On Life In The Modern World, Or, What If Jesus Was An HMO? September 30, 2009

Those among us who are familiar with the Bible will recall that Jesus Christ himself was an active member of the health care community as he travelled about the Holy Land.

It is reported that he practiced within multiple medical specialties, and his works as both an ophthalmologist and a neurologist are recounted within the verses of the Gospels.

But what if Jesus had been practicing medicine in the therapeutic environment we’re familiar with today?

In today’s conversation we’ll be tagging along with Jesus as he takes a few calls at his HMO’s Customer Care Center—and by the time we get done you should be able to bring a whole new take to those discussions you‘ve been having about why reform matters.

“…a blind man, Bartimaeus…was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

…Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”

So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.”

Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”

“Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight…”

–Mark 10:45-52

“Thank you for calling Customer Care. This is Jesus. How may I help you?”

“Hi, I was recently treated by you in Jericho for blindness—“

“Can I get your account number, sir?”

“J32-21515”

“Oh, yes. Is this Bartimaeus?”

“Yes it is.”

“So what can I do for you today?”

“Well, I went to check my mail, and I found a bill from you for 42,554 shekels for the eye treatment, and I don’t understand why you want me to pay this bill.”

“Well, give me a second while I look that up…ahhh, OK, I understand what happened. You see, I did perform the eye treatment, but your policy requires you to be referred by your Primary Care Physician for any specialist treatment and pre-approved by someone here at Customer Care before we can be liable for any costs of care, and the computer says that you didn’t do any of that first…so, I apologize, but we won’t be able to make any adjustments to this account.

Is there anything else I can do for you today, Bartimaeus?”

“Well, how am I supposed to pay this bill? I don’t have this kind of money. Can’t you perform a miracle or something to help me out here?”

“Well, sir, I can’t do that, but what I can do is transfer you to our Collections Department, who can help you make payment arrangements…”

Needless to say, the call went downhill from there.

“Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed…

One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.

When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked…”

–John 5:3-8

“…so you say you were lame and I made you walk, and now you’re getting calls from a collections agency that wants to garnish your ass?”

“Yes, Jesus, that’s correct.”

“Well, it says here that that back in Tishri of 12 AD you had severe boils and lesions, which is a preexisting condition. Now when I asked you if you wanted to get well you never disclosed any of this, and I don’t see it anywhere in your application packet, either.

Your policy requires you to inform us of any medical treatments you received before you became a policyholder, and because you failed to make a true and complete statement in your application we have to reject this claim.

I really do apologize, but we won’t be able to make any adjustments to this account.”

“To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed:

Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.

And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.”

–1 Peter 5:1-4

“We didn’t know what to expect when he came here, but in just a few months Jesus has shown us what can happen when the Son of God is a Customer Care Representative.

His average call volumes are more than double those of any other rep, and when you listen to him take calls…well, when you hear him tell someone that they won’t be getting their benefits…it’s almost like he has some divine power over the customers or something, and that’s why today I’ve gathered you together to announce that Jesus is going to be transferred from the call center to the Executive Training Program.

Additionally, because Jesus did not adjust a single claim in favor of a customer for the last three months we’re also giving him the “Employee of the Quarter” award, which means he gets three days off with pay that he can take anytime he wants, a check for $500, and, of course, Jesus gets to use the parking space right by the front door for his Hummer.

We expect really great things from Jesus in the future, and while we will miss Him here at Customer Care I think we can safely say that with Jesus running the show this company is going to remain profitable for decades to come.”

On Making Money, Or, Art Can Help New Orleans August 7, 2009

The long, lazy days of summer are upon us, and it’s time to have a little fun—but it’s also a great opportunity to volunteer a bit of spare time for a good cause.

So imagine how cool it would be if you could combine the two…and even better, do it in a way that doesn’t take a bite out of your wallet…and even better yet, if it was something you and the kids could do together.

Imagine no more, because it has been done; which is why today we are going to be talking about lead in the soil of New Orleans, Operation Paydirt…and Fundred Dollar Bills.

