Just what is Discrimination?
Born in Missouri(1874-1960), my grandmother Jarvis was nursed by a wet nurse and raised by a nanny, both Black women. "I loved them dearly, especially Sarah, my nanny", she told me. "They took good care of me and both kept to their own kind and caused no trouble."
As a young man, I worked on the Seattle waterfront for Bartmann and Bixer. They claimed to be a drapery manufacturer, but in reality they were a sweat shop and a primitive torture chamber.
But I would take my lunch at George's Cafe Tavern, a dining delight and a central breeding ground for some of the largest, fattest cockroaches in the entire Northwest.
This fine establishment was the grazing ground for local longshoremen and produce house workers. All White, and all Macho Men.
In those days I would have to count myself as one of them.
If only to survive.
During those tumultuous days of unrest in our Central Cities in the late 50's and early 60's, the favorite topic for discussion over lunch was what we should do about those trouble making Negroes.
"Why can't they just stay with their own kind?" one huge dock worker growled.
Another young fellow put down his newspaper and took the center stage. He was a short haul truck driver with a wife, three grubby kids and two girl friends. He lived in a hovel that even the rats abandoned. And he smelled to a point of always having an empty stool on either side of him. "Personally," he said, grinning through brown-green snaggles of teeth, "I get along with them just fine, as long as they stay in their place".
No, I never asked Mister Skuzzy just where "Their Place" was.
Many years passed. One day, at the age of 29, I awoke to find that I had become the Blind Man. Life changed dramatically for me. Even though I continued living in the same house, with the same wife and small daughter, and attended the same church, and visited with the same relatives and friends, I could feel the difference. Without saying it openly, the word was out that I was to conform and become one of "those people". For several years I actually found myself becoming the neighborhood Blind Man. That pitiful, but brave Soul whose wife led him to church where God tended to his needs. "You've lost your physical sight", said my kindly neighbor, "But God has given you great insight." If only she knew just how silly that was.
But it made her, and all the other Christian ladies feel good.
Coming to my senses was not one of those, Ah Ha! moments. For me it was a slow process. But one day I did realize that I was not going to be controlled by the Universal Blind Stereotype any longer.
After leaving my wife, I sought an apartment. The woman who managed the place I chose to live in, turned to me when she saw that I was blind. "Why don't you go over to that Blind Center. Don't they have a place for your kind to live in?"
I said, "Does your kind have a place to live in?"
I could feel her instant anger rise up. "What do you mean by that remark?" she demanded.
"Well, women have been discriminated against for as long as blind people have, and I don't see anyone offering you a safe place to live. You and I both have to make our own way in this world. No one is looking out for us."
She rented me the apartment.
"Your Kind", Black or Blind, Female or Elderly is all the same. It's discrimination.
And discrimination is nothing more than a lack of understanding and respect for others.
Carl Jarvis
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