...from the airport in Oakland.  We pick up Nancy tomorrow at the airport and go on to Mendocino.

My friend John Baker wrote and sent to me the following response to last week’s murders in America, murders that are based in racism, murders for which, John reminds us, we all have a part in committing:  

“With the killings of police officers and black men in this country, it is overtime for white people to own up to their complicity in the disease racism. It is not about "other"....someone else's problem. NO! It is a white issue! Racism is a birth child  of white privilege. We live in a white race based society and none of us has escaped this disease....none of us.

Until white people own up to their play in this disease can their be little healing for the total community. Implicit bias runs deep and it must be eradicated......and not with guns and hatred.

I suggest the following:

First to my white brothers and sisters consider your own racism.....which we harbor inside ourselves. It comes from ignorance and fear....if we take time to look within ourselves we might find that some of our fears are unfounded; we might even be able to see ourselves and neighbors in new ways.

Second don't judge me until you know me. Check your address lists. How many people of color do you hang? Are most of your contacts white? If racism is to be defeated, we all must begin to friend raise with those of color as part of our daily diet.

Third  check your own implicit bias. There is a test developed by Anthony G. Greenwald, Mahzarin Banaji and Brian Nosek of Harvard regarding implicit bias. It takes only a few minutes. www.implicit.harvard.edu. 

Fourth have friends join in taking the test and share results.

(Our nation is being called to have this engagement, based on a pluralistic society.) Again, healing has a chance only if we who are white engage in looking at our complicity in racism....none of us has escaped......denial has been the white response for too many years.

Fifth understand this is not an issue that belongs to "others"....No...it is one we promote and play in everyday of our lives. Many of us (including myself)are blind to what we do to oppress neighbors of color.

Sixth Take this engagement to your places of worship, businesses, social groups, professional groups. The good news is all black, brown and white US citizens share the same oxygen....oxygen that has circulated in our collective lungs...exhaled...inhaled...shared....it is the spirit juice we all are dependent! 

7th Remember these words as you go forward: "If you come to help me you are wasting your time. If though you come because your liberation is tied to my liberation then we can walk together and build a playing field accessible by ALL. Si se puede mi hermanos/hermanas."

Join me in this effort. As a white male I know I can do better; White privilege/racism have held me hostage too long. Dealing with my own racism has and will continue to make me a better neighbor for you and for me.

On hearing the death of Dr. King, Robert Kennedy shared, 

"What we need in the United States is not division. What we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness but is love and wisdom and compassion toward one another and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer in our country, whether they be white or whether they be black or brown."

The newspaper is full of stories of wild fires on hillsides in California.  I came across a two-stanza verse I wrote in Malaysia in 1990.  It seems appropriate.

GRASS AND PEOPLE ARE MUCH ALIKE

Grass and people are much alike.

There is a great variety of both found everywhere upon the earth and in it, too,

if fossil records are to be believed.

Both survive in outrageous circumstances.

With perverse tenacity they cling against all odds.

And trees, too, are so like people.

These great trees rising above the jungle canopy,

proud, impervious they seem

as one would think they’d grow in Connecticut,

but one early frost in September would humble them

and anyone, however full of faith, who plants them there,

Wednesday, July 18, 1990

YELLOW

I've been trying to decide…

something as powerful as a yellow ball

or yellow flowers

or a yellow sports car

small

but loud

isn’t just the color of something;

It’s something itself…

Like the yellow swimsuit

worn by the young women

who sang in the spring concert

and was gorgeous enough

to remind me 

that yellow isn’t just a color like 

pink

or even red.

and, Oh, yes!

The yellow bus

is real.

Believe it.

EXERPTS FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES TODAY:

The sequence of events this week tore at a nation already deeply divided over questions of policing and race, pivoting from anger and despair over shootings of black men by the police to officers being targeted in apparent retaliation. It dealt a blow both to law enforcement and to peaceful critics of the police.

“All I know is that this must stop, this divisiveness between our police and our citizens,” Dallas Police Chief Brown said.

——————-

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, who was in Washington, said: “After the events of this week, Americans across our country are feeling a sense of helplessness, of uncertainty and of fear. Now, these feelings are understandable and they are justified. But the answer must not be violence. The answer is never violence.”

“To our brothers and sisters who wear the badge, I want you to know that I am deeply grateful for the difficult and dangerous work that you do every day to keep our streets safe and our nation secure,” she said. To the protesters, she said, “Do not be discouraged by those who would use your lawful actions as a cover for their heinous violence.”

——————-

Response to the Minnesota shooting of a Black Man. 

“To legitimize yourself as a person, as a human being.  Every time one of these individuals loses a life, it’s not just the loss of one life.  It’s a rip in a family, it’s a rip in the community. And you get enough of these little rips, and you know, it starts to tear at the national fabric a little bit… And I’m frankly tired of learning about the lives of the people through their deaths.”

ALL LIVES MATTER

I’m a white man trying to know

what it looks and feels like to go out

into the world as a person of color.

The obvious stacking of the deck

is now and always has been obvious.