So here’s what’s up: in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina all sorts of specialists went to New Orleans to see how they might help. Among those were environmental artist Mel Chin (who had previously participated in the GALA Committee’s project to “sneak” original works of conceptual art into the show “Melrose Place”).

Chin studied the community, and came to the conclusion that a huge problem existed that had nothing to do with Katrina: lead had contaminated the soil…and it was collecting in the blood of the children living there.

This is not good: lead poisoning in children has been linked to anemia, permanent nerve damage, mental retardation…and behavioral disorders that can result, literally, in a life of crime.

As it turns out, lead had been accumulating since the 1920s, either as lead paint scrapings or paint dust had fallen to earth or as the exhaust smoke from automobiles burning leaded gasoline settled to the ground. (It’s estimated that every year as much as five tons of lead were deposited in New Orleans’ soil as a result of the volume of vehicle traffic before leaded gasoline was banned.)

Hotspots exist throughout the city, but the worst contamination is to be found in the city’s Uptown, Downtown, and French Quarter Districts, with levels as high as 1200 parts per million (ppm) reported in some soil samples (levels below 150 ppm are considered “lead-free”).

The Department of Health and Human Service’s Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry reports that in 1993 nearly half of the city’s children (44%) were designated as “lead poisoned” by virtue of having blood lead levels above 10 micrograms per deciliter (ug/dL). 14% of the children tested had levels above 20 ug/dL, double the “not poisoned” standard.

“The disaster was in the soil before the disaster.”

–Mel Chin, March 2008

Are you thinking “I’m glad that’s not my city’s problem?” Are you sure about that? Boston, Baltimore, and Minneapolis/St. Paul are among the many US cities known to have serious contamination issues. (The locations most likely to be affected are older cities with higher traffic volumes.)

Until now, no one has been willing to provide the money to get a cleanup underway…and that’s where Mel Chin—and you, Gentle Reader—come into the picture.

Chin has begun a project that seeks to gather 3,000,000 “signatures”, if you will, to an “art petition” that he intends to present to Congress this fall in an effort to shake the money loose.

Art petition, you say?

That’s exactly correct: Chin wants you to create what he calls “Fundred Dollar Bills”, which are made from blank “templates” that resemble US $ 100 bills. You, the kids, and more or less 3,000,000 of your closest friends do your part by first downloading and then filling in the templates with designs, drawings, personal statements…pretty much any darn thing you can fit into a seven by four inch space…and then returning the completed bills to the nearest collection center.

The bills will be collected and transported to Washington, DC. Chin hopes to “exchange” the $300,000,000 represented by the Fundreds for $300,000,000 in real live Congressional appropriations to start the cleanup process in New Orleans (“Operation Paydirt”, as he’s calling it).

This had been promoted, in a big way, as a classroom project, and lots of schools and arts organizations around the country are joining in the effort.

“…we’re asking children [to produce the art] not because we want to use them, but they are the most affected by lead, and they have a right to have some expression in this.”

–Mel Chin, March 2008

The pickups are scheduled to begin in November, which means it’s time to get out the crayons, or gel pens (or, if you really take your conceptual art seriously, a garden pond pump, bucket, hose, sprinkler, and several colors of acrylic paint; the idea being to create the perfect Jackson Pollock effect), design some Fundreds, and let’s see if we can’t help make lives better for some kids that have been dealing with this for so long that some of them are today collecting Social Security.

So how about that?

A project that seeks money to clean up soil that is causing brain damage to the kids of New Orleans…money that, as far as I can see, is the truest form of “stimulus spending” there could ever be…and you get to help create the art petition that could really make a difference in deciding whether this happens or not.

All in all, that’s a pretty good way to spend a lazy summer day.

On The Costs Of Care, Or, You Don’t Want Every Item On This Menu June 16, 2009

I don’t know if you’ve been thinking about it, but the costs of long-term care have been on the mind of some friends of mine lately.

