- Autobiography
- A Break in Family
- Childhood Years
- Judging People on My Experience
- At Home
- Parents, Home, Neighbors
- Early Lessons about Race/Ethnicity
- Early “Organizational” Life
- Church and Christian Contradictions
- Silent Prejudices
- Classes and Class
- College & the Beginning of the End of Innocence
- War without War
- A Lesson in Manipulative Power
- Decision for Ministry
- Preparing for Ministry
- Academic Major at Amherst
- Extra-Curricula Learning at Amherst – Enter Bill & Alice Wimer
- Unrecognized Introduction to Feminism
- Sylvia
- Andover Newton Theological School
- Church Pastorates
- Denominational Staff Ministry
- Wakefield
- From “Black Problem” to “White Problem”
- Stealth-Like Learnings: “Sexism”, “Racism” and Institutions
- Shifting Sands of Faith Demand Action
- Advancing “dis-ease”
- Changing View of the World
- The New Beginning
- Genesis of Community Change, Inc.
- The Early Years at CCI
- Boston’s Struggle for Equal Schools
- Attention to National Issues
- People Participating = Hope
- Enter: James Baldwin
- White Identity Challenged
- Urgency Requires Anti-Apartheid Action
- Suburban Operations Simulation
- Police Brutality
- Local Organizing and Seeking Ways to Combat Racism
- The Move to Boston
- “People”, “People”, “People”
- Moral Man and Immoral Society
- The “office” not an “OFFICE”
- Probing History Moves to the Center of Work
- Affirmative Action
- Little GIANTS
- Expanding the Work
- National Day of Mourning
- Chinatown and Beyond
- “People” not “leaders”
- 1492 Becomes 1992
- Harassment of Black Leaders
- Immigrant Action
- The Photography Collective
- Following (not very well!) Freire
- Enter Derrick Bell
- Using “Privilege to Subvert “Privilege”
- Becoming a Historian
- On the Trail Where Yesterday Inspires, Challenges Today
Among my friends, Bob Carbone was the longest-lasting, and one from whose relationship I learned the most. His Italian family lived in a three-decker house on a street near to my home. Bob and I became friendly in grammar school and remained so through all the school days. It was only until our lives had parted, that reminiscence taught me something about the subtleties of prejudice.
I was frequently in Bob’s house, yelled for him every day on the way to school, through High School, ate meals with his family, learned to say a few Italian words which his immigrant grandmother could understand. I was fully accepted there. In a later adult day, I came to realize that I could hardly remember a time when Bob was ever in my home! I was astounded to admit that, and wondered, of course, why.
When I graduated from High School, my parents took me to Washington, D.C. as a celebration, and I was told that I could invite a friend to travel with us. Of course I chose Bob, and he did go with us. One day at breakfast in our Washington hotel, when Bob was away from the table, I was amazed to hear my mother share her surprise that he was so wonderfully courteous and well-behaved! Bob was probably not “at ease” with my parents, and clearly they were not “at ease” with him. Remembering this as an adult, the fact that Bob was seldom in our home made sense, or really, nonsense!
Today it seems strange that I never discussed this with Bob. It stands for me as an example of a “lost opportunity”, which might have had rich instruction for my learning, My bet is that Bob and his family were aware of, or at least assumed that my parents held unspoken prejudices against their immigrant status. Adult reflection later led me to see this as an instance of the subtlety of prejudice. Later I would see similar dynamics abundant in race relations.