condemnation, also before investigating; and, until people like Country music star Willie Nelson, who has known Sherrod for 25 years, rose to her defense, a long life of service had been smeared, and was about to be destroyed.

Now one week later, the truth is out; her boss, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and President Obama have apologized and asked her to come back to work. She hasn’t decided yet whether she will or not.
That’s all old news. The new conversation started by Singletary advises us to hear Sherrod out; that this story is not about race, but about economic inequality, and that raises the bar. The columnist points out that the number of people who believe they are among the have–nots has doubled from 17 percent in 1988 to 34 percent in 2007.

Numerous studies have confirmed the widening gap between the rich and poor in America. Sherrod said that while working with white farmers, she realized that the social war we’ve been having isn’t about race, but economic inequity. In her speech, she said, “it’s really about those who have versus those who don’t, you know. And they could be black; and they could be white; they could be Hispanic. And it made me realize then that I needed to work to help poor people—those who don’t have access the way others have”. She told her NAACP audience, “The only difference is that the folks with money want to stay in power and whether it’s health care or whatever it is, they’ll do what they need to do to keep that power, you know. It’s always about money…”.

If we look at the two most recent notorious cases of media used to crush liberal voices, the victims had been involved in work that would help the poor to improve their lot: ACORN, the organization that fought for better wages and housing for the poor; and local activist Van Jones and his work to build a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Unflattering stories burned through conservative web blogs and were then taken to national exposure and scathing attacks by the FOX News network.

The same pattern was followed here, except this time there was real videotape of the speech before it was doctored and the manipulation was exposed.


Michael Gerson pointed out in a thoughtful piece, “Signs of Sanity from the Tea Party”, that “there is a serious danger when evidence of ideological aggression is both easily falsified and universally distributed.”.
It will be interesting to see if this incident and the conversations that have followed will do anything to change the way we approach these kinds of explosive issues. Better yet, will the real subject of Shirley Sherrod’s speech become part of our national conversation?

Finally back to Shirley Sherrod. In the 1970’s, Sherrod and her husband ran a farming cooperative. They were part of a group that charged the Department of Agriculture with discrimination and won a settlement of over $1 Billion. Following that experience, she came to realize that the real battle is between the well off and those with less. During these times of high unemployment and bad economic news for the masses, it would be good to listen to Shirley Sherrod and to talk more about the economic divide which has no color lines.

Haiti: The day after: visible from the highway

Anyone who has ever been to Haiti probably found it very hard to sleep on Tuesday night.

Even under normal circumstances, life is unbelievably difficult on the island; it is hard to imagine that any more pain and suffering could be possible. But there it was: late Tuesday afternoon, a massive 7.0 earthquake struck near the capital city, Port-au Prince, wiping out power and communication lines. Darkness came too soon, making rescues even more difficult.

In the poorest nation of the Western hemisphere, there are no “first responders”, no rescue teams, no fire fighters, little heavy equipment capable of digging survivors from the rubble. If help came to survivors in the dark of night, it was from a family member or friend who answered their cries and tried to extricate them from the debris, often with nothing more than bare hands.

Daniel Morel, via Twitter

Woman buried in rubble after 7.0 earthquake, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

The majority of Haitians who live in the capital city of Port-au-Prince are profoundly poor. Over a million live in shantytowns on the edge of the city. Eighty-seven percent live in such deep poverty that finding food is a daily struggle and clean water is a luxury. This is a country where poor mothers feed mud pies to their hungry babies to fill their empty little stomachs. In light of this level of poverty, the fact that daily life in Haiti proceeds with any orderliness stems from the resilience, strength and will of the people — that, and the presence of missionaries, relief organizations and UN peacekeepers. 

It has been many years since I was in Haiti. Its history of struggle against the odds, and the talents of its many artists, drew me to this island nation. It became the place where I accepted the limitations of my own ability to tolerate abject poverty, or to alleviate the suffering of its victims. We had parked our car near the Iron Market. It was hot and too crowded, so I decided to stay in the car alone while the rest of our group shopped. Within minutes, the car was surrounded by faces pressing on the windows, through the front, back and both sides of the car. These were the faces of mothers whose babies appeared to be merely bundles of skin, bone and rags, of old people with all kinds of ailments, their haggard faces begging for whatever could be gotten. In my locked car, in the teeming heat, surrounded by all those begging faces, I cried and trembled alone behind the locked doors.