For reasons that we won’t go into here, they are in the process of pricing long-term care at care facilities…and yesterday afternoon, we had a chance to have a look at the “menu” of services (the facility’s term) that can be purchased at this particular location.

If you are facing this issue in your own family, if you are a taxpayer thinking about how we plan to fund long-term care in the future…or if, one day, you expect to be old yourself…this conversation will surely matter.

To protect the innocent, I won’t be mentioning names today, but here’s what you need to know:

The location in question is an “assisted living facility” located near Seattle, it is somewhat upscale, but by no means ”posh”, and it is a residence of substantial size, with dozens of clients living there. It is not a “mom and pop” business run out of a house, but instead a more corporate operation.

The first thing you are charged for is the “apartment” in which you reside and some basic services to go with it. Those services include “finishing the place” with blinds and appliances, weekly housekeeping and linen, and the power and the water and the cable (“Basic Extended”).

You’re also paying for the 24-hour staff presence, “recreation” services, and scheduled transportation.

Also included: two meals daily, but not breakfast.

Telephone charges are not included.

The cost, for a single person: $1900 per month for a studio, $2300 for a one bedroom, and $2800 for a two-bedroom. There are nicer “views” available, which add about $400 to each price. Adding a second person costs $600 extra every month.

You will note that this price does not include medical and “personal” services…and for that, we will turn to the actual “menu”.

“Old wood to burn! Old wine to drink! Old friends to trust! Old authors to read!”

–Francis Bacon, Apothegms. No. 97.

Start with the basics: a daily wake-up call is $50/month; having a load of personal laundry washed every week or having a staff member make the bed daily adds $70 monthly. Housekeeping is $30/hour…so hopefully the resident can clean their own apartment.

Breakfast is $95 each month.

To determine what additional needs you might have, a nursing assessment is conducted at the time of admission.

If it’s determined that the resident needs bathing assistance, costs work like this:

If the resident can wash themselves, but need to be watched during the shower, that service, once a week, is $165 monthly. If the resident needs a staff member to help them shower, add $60 (If two staff members are required, that’s an extra $140 monthly).

Can the resident dress themselves?

A daily reminder to change clothes costs $100/month. If a staff member needs to spend under 10 minutes a day to help the resident dress, that’s $175/month, if 15 – 20 minutes of assistance is required, that’s $250 monthly.

Can the resident take care of their own personal grooming? If they can’t, that adds $150 to the monthly charges.

There are also “toileting programs”.

Having the staff remind you to go to the bathroom costs $200/month (this also covers the occasional incontinence event), and having a staff member monitor you in the bathroom raises the rate to $275 (this also covers the occasional “bowel accident”).

A “structured toileting program” runs $350…and if you need to be checked for bowel accidents regularly, or need someone to wipe for you, or have regular accidents requiring changes of clothing, that’s $425 a month added to the bill.

Some people have had surgical procedures that require them to use a bag attached to their colon for waste removal. The site where the bag is attached is called a “stoma site”, and the service associated with stoma care is at least $250 monthly at this facility. Supplies (such as colostomy bags) are not included in this price.

Can the resident walk to meals on his or her own?

If yes, but they need a verbal reminder to go to meals, that’s $175/month. If the resident requires assistance to get to the dining room, that’s $225 monthly…and if it takes longer than 5 minutes on average to assist the resident, that adds $275 to the bill each month.

Special diets, prescribed by a physician, add $500 to the monthly bill.

Can the resident take their own medications?

If not, the minimum charge is $230 monthly, which covers up to 5 medications daily, “served” two times a day.

If the client takes more than five meds daily (or takes meds more than twice daily) that cost could potentially increase by another $165/ month.

Oxygen service: add another $150 monthly.

While all that seems expensive…we haven’t come to the big-ticket item yet.

There will be residents who will require “memory support”.