I was a little boy in Arkansas 

in a little town which had a good school

for white kids like me,

Black kids went to school in a house

on the other side of the tracks,

not a house built for schooling kids

but a small modest house built for living.

My mother took me there once

to see and hear the kids singing.

What I saw was very different 

from anything I experienced in my school.

Desks were old and rooms were crowded.

Mother and I were greeted and treated

like people stopping in from another realm,

which was exactly what we were… aliens.

I was seven or eight or nine years old.

I didn’t know enough then to understand

why the school was different from mine,

but I wondered even when I wasn’t yet ten

what kind of world it is that makes a difference

between white kids and kids of another color.

I wondered why in the scheme of things

I had been born with a lighter skin color.  

I saw that my Mother could see the difference

between our skin and the skin of all those others.

I don’t remember how the rest of that day went.

My life continued at home with white everything.

I didn’t know scientific reasons for anything, 

but I knew there was something terribly wrong

in the world that sets up white people like me

to have circumstances of living so different

from those I saw that day seventy plus years ago.

Margaret and I went to see the Lamb's Players production of American Rhythm in Coronado.  Great Show.  We recommend it to anybody who likes American Music.

WANDERING in San Diego today... I came across tree after tree of magnolias all of them with blossoms.  Of course, I've been seeing them for days, and I photographed them a few days ago in Del Mar not far from Patrick's and Elaine's street. When I stopped near the little park in Del Mar and took pictures of magnolia blossoms,  I noticed that something is missing from that part of town.  There aren't the eucalyptus trees that we have on our hill, and I began to wonder if there is a sociological problem here that needs to be addressed.  Are eucalyptus trees less grand, less up-scale, less socially correct than magnolia trees?  I'll be more aware in the days following this one.  I remember seeing both eucalyptus and magnolia trees in Balboa Park.  Our apartment is one of 334 "units" in a condominium community where, as far as I know, there are no magnolia trees; but there are many eucalyptus trees.  We have flowering fruit trees that bloom in winter.  There are at least two varieties of eucalyptus trees, and we have several melaleucas. Most of the trees on our hill were planted thirty years ago.

The Fourth of July… I am glad to be an American.  One of the things an old man is supposed to do in his old age is to worry about his country, so this election year gives me plenty of stuff for worry.  It will be a waste of your time if you tell me that I should be thankful and glad for The Trump guy.  On the other hand, I sometimes find myself feeling glad Donald Trump is doing his foolishness and saying his nonsense, because I keep asking myself how can anyone want to believe him; and then I remember the polls and the reminders that there are lots of foolish Americans out there.  So I worry.

Tonight we watched San Diego fireworks from the La Jolla hillside.  Wow!  From where we sat and stood we could see beyond the San Diego skyline to the scattering of lights in the homes in Tijuana.  I am glad to live so close to Mexico.  I like seeing the signs that remind us as we drive down the freeway that the International Border is less than half-an-hour away.  I like seeing the lights from homes and businesses on the Tijuana hillside.  

Every year at this time when speeches are made about how great it is to be American, I remember moving to Singapore four years after that city and the island surrounding it and being aware that people who are citizens of other countries are proud to be who they are and where they are.  I remember that first year soon after we arrived in Singapore when the people there celebrated the fourth anniversary of their independence from Malaysia.  I remember the speech of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew and his remarks about being free on that day.   I was proud to be in the company of free people on that August 9th, 1969.  I am proud to be an American on this 239th birthday of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Freedom is worth the worry.

Out in front of our apartment I grow plants in pots.  I like black and white photography, and this picture of the hallway leading to our front door seems better to me in black and white.  The agapanthus flowers are also known as Lily of the Nile.   They are part of the landscaping in our community.  This is a good time of the year.  Life is good.

A lot of people have taste, but they don’t have the daring to be creative.

                                         ~ Bill Cunningham

I read/heard a couple of weeks ago about the death of Bill Cunningham.  In case you’ve never heard of him, he was a fashion photographer for more than four decades for the NY Times.  A fantastic documentary was made about his life.  He lived a simple life and valued freedom over money. He rode around the streets of Manhattan on a bicycle.  He was one-of-a-kind.

I was looking back in my book of poems from the 90s and found something I wrote after seeing a fight on 6th Avenue.  I was in New York for a meeting.  Those were the days before I retired.

NEW YORK CITY, March 1991

The guy he come around the car

yelling at nobody in particular

say he gonna kill somebody

or some shit like that

an the dude with the pretzel cart

he say who you gonna kill sucka 

an he reach in the cabinet

right there where he keep the pretzels

and he pull out a knife 

mean muthafucka

real long

no street knife

one he use for pretzels I guess

an he whup that mutha around

now what you say son-a-bitch

an the guy change his mind bout killin

say you stay outa this fucka

ain’t yo business nohow

an the situation heat up fast

while a crowd circle around

waiting listening leaning forward and backward

staying tense ready to step away

ready to run maybe

a knife on Sixth Avenue

in front of Radio City Music Hall

ain’t happen everyday

Balboa Park in Summer