Black and White

Black and White Poem by Barbara Pixley You could hardly see for all the snow, Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go; Pull a chair up to the TV set, "Good Night, David. Good Night, Chet." Depending on the channel you tuned, You got Rob and Laura - or Ward and June; It felt so good. It felt so right, Life looked better in black and white. I Love Lucy, The Real McCoys, Dennis the Menace, the Cleaver boys; Rawhide, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Superman, Jimmy and Lois Lane. Father Knows Best, Patty Duke, Rin Tin Tin and Lassie too; Donna Reed on Thursday night! -- Life looked better in black and white. I wanna go back to black and white, Everything always turned out right; Simple people, simple lives... Good guys always won the fights. Now nothing is the way it seems, In living color on the TV screen; Too many murders, too many fights, I wanna go back to black and white. In God they trusted; alone in bed they slept, A promise made was a promise kept; They never cussed or broke their vows, They'd never make the network now . But if I could, I'd rather be, In a TV town in '53; It felt so good. It felt so right, Life looked better in black and white. I'd trade all the channels on the satellite, If I could just turn back the clock tonight; To when everybody knew wrong from right, Life was better in black and white!

A song that the Landmark church guitar-playing worship leader sang at the Union Gospel Mission Thursday night left an impression -- and not one that I think was intended.

The title of the song, for which the worship leader may have composed the tune, is “Black and White,” based on a poem, which I found online [see sidebar]. It was about black-and-white television and the simple straightforward TV shows of the 50s and early 60s. The theme of “black and white,” was a time when, supposedly, moral differences were more clear-cut and life was simple and happy. At one point the song expressed longing for a specific year: "if I could, I'd rather be,/In a TV town in '53;/It felt so good. It felt so right."

But of course any ideation of the 50s is in reality wrongheaded. Those supposed halcyon days of yore are romanticized because of our mind’s inclination to create Great Olden Times by fabricating a false past. TV stars mentioned in the song – like Rob and Laura, Ward and June -- are all white people, with the exception of Ricky Ricardo [the Latino husband in "I Love Lucy," but not cited directly] and a couple of dogs.

Nat King Cole

No black people are mentioned because, as people my age [57] would know, they didn't appear on television of that time, except for the lamentable exceptions of "Amos and Andy," which was funny if you could get around the   racism, which you can't [The NAACP was at the fore in protesting the series immediately after it began.] and Nat King Cole's show, which was popular, had episodes only 15 minutes in length, and couldn't retain advertisers, so it was quickly cancelled.  There was also the character of Rochester, played by Eddie Anderson, who was Jack Benny's wise-cracking gravel-voiced black valet on "The Jack Benny Show." Rochester was the exception that makes the rule: an admirable character who almost always got the best of Benny in their verbal jousts.

The Truth, which should matter greatly, is that the 50s was a time of overt racism and segregation.  Hate mongering was widespread and protected.  It was a horrible time, covered over by a patina of calm in segregated white neighborhoods.

The TV shows, including the sitcoms, and the movies of the time were generally unimaginative and unrealistic and absurdly wholesome.  A rebellion in the form of an escalation in the civil rights movement and the 60s freedoms-seeking movement, and women's rights and all of that was overdue.  Hooray for the end of the 50's!

It's difficult to understand how very "tone deaf" the worship leader was to have sung his song, with its backward lyrics, in the mission where something like 40% of the people in the seats are black homeless men and where 50 is the average age.  But make no mistake, even if everyone in the seats was white, the song was undignified and ignorant and cringe-worthy.

Landmark's worship leader is by no means a bad person, but I do think he would benefit from gaining a better understanding of the chapel audience that he stands in front of, and our challenges.  To his great credit, the worship leader likes to bring interesting things and oddities to sing for us at the mission.  Very often he sings a song he has wholly composed himself.  One time I recall he came with a re-worded version of John Lennon's "Imagine."  I cringed when he began the rendition of the song, wholly at odds with Lennon's wording, but cheered at the end.  As much as Lennon's words and vision are in line with my thinking, the worship leader's riff on the song was still very clever and kindly.