It wasn’t until years later, in Egypt, while riding from the airport to the center of Cairo, that I understood what I had done, what so many of us do when forced to look into the faces of people in extreme poverty. We concentrate our attention on the beautiful views and try not to look down. 

That day in Cairo, the car was traveling on a very high, elevated roadway which afforded sparkling views of the city as we sped along. The views were so thrilling that it took a while before I looked down from my perch and saw the teeming crowd of people below. In just one glance, I saw hundreds of ragged people, gathered in a crowded, rundown sector of the city, while people with plenty, people like me, sailed past on the sky bridge overhead. The way that road was designed, a tourist could complete an entire visit to the pyramids without having had any contact with the poor Egyptians surrounding them — without even seeing them. 

For decades, that’s the way it has been with Haiti. Most of the developed world seems to have been traveling past on an elevated bridge, riding high above Haiti, never looking down to see the impoverished masses below. But this time, with the Obama administration pledging its unwavering commitment of assistance, with the full attention of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her husband, UN Special Envoy to Haiti, former President Bill Clinton, and with the eyes of the world focused on this desperate situation, let’s hope the people of Haiti can finally be seen eye-to-eye, face-to-face.

This time, with so much damage and so much suffering, it is time for the world to reach down and lift them up.

Originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle online edition The Gate.

Back to School: Survival 101

Today is a Big Day for my family! Our only grandchild, our two-and-a-half year old young lady, starts preschool today. There is more excitement in the family (certainly more worried adults) than when her mother began kindergarten or her uncle entered high school. The tuition is almost what Stanford cost when I was growing up, so it will take all of us to see her through to first grade. The question is: will we survive the agitation of all the preparation for this youngster’s education? 

Now, don’t get “preschool” confused with “childcare” or “nursery school”. Believe me, this is something entirely different and far more sophisticated; our precious, precocious Little One will become a proud member of the “Penguin” class in the “Yellow Building” today…and I couldn’t be prouder. 

In preparation for an auspicious beginning to her academic career, this child has been making practice runs to the school for weeks now, she’s met her classmates, been assigned to her teacher and classroom, attended a family outing with her fellow future scholars and most importantly, learned to say “pee pee”– and mean it–as she runs to the potty, fast as her tiny feet will carry her.

Her grandfather and I are convinced that our granddaughter is already a certified Winner. Why? Because she’s been selected for the incoming class at this preschool, surviving a competition with four hundred other hopefuls! When we heard the news, we all celebrated. Why were we so excited? Because the learning focus at this particular preschool will be what I call “conflict resolution for toddlers”. The children will be taught how to negotiate, how to listen and how to get along with others. 

Being both a grandma and a journalist, I am more than aware that these skills are absolutely necessary for human survival in a nuclear-armed world, on a planet poised to destroy itself at any moment. Our children must learn as early as possible that there are many answers to the same question, all based on truths learned within our respective cultures. As a journalist and a newshound, I happen to know that at this very moment there are eight major conflicts and two dozen minor wars raging around the world. Of course, there is no such thing as a “minor war”, not if there is any loss of life, limbs or livelihood, and especially if the conflict is initiated just because some adults did not learn as children how to negotiate, how to listen and how to get along with others.

So, as soon as all of the silly parents and grandparents finally pocket our tear-moistened handkerchiefs and head to our homes and jobs, our little darlings will start training to become citizens of the future, to become survivors in our flawed and fragile world.

As an only child, our granddaughter has been coached to learn colors, to love books and music, and to count to ten–all the appropriate ways to achieve preschool readiness. But like so many doting families, we have found it difficult to teach her to share with others. She’s the center of our universe, but now she must learn how big the real universe is, and realize that she is not the central planet around which everything must orbit. She’s just one more little star twinkling, twinkling in the sky. 