The simplest form of this service provides “redirecting, reassurance, orientation to surroundings, responding to questions/concerns that arise from diminished short term memory” and several checks daily to ensure the resident is on the property. Those who receive this level of service are also physically escorted to meals. The service costs $300 per month.

For $400 the resident is walked back from meals, and a staff member provides verbal cues to get the resident dressed. The resident will also be “convinced” to bathe, if need be.

If the resident requires physical cues to perform the same tasks, the cost jumps to $550 (and at this stage the resident might require two staff members to get them to perform personal hygiene).

The highest level of care also provides someone to check on the resident every two hours, and costs $800 monthly.

This is hardly a complete list: for example, there are charges for making appointments and other “clerical” services, for “concierge” service, and for other incidentals.

However, there’s one other significant charge about which you should be aware, and that’s the cost for nursing services.

Wound care that involves changing a dressing, and takes less than 5 minutes, is $15 for each occurrence. This service must be provided by a licensed nurse…and if you add it up, it works out to $180/hour that the facility is charging you for the services of an LPN/LVN (depends on where you live) who is not likely to be making above $25/hour. (Each dressing change that lasts from 5 – 10 minutes costs $20; meaning at least $120/hour.)

Add it all up, and the chances that you’ll be paying at least $3000 a month are (in the words of Johnny Mathis) awfully good.

“If Mr. Selwyn calls again, shew him up; if I am alive I shall be delighted to see him; and if I am dead he would like to see me.”

–Henry Fox, the First Baron Holland

So how is all this relevant to politics, you might ask?

How about this: we are about to enter an age where millions of Americans will require this sort of long-term care…and many of us do not have $3000 per month available to pay for this kind of care.

How many? It is estimated that 70 million Americans will be 65 or over by 2030, and if the numbers from 1999 continue to be valid, roughly 30% of those people will be living in an institutional setting.

20 million people, at $3000 a month, equals $60 billion that will be required to cover the cost of long-term care for this group—each and every month. That’s $720 billion a year.

So how do we deal with the problem when it hits us?

I don’t know…but consider this: it is going to be tough to reduce these costs, if only because these are tasks that are not well suited for automation. These are services, for the most part, that require one-on-one care (or even two-on-one care)…and those who provide the care will want pay raises…which we will want to provide, in order to help keep the quality of care at a high level.

You should also know that there are substantial costs associated with “fixing broken workers”. The fact that workers are often required to assist clients that are physically large or physically awkward puts a lot of these workers out on injury leave…and the unhappy fact is that understaffing is a common way to try to control labor costs in nursing facilities, adding to the injury problem these workers face.

How bad is the healthcare injury problem? Ironically, the Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us health care facilities are the most dangerous work environment in the United States.

“General medical and surgical hospitals (NAICS 6221) reported more injuries and illnesses than any other industry in 2007—more than 253,500 cases.”

To put it another way, there are basically two kinds of healthcare workers: the ones with back injuries…and the ones who don’t yet have back injuries.

As we wrap this thing up, let’s ask that question we ask almost every time: what have we learned today?

If you hadn’t already been thinking about it, it is fantastically expensive to have to receive care at an assisted-living facility, and soon there may be as many as 20 million Americans who will be in that situation…or something even more expensive, such as “skilled nursing facilities” (more commonly referred to as “nursing homes”).

We could be looking at having to find $720 billion (in today’s dollars) to cover the annual cost of that care.

It is going to be very tough to reduce those costs, unless you can develop ways to deliver the same care in a less-expensive environment…or you can find a way to reduce the number of people who will require such care.

Considering the cost of “memory care”, money invested in Alzheimer’s mitigation today might pay huge dividends later.

So that’s the deal: there is a giant bill that’s coming due, we better be thinking about it now…and one way or another, this will become one of the biggest fights in American politics as we move into the middle third of this century—so we can either get ready for it now, or we can all act surprised later.

Of course, if enough of us require “memory care”…then I guess that surprised look on our faces won’t be an act, eh?