But PLEASE.  I do understand that the religion of the mission is conservative.  But let us not go backward in time to a backward time, the terrible 50s.  THAT old-time religion should be forgotten in acknowledgment of the mistake that it was.
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Just by happenstance I got of couple of reactions from mission guests, both black men in their 50s, to the "black and white" song.  The first man was pretty disgusted with it.;  The second man, a friend, said his hellos to me when I was first beginning to compose this post at the library.  I told him what I was writing, and he told me he was in the chapel then and heard the song.  He said while he was hearing it he was wondering if he was the only guy who noticed how offensive the song was.

Sacramento Stand Down set for Sept 16, 17 and 18

	Click on the flyer pictured above to see it in an enlarged, readable size..

At right is the flyer that is being circulated about the 2011 Stand Down in Sacramento that aids homeless veterans. [Click on it to see it enlarged and readable.]

The website for the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans tells us

The original Stand Down for homeless veterans was modeled after the Stand Down concept used during the Vietnam War to provide a safe retreat for units returning from combat operations. At secure base camp areas, troops were able to take care of personal hygiene, get clean uniforms, enjoy warm meals, receive medical and dental care, mail and receive letters, and enjoy the camaraderie of friends in a safe environment. Stand Down afforded battle-weary soldiers the opportunity to renew their spirit, health and overall sense of well-being.

That is the purpose of the Stand Down for homeless veterans, and achieving those objectives requires a wide range of support services and time. The program is successful because it brings these services to [a metropolis in] one location, making them more accessible to homeless veterans.

In July 2002, the founders of Stand Down – Robert Van Keuren, Dr. Jon Nachison and Vietnam Veterans of San Diego – asked the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV) to become the “keeper of the flame” and provide national leadership for the movement. Since the first Stand Down in San Diego in 1988, the program has become recognized as the most valuable outreach tool to help homeless veterans in the nation today.

Those of us who have been homeless for a couple of years or more and either are veterans or have homeless-veteran friends know that the annual Stand Down is a very big deal. It

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provides vets with all that it claims to bring to the community of veterans: Opportunities to socialize with other veterans, and to get every kind of aid that can aright one's life. And, it comes with compassion and recognition of the service men and women brought to their nation.

The is FOR SURE an ABSOLUTE DO-NOT-MISS three day event for all Sacramento-area homeless veterans.

Homeless folk on the bike trail

Expect a bad aroma: Loaves & Fishes to close its Men’s Wash House for five days straight

The stench of bad leadership at Loaves & Fishes hangs in the air like a rotting halibut.

Men's Wash House: A vital service to allow homeless men to  keep  themselves clean with a shower, shave and clothing exchange.

Loaves & Fishes will be closing its Men’s Wash House for five days – the first five days of September – for reasons that have not been disclosed. A notice was put up in Friendship Park and at the wash house to that effect this morning.

A five-day period, during a hot summer, when homeless men cannot easily keep themselves clean is a significant disruption of homeless services. Being stinky out in public is a bummer. Loaves & Fishes really ought to find some empathy for the suffering of homeless folk. Or, ought to fire some of its reeking top-level employees and replace them with people who have a compassionate nature. In the past, the Wash House has been closed such that Wash House staff could take a single day off to go to a Star Trek Convention in Sacramento. A search of the Internet shows no evidence of a five-day, Memorial extended-weekend Star Trek Lollapalooza, though that could just be because it’s hidden behind a futuristic cloaking devise of some weird sort.