She will learn that “mine” does not begin with a capital “m”, nor is it followed by an exclamation mark! She will learn the true meaning of the words “we”, “us” and “ours”. As she climbs the ladder from “Penguin” to “Prairie Dog” to “Panda” and finally “Polar Bear”, I will share her social development with you, my readers, because I am one proud Grandma. 

And because we all need to learn how to get along with one another, no matter how young–or how old–we are.

Originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle online edition The Gate.

Ghetto Girl”: Michelle Obama and Martha’s Vineyard’s black elite

virtualtourist.com Dock at Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard Are you ready? Here’s a quick lesson in African American social history. For more than a century, the East Coast black elite, including prominent artists, intellectuals and financially secure professionals, has gathered on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts, to relax and spend time with one another. By tradition, other ethnic groups do the same, and while the groups mingle socially, they largely live in segregated communities on the island. The black community has always summered near the town of Oak Bluffs, on the Island’s northern coast. The idea that rich, smart, black people get together to entertain each other (there is little else to do there) has intrigued the media lately. Why the new focus? Well, this week, the First Family will join that tradition, another socially-prominent, African American family escaping the summer heat on the beaches of the Vineyard. When the news broke, the writer Toure penned an article for New York Magazine about this annual gathering of the clan, focusing on its elite status (generational ownership of homes on the island) and the myriad criteria for being welcomed there, especially during the popular Labor Day weekend. While trying to unlock the mystery of the island’s attractions and assess the Vineyard’s suitability as a vacation spot for our new First Family, one anonymous, snobby, long-time islander is reported to have questioned Michelle Obama’s place in the group’s hierarchy, referring to the First Lady as just a “ghetto girl”, one who did not belong in the august company of the regulars. Needless to say, this quote has sent shock waves around the country. My friend Abigail McGrath sent me this graphic of a t-shirt she expects to sell a ton of over the next week. Frankly, I didn’t know what to make of it. The very idea of confusing “ghetto” with negativity rather than historical disenfranchisement is wrong and offensive, says Vineyard resident Abigail McGrath: ” Folks are confusing cash with class.”  Only on the most poorly informed television networks and fictionalized TV series is “ghetto” equated with gum-chewing, finger-snapping air heads and gun-toting thugs. So Ms. McGrath has designed a T-shirt bearing the slogan “Ghetto Girls Rock!!!”, listing on it the names of 48 famous women who came from “the ghetto” and made the world a better place. Women such as Mother Theresa, Mother Hale, and Fannie Lou Hamer grace the shirt with dignity and aplomb. “Ghetto Girls” t-shirt design (For more information and to order, contact: Abigail McGrath at GhettoGirlzRock@aol.com) There is so much to be said about the history of African Americans at Martha’s Vineyard, but it’s Abby’s t-shirt and the questions it raises that deserve discussion. I’ll talk about the list of “ghetto girls” in my next post…stay tuned. From her press release: This piece was originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle online edition, : The Gate.

Lost and Found?

Eureka! I finally found this photo of me and my husband Bill with Walter and Betsy Cronkite

Eureka!…I found it! I found the lost, cherished photograph I recently wrote about in my encounters with the late broadcast legend Walter Cronkite (And that’s the way it was, The Gate, July 19, 2009).

Well, that’s not quite true…I didn’t actually find the photo, per se; but I did find someone who sent me another copy. No doubt the original will show up at any moment, after all the effort I put into locating it. As soon as I quit looking, it will probably reappear. It will step out of its flat little hiding place, probably somewhere right in my sightline or someplace I’ve already looked, announce “Here I am!”, then be heartbroken to learn that it has already been replaced by a copy of someone else’s little photo, this one a fancier, newer, digital version. 

The experience of losing and finding things is so much a part of my life these days. Certainly others must have the same experience. But as I tend to do with most things nowadays, I see a philosophical connection to a larger perspective on our world. In this instance, the frequent experience of misplacing and searching for something every day, brings to mind the state of our country these days.

We are the most successful democracy in the world. What’s gone wrong? What have we lost?