On Netroots Nation Nominations, Or, Uncle Consultant Wants You! April 25, 2009

It has not been my practice to engage in a great deal of self-promotion in this space, but I’m going to make an exception today…which means you are hereby warned that a commercial lies ahead.

I promise I won’t be asking for your money, only for a couple of minutes of your time.

What are we selling?

Your friendly fake consultant is competing for a scholarship to the Netroots Nation Convention this August in Pittsburgh…and I’m looking for your support.

“Things are more like they are now than they have ever been.”

–President Gerald Ford

What is Netroots Nation?

To put it simply, it’s the annual gathering of Progressive bloggers…and those who seek to reach them…and those who help make the Progressive movement happen. The meetings were originally incarnated as YearlyKos in ’06, but by the ’08 event in Austin, the name had changed to Netroots Nation; the Nation having grown into a partnership that now includes the Democracy for America community among its members.

Attendees last year heard from General Wesley Clark, some guy named Howard Dean (who I understand had been registering voters in Crawford, Texas, earlier that same day…which I assume was why they invited him to speak), and Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi, who shared the stage for their presentation.

Panels included “Growing the American Dream Movement” with David Bonior, Markos Moulitas and Harold Ford’s “Keynote Discussion on Party Infrastructure”, and “Energizing America: Setting an Agenda for Progress”, which featured former mayor, and now Alaska Senator, Mark Begich, former Speaker of the Oregon House, and now Oregon Senator, Jeff Merkley, and one of my favorite bloggers, A Siegel, who publishes the “Get Energy Smart! NOW!!!” blog.

As they did last year, the Netroots Nation community is awarding 30 scholarships to bloggers and Progressive activists—and I would like to convince them to award one to me.

And that’s where you come in.

The fine folks at Democracy for America have posted pages with information about all the candidates for scholarships, along with pages that allow you to see the information about each candidate (and where you can, for the first time ever, see my actual picture), and also allow you to “voice your support”.

I would very much appreciate it if you would swing by the site and say a few nice words about the blog, or whatever other supportive words might come to mind.

You need to be registered at Democracy for America to offer support, and this is a great time to get involved over there if you’re not already…so, register, already (and yes, it’s free…).

“One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice president, and that one word is ‘to be prepared’.”

–Vice President Dan Quayle; December 6, 1989

So what’s in it for you?

For starters, we hope to make these conversations better by reaching out more directly to the people who are the source of our news…and with any luck, we can make contacts at the Convention that help make that possible.

Beyond that, signing up at Democracy for America will get you access to the most excellent “DFA Night School” archive, which is created from an ongoing series of practical political training classes, the most recent of which was “Building a Better County Party”, held just a day or so ago…which, if you watch the videos, will make you a smarter activist.

Finally, you’ll get a chance to find out about what happens at Netroots Nation not just from the inside…but from your very own fake consultant’s “just slightly skewed” inside view of the thing.

So there it is: I’m a candidate for one of the Netroots Nation scholarships, you can offer your support at the Democracy for America website (and it won’t cost you a dime), and by signing up at Democracy for America you can get access to lots of practical, professional, political education…that also won’t cost you a dime.

And with that, we thank you for your time and attention…and we return you to your regular programming, already in progress.

On Tradition, Or, Same-Sex Marriage, Seen Through A Telescope April 10, 2009

Dangerous Things are happening in America these days, we are told, and the once-innocent citizens of Iowa and Vermont have already been exposed to the hazard…and now it looks as though the contagion might spread to States across New England.

But lucky for us, our friends on the Right are here again to save to save us from…(insert horror film music here)…

…The Gay.

The Gay, it turns out, want the opportunity to marry.

Among other complaints, our friends on the Right feel this will destroy religious tradition, which will ultimately destroy first Christianity, then the Nation. Therefore, religious tradition must be protected at all costs.

Well as it turns out, there are some people from our past who know a few things about religious traditions and how they distort reality—and today, we’ll examine the lessons they have to teach us.

