This past Sunday I was visiting friends celebrating their daughter's high school graduation with an informal "open house" party. There I met a very nice woman who spoke glowingly about her daughter studying pre-med at college in Colorado. The daughter, a vegetarian and confirmed social activist, mentioned that she was a bit disillusioned by the superficiality of the "tolerance" exhibited by many of the residents of the nation's most "tolerant" city: Boulder. I should note that the family conforms to all of the requisites for a "green" and "progressive" categorization.
As an example of the daughter's concern, the woman mentioned a family ski vacation where in order to transport all the kids and equipment they rented an SUV. Driving through Boulder, the family was confronted by a middle aged woman who stood on the curb as they passed and gave the family "the finger."
It struck me that we are judged no so much by who we are but by "perceptions."
In a fit of half seriousness and half humor I suggested that the woman may want to conduct a social experiment on the intolerance of the tolerant by sending her daughter a bumper sticker that simply said "GOP." She laughted then got quiet as she contemplated the potential consequences of such an act.
In my opinion, the danger we all face is our inability to see and understand that to some degree or other we are all intolerant of those who differ from us. And how that keeps us from becoming a truly "open" community on many levels.
While working at the National Rifle Association, I was shocked by the prejudice that differed in no way from the racial prejudice of the Jim Crow era of our nation's history showed to gun owners by many in the national media, by public policy shapers in Congress, and by non-gun owners in polite society. If you owned a gun, you had to be a low life, violent, a bigot, and no one who should be allowed to roam free in acceptable society.
That attitude was brought home by social workers, psychologists etc. at one public forum in Baltimore. One PhD type pronounced that "if you own a gun you might not now be guilty of harming someone but you will someday." It was a pronouncement that stuck me as incredibily narrow in vision and purely intolerant.
Similar prejudice aimed at individuals because they were non Christian, gay, Republican, hunters, poor, trappers, tree huggers, vegetarians, blessed with more skin color than the pigmentless sunburn set, mentally or physically challenged, or just non native language speakers all combined to erect barriers to acceptance.
I remember traveling to Texas to do a radio show in the early 1980s. Outside the station, the streets were filled with bright lights and even more colorful characters. It was the city's gay district and you would have thought it was Mardi Gras orCarnival in New Orleans or Rio. Everyone was laughing and smiling, even the cops. A year later, I ventured to the same station, walked outside and the streets were dark and quiet. AIDS literally took away the life of the neighborhood. Life seemed a little sadder.
After NRA, I worked in my family's tiny restaurant on Capitol Hill. My mother built a clientele that was half gay and half straight. The food was better than good and the spirit of the place was great. We even catered to the hookers next door who serviced Members of Congress and their oh so correct staff. Again, the lights went out as the specter of AIDS visited the Hill.
Later I looked around my suburban Maryland community and watched an influx of new neighbors arrive from Africa and Latin America. I was roundly condemned for suggesting that if we had volunteer efforts to help folks get their citizenship and learn English the new residents would not feel so isolated, not to mention victimized because they did not understand what sleazy exploiters were doing to them. Somehow my suggestion was deemed as "intolerant."
Recently I was asked to edit for publication a short manuscript about a young boy's journey to manhood guided in part by his Uncle who was "mentally defective" after some problem incurred shortly after birth. It brought back distant memories of my childhood during the 1950s where adults would warn my sisters and me about avoiding an equally challenged person at the local carnival. The individual in question always smiled, wore thick glasses and had no friends that we could see. He just looked different.
As I progressed through the manuscript I was mesmerized by the care and compassion of the Uncle shown a young boy whose parents were certifiably cruel, abusive and just plain nasty. It was and is a marvelous story I hope many will read when it is finally published. I will post its publication date and availability.
The story helped me recognize my own intolerance and reminded me to beware those who posture as "tolerant" to all save the folks who just might be a little different.
Showing posts with label Tolerance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tolerance. Show all posts
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Tolerance: Guns & Families
A dozen years ago next week, I decided to research the needs of my home Roman Catholic parish of St. Jerome's in Hyattsville. Then I was a new member of the school advisory board and we were looking for areas we might improve for the children and the community. My first stop was a meeting of the CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) that oversees school-related athletic activities. I learned that the school's basketball uniforms were, on average, nine years old, frayed and faded. St. Jerome is one of the key feeder parishes for nationally ranked DeMatha High School barely half a mile away.
I looked around at the assembled parents, most of whom fit the "blue collar"/craftsmen category of social pidgeon holes and did a mental inventory of nearby-resources.