There is something that we dearly care about, it’s important to everybody, but we have misplaced it somewhere and we don’t seem to be able to put our hands on it. Without this special thing, something is missing in our lives. Each day that we cannot find it nags at us more than the last. Like an amputated limb, we can feel the missing entity more acutely in its absence. Our discomfort grows daily; the pain gnaws at our senses until they are rubbed red and raw. Everywhere we look, people have begun to act strangely, and it’s frightening. It’s not just my imagination that rudeness, violent talk, public gun toting and hate speech have become more frequent.

What have we lost? Where can we find it? What is this lost object? It is, simply, respect for our fellow citizens, even for people with whom we don’t agree. Respect is the key ingredient that makes our American brand of democracy so effective. Without it, we are not the same. Without respect, we degenerate into name calling, us-vs-them selfishness, paper-thin egotism, reflexive defensiveness and offensive, attacking activism. 

Let’s put an end to this situation. Let’s all ask around for a friend who’s got the original document, so that we can quickly get back on the road to wholeness and healthy, civil behavior. What are we looking for? It’s called the Constitution of the United States. This document contains instructions for ensuring respect among the citizenry and its governmental branches. Heck, even if we don’t have access to the original, due to its fragility and need for museum preservation, there exist many digital versions which will serve us just as well. It’s time we found our original bearings as a society again.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America…”

This article originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle online edition, The Gate, July 19, 2009

Giving it all you’ve got

From the minute I first met her in 1983, it was clear to me that there were no half-steps for Faith Fancher. Whatever life tossed in her path, she took in full stride. Faith experienced life with gusto; no half smiles, no crocodile tears. She laughed loudly and easily, flashing her sparkling, white teeth. She cried with heavy, heaving sobs and flashing eyes. She said “I love you” often and easily, and clearly meant it. One always felt she was fully engaged in the moment, whatever moment that happened to be. 

These qualities made her good at her job: interviewing people for the local TV news, asking people to answer the most personal questions while they were smack in the middle of their own tragedies and disasters such as the Oakland Hills fire or the Loma Prieta Earthquake. She genuinely loved people and she loved hearing and telling their stories. You could say this was because of her Southern roots; she always had a natural knack for keeping it real. But for Faith, reality struck like lightning, like one of the tragedies and disasters she had covered, one day in 1997.

In 2003, Faith became one of the millions of women who have lost their lives to breast cancer. Her journey was a very public one. But of course the entire journey was conducted in the public eye, since for most of her too-brief life she had been a television reporter, working for 20 years at KTVU-TV in Oakland and 10 years previously at CNN and NPR, among other media outlets.
I still remember the telephone call: her doctor had just confirmed that the lump she discovered in her breast was malignant. Yes, she had cancer, but my friend Faith could not accept that a radical mastectomy was the answer—not for her. Yes, she was vain, proud of her looks and in love with her dashing, handsome husband. Like many women, she just couldn’t imagine facing her future while being “disfigured”, as she called it. I begged her to consider the more radical surgical option, to ensure she would be able to live—and love—long into the future.
I told her the story of a 32-year-old woman whom I had met years earlier while working on a story about the choices women faced back in the early 1970’s. This particular woman was alone in California and didn’t want to “worry” her family back home by sharing her sad news. Like Faith, she was young and attractive, and she decided against any surgical intervention at all. Within a year she had lost her life to breast cancer. Faith and I shed a few tears over the phone, thinking about the example of that young woman, then we ended our conversation, leaving Faith to consider her care options.

KTVU-TV reporter Faith Fancher

during her six-year struggle with breast cancer

When Faith’s doctor later informed her that her strain of cancer was a very aggressive one, she took the plunge. She decided to undergo the first of her seven surgeries and of course, she took all of us along with her through her Emmy Award-winning television reports. It was a wild ride. Faith lost her hair to chemotherapy, but she kept on working, exposing her cute, shiny, bald head to the public for the first time, telling her story on television, radio and in countless personal appearances, educating the general public and comforting hundreds of other women as they fought their own, very personal battles with the disease. We watched her hair re-grow and saw the sassiness return to her style as she cheered for all of her “warrior sisters”, her beloved, fellow breast cancer survivors. For them, she was one of their sisterhood, a heroine in their midst.

