To the editor:
Because my postings don’t match the prevailing opinions in Massachusetts, I am branded “Racist.” This does not really bother me because I know that this epithet is an automatic accusation applied to any conservative thinker. Let me explain to you, and, by the way, to my own kids, why I am the antithesis of a racist.
I was born in the British colony of Guyana, now the independent nation of Guyana, where my father worked for the British Colonial service, Education department. For the first year of my life a childcare woman, black as the ace of spades, was my companion. My mother said that she fed me so much rice that to this day I like rice very much.
When World War II broke out, we were living in Singapore, then another British colony. After being bombed by the Japanese, my mother and I escaped to Australia, but my father remained behind, and ended up as a POW being used to build the railroad made famous by the movie “Bridge on the River Kwai.” We expected to return to Malaya in a few months when the war would be over, but Japan didn’t cooperate. When the U.S. State Department ordered all Americans out of Western Australia, my mother and I traveled to Brooklyn, N.Y., where my grandparents lived.
At that time residential neighborhoods were segregated by race, so for a while, except for the maid who did laundry and cleaned the house, I had little contact with African Americans. Good maids are hard to get, and she was treated with respect. My grandfather was a doctor, and she got free healthcare from him. But there were other aspects of diversity. For example: Anglo, like me, Italian, Polish, and so on. But all the kids on the block got along famously. Religion was the badge we wore, and back then it was important. My family was Episcopal, but my best friend was Catholic. I sang in a choir and even then, I thought that it was stupid that we never sang “Ave Maria,” and the Catholics never sang “Messiah,” both beautiful music. We had Jewish families also. Until I returned to the USA decades later, I didn’t recognize Jews as an ethnic group. I just thought that Jews were people who went to a different church, like Baptists, but more so. Our house was six blocks from Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who broke the major league color bar by hiring Jackie Robinson. We were all Dodger fans.
After the war we went back to Malaya. My playmates were Malay, Chinese, Indian, and a few kids like me. Then, as was usual for colonial service families working in tropical countries (considered unhealthy), I was sent to a boarding school in New Zealand. There, because of my American accent I was taunted for being a “Yankee.” Who knows why, but there was a lot of anti-American feeling back then. But I didn’t let it bother me and I enjoyed my time in NZ. Then, upon returning to the USA I was taunted for having an Australian/New Zealand accent. Good grief. What’s wrong with these people?
I know this has been a long story, but I must recount one experience from decades ago that I cherish. I was leading a group of engineers going to Draper Lab in Cambridge, and as was usual we started the drive early, and stopped at a Turnpike Howard Johnson for breakfast. It was an important meeting, and we all had SECRET security clearances. As we waited for our food, I looked around the table. We were one Japanese American, one African American, a woman, and one old white guy (that’s me). I thought then — and believe today — that this is America.
Ed Dartford
Stockbridge
