Black and White

It takes a president who is black to bring out the best and the worst in some of us. Seems there are those that want to optimize the opportunity to show their true colors by wasting our precious time trying to sell the public on President Obama being born in Kenya! Good. It’s so absurd that, at least for me, the Fool is showing itself more clearly than ever.

I’ve been exposed to prejudice ever since I can remember. When I was three years old I began recognizing the difference in my thinking from my parents. It started with comments about our neighbors who were Irish. My mother would point out generalities like “they always fight and drink”. In my young mind I thought all people who are angry argue or get physical. I used to see my Jewish adopted father chase my half brother Alan around the house with his fists clenched making threats that were a blur. My brother would always outrun him and lock himself up in the bathroom until tempers cooled down. What’s the difference between our neighbors, the Sullivan’s, and us, I would think.

Later, when I would go to Dallas for Dr Pepper and be in the headquarters, another disturbing reference came my way. Sure it was 1963 and the South, but to me it was so shocking to see signs on bathroom doors and drinking fountains that distinguished “for whites only” and “for colored”! Mt heart sank at the thought of it. After all, my background is a minority and my gender was second class in those times. Fortunately my voice was an equalizer of sorts which gave me an equal footing in the corporate arena. Dear Lord, how can people I love and care for be so afraid?

The awful truth really showed its ugly head at the time of my Grandma Rose’s passing. I had never told my children who they could or could not be friends with. I am prefacing my remarks with this insight to help you understand my position. I received a call from Morey, my adopted father telling me that if my children were bringing any of their black friends to his mother’s funeral they (my children) were not welcome. I had compassion for him due to an incident that my grandmother had endured some time ago. She was living alone, and one evening when her eldest son, Lou, had dropped her off she was accosted by a black person who hit her on the head and stole her purse. This occurred about ten years or more previous to her death. Apparently fear took over and evoked a conflict which caused my children to draw their own conclusions. Ultimately, I opted to pay my respects to Grandma Rose in a private ceremony away from the planned funeral.

Much later, in my mentor’s office in Beverly Hills, I was turned on to a book which was called Spiritual Astrology. It has to do with what eclipses you are  born under (btw, we just experienced a solar eclipse on July 22). I discovered that Gemini lunar and Sagittarius solar eclipses were my birth influences. The latter explained that I came in to teach WE ARE ALL ONE. No wonder prejudiced thinking doesn’t make sense to me. Only love!