The very small club of women who work in Bay Area broadcast news formed an organization spearhead by Faith’s good friend Pamela Mays McDonald. We called ourselves Friends of Faith. In her life, and through her death, Faith did what we all want to do: she made a difference by giving it all she had to give, giving it all until she had nothing more to give. Now, six years after her death, the group continues the battle to raise awareness about breast cancer detection and raise money in her name, solely to help low-income, uninsured and underinsured women in need.  

She said it and wrote it often and easily, and she clearly meant it.

The death rate for breast cancer is declining, especially for women with higher incomes. But the day-to-day journey for survivors, especially poor, minority, immigrant and homeless women, is a tough one—both physically and psychologically. You can help. Here’s how:

Next Saturday, August 22, Friends of Faith will host the 5th Annual Faith Fancher Breast Cancer Challenge 5K Fun Run/Walk at Lake Merritt in Oakland. Join me and many of Faith’s friends in the media, as we give it all we’ve got to raise funds at this annual fundraising event. It’s going to be fun, with a great group of friendly people, healthy snacks and a soulful closing concert by Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir. 

If you can’t join us, take a moment now to make an online contribution—any amount, no matter how small, will be appreciated by our struggling clientele. The plight of fifty million uninsured Americans is a national disgrace. Faith Fancher had a big enough heart to do something about it, even as she struggled daily with the on-again, off-again roller coaster of metastatic cancer. Won’t you help, too?

 

For more information about Friends of Faith (a 501c3 charitable organization), check out its website.

To make a donation, click here:

Register to join the walk here: 

 

To volunteer, please telephone Friends of Faith, Inc. at (510)834 4142.

This post originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle online edition, The Gate.

Fortunate fog and lucky summer sunshine

Life in San Francisco has a myriad of benefits, but a sunny, warm summer is not one of them.

I’ve lost track of the number of summer days I’ve awakened to the drab color and dense feel of our thick, misty morning fog. Of course, we are aware that this thick, white blanket usually burns off as the day warms, but the absence of even a single ray of morning sunshine starts my day on a somber note. It seems to take more energy to put on a happy face and gear up for the day’s challenges.

As our somber summer drags on, we remind ourselves of our good fortune. If we really want to feel warm sunlight, we know it can be found within minutes—by driving north, south or east. Life in The City offers great views from almost any neighborhood, but few districts escape the doldrums of the thick summer fog. For some of us, there is a mild depression that starts to settle in when the back-to-school ads start to appear, signaling the end of a summer that we missed, yet others enjoyed. 

Of course, many people move to this beautiful city because they love the sameness of the weather, the reliable coolness and mildness. As I prepare for a trip to one of my favorite cities, Chicago, I am reminded of the reason I don’t live there: its radical, extreme weather— the incapacitating, frigid, wind-chilled winter and the merciless summer heat and humidity. 

As drab as our San Francisco summer mornings and late afternoons may be, we can usually look forward to sunshine during the middle of the day. I, for one, appreciate the symbolism of our summer weather pattern. It’s like life, constantly shifting and full of wonder and surprise. Like our lives, our earliest days may begin in a mist; we are not quite able to see our futures, but we grow to recognize the outlines of the hills, landmarks and obstacles in our environment.

stock.xchng
The view

Eventually, as we approach our thirties, the perceptual fog of youth clears and the sunshine of comprehension bathes us in warmth and clarity. Finally, we see where our lives are headed and the prospects look good. Later, as our lives advance, the clarity of middle age gives way to the gradually overcast skies of our senior years. We can see everything around us, but the blinding, harsh light from above creates a stark landscape, illuminating the world’s ills. Aches, pains and ailments begin to intrude on our sunny view of the world. In our final days, the mental fog of youth returns and we revert to a time where it is hard to always know who and where we are, and our lives acquire the misty outlines of nostalgia for the good, old days. 

That’s why it pays to pay attention and to appreciate each and every day of our lives. If we are thoughtful enough to store our brilliant memories and feelings from one sunny day to the next, those foggy bookends of our days will have little effect on our spirits, because we will have had the good fortune to be able to perceive the clear, crisp contours of the startling, sparkling, paradise we call summer.

Oh! We are oh, so lucky to live here right now.

This post originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle online edition, The Gate on August 7, 2009.