My wife and I live a pretty simple life by many people's standards. We have no TV or home internet. Some people wonder what that's like; if its like living in a cave or something. We do have windows (and a beautiful lake to look at thank you), radio, books, and magazines. We also have conversations and the great outdoors. Primarily we enjoy doing things out there instead of in here. But we'll also be honest, we have nothing inherently against TV or internet. We simply look at the humble salaries we make and believe that money would be better spent on paying down debts or paying for life experiences like trips and big events. We also have a projector that attaches to our smartphones or computers when we want to stream something. So we're not quite as monastic as we wish people would think we are necessarily.
In any case, I was getting my daily news round up and entertainment as I normally do during the weekday by listening to the Newshour on NPR. Three o'clock PM sharp! Of course they were covering the fallout from the Zimmerman trial and had a panel of 4 people on there. While there were multiple aspects of the trial there was one in particular that seemed to grab my attention considering my situation... race. They had 4 people and there was an obvious 2 vs. 2 in the panel. Two of them were upset and 2 of them were either indifferent or felt that justice had been done. It was 2 against 2.
As I'm listening I realized something. This is radio and I always listen to the Newshour. I've rarely actually ever seen it. I have no idea what the race of these 4 people on the panel is that are speaking. For that matter, I have no idea what the appearance of any Newshour member is. For all I know they could be going around shirtless in bermuda shorts. Of course I could make assumptions based on their name or their accent but I'm proud to say that, as a result of our progression as a people and growing up in a farily diverse environment as a child, you can make some pretty bad assumptions especially in regards to an accent.
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| Matt Lauer ladies and gentleman. Eat your heart out Hari Srinivasan |
My father was blind. People oftentimes ask the question, "What was it like having blind parents?" [my mother is legally blind, can see a little bit] My response was usually the same, "What was it like having sighted parents?" I mean hek, my brother and sister and I don't really know what the difference is. Our parents vision never changed. We have nothing to compare my blind father to.
My father grew up in rural southwest Virginia in the 50s where racism was generally practiced. I'm happy to say that my predominately white family hasn't shown many direct signs of racism (which I'm probably overly sensitive to since my heroes include Dr. King, I cry every time I read the Gettysburg Address, and most of my best friends growing up were either Asian or black and my lovely wife is Filipino). But it goes without saying that my father did grow up in a sort of "Paula Deen-esque" environment.
However, most people were surprised by that by the way he interacted with others. He was a business man in downtown Richmond, VA. He had friends that were generally white but also black. He worked with all kinds of people.
I oftentimes wondered whether he was at an advantage for inclusivity by being blind. I wondered if in this case it was an odd gift from God that sort of predisposed him to a bit of righteousness that might be difficult of the rest of us. He treated everyone the same because they all looked the same to him... grey (depending on the brightness of the room of course).
After listening to the NPR/PBS Newshour panel I started to wonder if the best jurors are actually blind people. I wonder how every courtroom decision might be handled if that were the case. I wonder how my opinion of people change when I see them after having a phone meeting. I wonder if having blind parents made me more sensitive to the way people talk about each other's appearance.
People who know me well can tell you that if I tell a story I will never tell you what the race or possibly even gender of the characters is. I hate it. Up until today I thought that without a doubt that was because I was so sensitive to the matter after being so lucky to have friends from a wide spectrum of backgrounds. But now I'm starting to wonder if it had more to do with my parents who possibly passed on the (if I might say) gift of being blind to people's appearance. Albeit in my case its an attempt rather than a reality.
In my father's world nobody wore hoodies or were bi-racial. In my father's world nobody was well-dressed or unkempt. In my father's world nobody was clean shaven or nappy-haired. In my father's world nobody was tan or pale. In my father's world people only had firm or floppy handshakes, could speak well or not, and they might "sound pretty" as he would say. That's a pretty good world in this case.
Yea, I'd like to stick to radio.
Best things about Jenn #2: My father would've loved
her sweet, petite sounding voice
Smacking Cheesecake #12: Can you tell me who made my
Baja Tacos? "O you mean Steve?"
Youth Ministry Idea #3: Give students printed out prayers
for those who are nervous about spontaneous prayer.