Anyway, the Wash House staff would never advocate for a long close; they care about their work and the guys they serve. Another possibility is that the water tank has busted, the building has been invaded by termites, and all the urinals and toilets have been busted up by gangsters dressed as nuns wielding bats – but still, it takes FIVE DAYS to fix merely all that? Or, it may be that Mark – the irreplaceable fully-competent-and-compassionate manager and Wash House Mr. Congeniality – is vacationing in Argentina. But, truly, there is no excuse. A five-day closure is unjustifiable, but IS the usual output from the never-stinting-at-being-meanspirited, disconnected-from-what-being-homeless-is-like Loaves & Fishes high-up management.

During the first three days of the Wash House closure, homeless men in the know will be able to go to the Union Gospel Mission for clean clothes and a shower. However, UGM does not have open hours, staff and facilities to compensate for the inavailability of the Wash House.

Libby Fernandez: NOT a friend of the homeless

Loaf & Fish CEO Fernandez was profiled in the July 29 issue of the Sacramento Business Journal. In the piece she is quoted telling homeless-averse business people what they want to hear.  The first and third paragraphs in the profile follow [emphases mine]:

“Loaves and Fishes is the heart of downtown,” Sister Libby Fernandez said. “It’s a welcoming place for the very poor and homeless, and gives them a place to be during the day. We serve an average of 650 poor and homeless people each day, and if they weren’t here, they would be at other places downtown. ”

…

“When people who are homeless are here they can use our restrooms, our showers, wash up, get their clothes cleaned,” she said. They can use our telephones, sit in our park and just be, without disturbing other people and other businesses. They can socialize here, and get services and help here.”

In his book Managing the Underclass in American Society[1] John Irvin wrote about how the REAL effort in many metropolises is not to help the poor or homeless, but to corral them, to run them around in circles, to waste their time and to keep them out of public view.  Police -- prompted by politicians who are prompted by business people -- in metropolises where such a polity, called “Warehousing the Rabble,” is extant endlessly roust the homeless and otherwise keep ‘em out of “nice neighborhoods.”  Does that sound like Sac’to to you?  Yep.

And you know it’s true:  Homeless people in Sacramento get ticketed and arrested for conduct and actions that conventional citizens, doing the same activities, would never be bothered about by the police.  There are laws on the books that exclusively or near-exclusively are there targeting the homeless to make us behave like cattle.

Libby, with her quotes in the Biz Journal, proves her fealty to the Warehousing the Rabble philosophy and the business community, in opposition to suffering homeless people.  She is certainly NO friend of the homeless. It’s all a charade.  She shows that she does not support the right of the homeless to be treated the same as conventional Sacramento citizens.

Make no mistake, Libby is well known for delivering radically differing messages to suit the different audiences she addresses.  It’s called duplicity and Libby is shameless at it.  To the business world, she’s dutiful at keeping the stinky homeless away from the gentile public.  To donors and volunteers, she is Mother Teresa aiding the wretched.  To the homeless, she pretends to be a champion of the poor.  And to other groups, like the employees at Loaves & Fishes, the Jesuit volunteers, and the L&F Board of Directors, she has yet other masks.

A change at the top at Loaves & Fishes is overdue.  It is time, too, to end the duplicity and for Loaves & Fishes to embrace a new policy:  one of compassion and genuine interest in helping homeless people find meaning in their lives and opportunities to better their circumstance.

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[1] Full title The Jail: Managing the Underclass in American Society

Momentos

The seven-minute film, below, is getting attention. Me, I'm bothered by it more than a little. I was affected by the little movie, but also repelled by the 'romantic' notion that homelessness can be swept away in an instant AND by the very idea from the film that it is desirable and so self-evidently so that a homeless portion of a person's life should be utterly swept away, like a bad dream. The circumstance of homelessness, of sleeping on the street, is a lesson-learning opportunity. While there are dangers and deprivations in being homeless, the life circumstance is also more-raw in many, many altogether good ways, than a life that is wholly unchallenged and floating on a sea of illusion.

At the film's website, we are told the message of the film is "that life is good." Maybe that theme predominated in the minds of it creators while they were making the film, but the short is what it is and I don't think its message is that.