D's Bones » race

Bias Adjustments

David Stallings — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 23:19:52 +0000

When my mother and new stepfather
moved from Nashville to a southern Alaska town,
I spent fifth grade trying to make new friends, rid myself
of Southern drawl, and avoid
getting beat up. And so,

to help
my classmates decide
which candy bar to eat first,
I suggest, Eeny, meeny miney moe,
catch a nigger by the toe…

What’s that?
No one has heard the word.

My accent quickly disappears.
I soon learn to feel
smarter than the tough native
kids with parents in the TB sanitarium.

Seward, 1953

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Here, thanks to childhood relocation from Tennessee to Alaska, the process of prejudice (and the role language plays) is crystallized, but not stymied. Our deeply ingrained tendency to (mostly unconsciously) define “us vs. them” often displays a distressing resilience, evolving right along with greater consciousness and sensitivity to diversity. In this long-ago instance, it effortlessly made a localized “adjustment.”

Pachuco

David Stallings — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:55:15 +0000

One day Louis’ older brother
drops by the Indian Grill,
and we take a break from bussing dishes.
Carlos wears a wavy D.A.,
greets us with a scarred hand.
Louis tells me his brother
wanted to marry, needed a job.
No one would hire him
because of the tattoo
between his left thumb and forefinger.
So Carlos drove north of town,
up into Austin Bluffs, used his pistol
to shoot the cross and rising sun
clean off.
His hand healed OK. He got
a decent job, but his blonde
wife’s father still
hates him.

Colorado Springs, 1957

Wikipedia will tell you that the Pachuco “youth movement” grew out of Mexico in the 1930s and 40s. Think zoot suits and a whole life style. Along the Mexican border, young Hispanics (as Pachucos) defended themselves from some of the white servicemen stationed in that area. By the mid-fifties the movement had spread all through the Hispanic southwestern U.S. It evaporated by the early 70s.

In Colorado Springs, us white kids were afraid of Pachucos, or “Chukes” (“They carry knives,” we told each other). I suspect the local Hispanic kids–who hung together, looked different, and were not all angels–were more “wannabes.” The homemade, commonly seen “cross and rising sun” hand tattoo was probably more of a cultural referent. However, among whites, including the local small business community, it was the sure mark of a “trouble maker punk,” or worse.

It was only when I entered the “world of work” at 14 that the vastness, diversity, and often unfairness, of this beautiful, fucked up world began to touch me.

By the way, a “D.A.” was a “duck’s ass”, or “duck tail”, haircut. Long on the sides, coming together in a sort of V part in the back. Hispanics’ wavy dark hair looked just fine in a D.A. Some of the rest of us had less luck with this mid-50s style.

For the Godfather

David Stallings — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 20:50:04 +0000

You needed to be 18
to get into the Rainbow Ballroom,
but they let Norm and me in anyway.
Things were different
in this tough Colorado steel town.
We sat near the stage, ordered three-two beer—
the only two white faces
among many tables of black ones.
Contraband liquor flowed,
empty bottles rolled on the floor.
When the band eased into Please, Please, Please,
we were lost in heaven. But then the singer
started choking, collapsed to the stage.
What the hell?
People screamed.
The Famous Flames played on,
while someone
figured out what to do.
Four tall men in black suits
and skinny black ties entered,
lifted James Brown to their shoulders,
marched from the room.

The Famous Flames were solid.

Eventually, the funereal four
returned with a lifeless James Brown,
gently propped him onto the stage,
curled a microphone into his hand.
Feebly, he rose, rasped into the mic,
Oh, baby, please…
don’t go.
We went insane.
We cried and shouted
in a roar that I still
feel in my
chest.

Oh, baby, please please please please please…
don’t go.

It was 1959, and the town was Pueblo. My friend and I were into black music as much as two white kids going to high school in Colorado Springs, 40 miles north, could be. We listened to rhythm and blues on the powerful Mexican border stations (the “X’s”) and haunted Rhythm Records, the only black record store in C. Springs. In a way, early James Brown was like early Elvis Presley–they both pointed us straight into the wilderness.

That night in Pueblo, James Brown taught passion. I think he changed my life.

Always a showman, he closed out his final act on Christmas Day, 2006.