The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

–“The King James Bible”, Ecclesiastes 1:5

“…I wish, my dear Kepler, that we could have a good laugh together at the extraordinary stupidity of the mob. What do you think of the foremost philosophers of this University? In spite of my oft-repeated efforts and invitations, they have refused, with the obstinacy of a glutted adder, to look at the planets or Moon or my telescope.”

–“Through which the satellites of Jupiter were visible”, Galileo Galilei

“The proposition that the sun is in the center of the world and immovable from its place is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical; because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scriptures.”

–From the Catholic Church’s indictment of Galileo Galilei, 1633

So you get up every day and look up at the sky, and it’s obvious that the sun starts out over here…and at the end of the day it ends up over there.

Aristotle and Ptolemy figured it all out: each planet was placed on its own “sphere”, the earth in the center, and everything rotating around it; each planet (and the sun) inside the other, with the stars on the outside, in a Celestial Sphere”…all of this resembling Russian “Matryoshka” dolls.

And it’s no surprise that this interpretation of the motion of planets and the sun became not just “common sense”, but the official position of the Roman Catholic Church. After all, it was in the Bible, it was something you could see every day, and as the Greeks would have told you, it was logically “beautiful”—and who could want better proof than that?

To make a long story short, a Polish-born Church Canon named Nicolas Copernicus did. In 1543, near the end of his life, he released the book “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium” (“On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”), which suggested that all the planets, including the Earth, actually orbit the Sun.

It took another 40 years before someone would challenge Dogma on this point in a “threatening” way, but by 1584 Giordano Bruno’s “The Ash Wednesday Supper” was considered challenging enough to earn him the Heretic’s Fork…just before he was burned alive on the order of the Church.

By 1616 Galileo Galilei was being warned by the Catholic Church to stop talking about what he was seeing through his telescopes; a moon that was not a perfect sphere and the viewing of the phases of Venus being just two of his problematic observations.

Of course, the real reason all this was so problematic was because there were those in the Church who felt that the Word of God was to be interpreted literally…which meant that anyone who challenged either the text of the Bible or Church Dogma in any way had to be both factually wrong…and an enemy of the Faith.

Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?

–Groucho Marx, from the movie “Duck Soup”

Despite the warning, Galileo wouldn’t let it go. He kept observing, and he kept writing, which led to his attempt, in 1632, to obtain a license to publish the “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems”…which led to his being hauled before the Inquisition…which led, in June of 1633, to him forswearing any of his previous beliefs, presumably to avoid the Heretic’s Fork himself.

The Church was able to hold all this together for another half-century—but Isaac Newton essentially “won the argument” with the publication of his three editions of the “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica” from 1686 to 1742.

Many of you will recall that the Catholic Church was in fact destroyed by this chink in the armor of Biblical literalism, with the Church actually ceasing operations in 1802.

Obviously, I’m kidding—but the fact that nothing terrible happened hasn’t stopped any number of religious leaders in this country (and their followers, for that matter) from claiming that allowing same-sex marriages will have the same impact on faith in America today.

Which brings us to the moral of today’s story: the next time someone tells you that same-sex marriages will destroy religious traditions…that the world as we know it will come to a horrible end…and that anyone with any “common sense” can see that for themselves…tell ‘em to go get a telescope and get over it.

On Reconsidering Racism, Or, This Ain’t Grandpa’s America April 6, 2009

We have a story today that is a big-time reminder of how things have changed in America…and it’s all inspired by a book of jokes.

I am often prowling thrift shops looking for interesting things, and I came across a 1946 copy of “10,000 Jokes, Toasts, And Stories” (edited by Lewis and Faye Copeland), which contains a section of jokes entitled “Races and Nations”…which contains a subsection entitled “Negro”.

We are going to examine some of those jokes…and the world in which those jokes resided.

I warn you now: it will be highly unpleasant; but as we come out the other side the goal will be to show that what was not only acceptable, but commonplace, not so very long ago, would be considered wildly unacceptable today—and that we are a better people for the change.

“Sambo, suppose you were to receive a letter from the Ku Klux Klan advising you to get out of town, what would you do?”

“I’d read it on the train.”

–Joke 6468

“Is your husband a good provider, Dinah?”

“Yessum, he’s a good providah, all right, but I’m allus skeered dat nigger’s gwine to get caught at it.”

–Joke 6458

So the deal is, if you’re under 50 years old, or a recent immigrant to these shores, you probably have little or no familiarity with the overt racism that was practiced against the Americans who descended from slavery.

Now I’m not talking about the kind of covert racism that means the security guard spends more time following the black customers than the white ones…I’m talking about the kind of overt racism that means the black customers aren’t even allowed to enter “white” stores.

Lunch counters were segregated, there were “white” and “colored” water fountains (before you go look at the picture, see if you can guess which one has the cooling unit installed). Fire hoses weren’t used just to put out fires…they were also used to put out school children who didn’t fit the racial profile.

Rastus shuffled into the employment office down in Savannah one morning and said hopefully:

“Don’ spose you don’ know nobody as don’ want nobody to do nothin’, does you?”

–Joke 6351

Rastus was in trouble again, and the sheriff asked him if he were guilty or not guilty.

“Guilty, suh, I think” replied Rastus, “but I better be tried to make sure of it.”

–Joke 6460

As these jokes demonstrate, black people were portrayed as ignorant, lazy, shiftless and quick to steal. To ensure these “undesirables” didn’t threaten white populations, some locales became “sundown” towns…so called because of the signs they posted at their city limits:

“Nigger, don’t let the sun set on you in Elwood”

–Sign posted in Elwood, Indiana, 1966

(Fun Fact: did you know that Indiana was such a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activity in the 1920s that KKK Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson once said about himself: “I am the law in Indiana”? Of course, that was before he went to prison for rape and murder later in the same decade.)

Racism, as defined in law, was extreme and trivial, both at the same time. It’s reported that Birmingham, Alabama passed a law requiring segregated checkers and dominoes in 1935 (presumably after the Great Checkers Incident of 1934, or some similar affront)…and Oklahoma passed a law making it a misdemeanor for teachers to teach in mixed-race schools.

A darkey was examined in a Harlem court, to prove the identity of a white man.
“Did you see the man?” asked the attorney.
“Yes, sah, I seed him.”
“Was he a white man?”
“Dunno, sah.”
“Do you say you saw the man and can’t say whether he was white or black?”
“Yea, sah, I seed him, but dere’s so many white fellers callin’ derselfs niggers round here I can’t tell one from toder!”

–Joke 6376

The Boys of Summer are hitting the fields of their respective stadia this month, and no conversation about race and baseball would be complete without a mention of Jackie Robinson, who everyone knows broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball…except that he didn’t.

Moses “Fleet” Walker, and his brother, Welday Walker , seem to actually bear that honor: in 1884 they played for the Toledo Blue Stockings of the American Association. Black players continued to play until 1890, when owners seem to have decided amongst themselves that there were to be no more black Major League players; a decision that lasted until Robinson became the first player “in the modern era” (1947, to be exact) to join a Major League club, the Brooklyn Dodgers.

(Another Fun Fact: remember the movie “Bull Durham”? The stadium used by the Durham Bulls–Durham Athletic Park–was at the center of a segregation and boycott battle during the 1950s…a battle the boycotters won.)

Rastus-“Ef yo’ says anything ter me Ah’ll make yo’ eat yo’ words, man.”
Exodus-“Chicken dumplings, hot biscuits, and watermelon.”

–Joke 6511

So about now you may be asking “what is the point of today’s story?”…and it’s pretty simple:

Barack Obama is president.

Jim Clyburn, of South Carolina, where the first battle of the Civil War was fought, is the Democratic House Whip.

Rosa Parks is a national hero for an act of civil disobediance.

David Duke is the Governor of Nothing.

And out of all that change, we’ve become a better people.