My thoughts ran to the facts that Prince George's County, MD ran a world class trap/skeet/sporting clays complex about five miles away and that I was sure I could get Mossberg to donate a couple of shotguns as door prizes. I proposed a family-oriented sporting clays tournament to raise money to buy the uniforms. A few people were skeptical but no one objected. What I didn't notice was an old paunchy gent sporting a ratty grey pony tail sitting quietly at the table. I didn't know it at the time but he was one of the parish nay-sayers, who liked to bully women, and didn't have the balls to voice any objections to anyone's face. Suffice to say, he wasn't even a member of the CYO board.
Let me give you a bit of historical background.
I had recently been sent packing from the National Rifle Association after a decade as the organization's chief spokesman. During that time, I weathered the John Lennon killing and attempt on President Reagan's life. My division - Public Education - slowly built credibility with the national media (more on that another time). Over my tenure at NRA I ran afoul of the entrenched regime for disrupting the status quo.
After a dozen accidental shootings in Houston, Texas, I worked with the local TV station, Sheriff's and Police Departments and public school system to create a pamphlet on gun safety in the home. Over a million were printed and distributed, mostly through the unbridled energy of a young woman named Kym King, then the community service director at one of the Houston TV stations. Upon my return to NRA headquarters, I was condemned by the NRA Secretary (who also sat on the board of the National Safety Council) because in his opinion, NRA "had no right telling parents how to raise their children." Yep he said that during a staff meeting of all NRA division directors. That was the beginning of a stretch of twilight zone antics that left my head spinning at the lack of logic or testicular fortitude of the handful of gentlemen running the joint.
Other areas where I "crossed the line" included having my department design and print the first updated gun safety brochure since the 1950s (oops stepped on the toes of the education and training director who never thought of the idea...after repeated attempts to get him to move in that direction went ignored) and took a recommendation (from again some members in Houston) to create a woman's self-defense program...and being told that we are a marksmanship not personal safety organization.
I guess that Maverick attitude started when I first got to NRA and found they had no literature on the origins and intent of the framers of the Second Amendment. My brochure addressing that issue was trashed (literally thousands were tossed in the dumpster by the house General Counsel not because of any misinformation but because he didn't write it). Had to wait about 5 - 8 years before some PhD types put the same info into book form.
Back to Hyattsville and St. Jerome's.
At first, even the parish pastor mouthed support for the fundraiser claiming to be a gun owner himself. OK. Hyattsville is just down the street from Congress and if you know anything about certain members of the clergy or watch the antics of Members of Congress you already know that in politics, an endorsement is only as good as the moment it's given. The pastor turned out to be a political weasel. He quickly cozied up to Ponytail and friends and showed us the door.
Before ponytail climbed out from under his rock to stir up problems, I headed off to Kenya and a U.N. conference on endangered species. A week or so later I returned to find that ponytail boy went to the local bishop, the Washington Post and and the pastor and got the sporting clays event condemned and forbidden. He and his wife and one other couple from the parish linked our efforts to crime in the streets of Washington DC and the bloodshed in the Middle East. We were, they claimed, trafficking in guns to juveniles.
Not being one to cave into poltroons and charlatans I created an organization quite separate from the parish, called it the Catholic Sportsmen Organization, and got non-profit status in record time. Over the past dozen years we've raised nearly $100k for athletic teams, helped young musicians from the local public middle school get to a national competition, donated to scouts, and purchased therapeutic tricycles for a local public high school for physically and mentally challenged youngsters to mention a few of our projects.
Oh, ponytail boy and his friends harrumphed and fumed and left the church because the church wouldn't excommunicate us. The pastor still hasn't dropped by the event but enjoys the money. Probably doesn't want to hurt his chances of progressing up the ranks.
At any rate we're staging the 12th Annual CSO Father's Day Weekend Sporting Clays Classic on Saturday June 18th. Did I mention that the first shotgun we raffled off went to, no not a DC crack dealer but to one of the assistant General Counsels of NASA and the first door prize shotgun went to one of the specialists in charge of loading the space shuttle's payload??? Or, that we award the "Ponytail" good sport statuette (it's the south end of a pony) to the low shooter that comes with free shooting lessons at the range?
I looked around at the assembled parents, most of whom fit the "blue collar"/craftsmen category of social pidgeon holes and did a mental inventory of nearby-resources.
My thoughts ran to the facts that Prince George's County, MD ran a world class trap/skeet/sporting clays complex about five miles away and that I was sure I could get Mossberg to donate a couple of shotguns as door prizes. I proposed a family-oriented sporting clays tournament to raise money to buy the uniforms. A few people were skeptical but no one objected. What I didn't notice was an old paunchy gent sporting a ratty grey pony tail sitting quietly at the table. I didn't know it at the time but he was one of the parish nay-sayers, who liked to bully women, and didn't have the balls to voice any objections to anyone's face. Suffice to say, he wasn't even a member of the CYO board.
Let me give you a bit of historical background.
I had recently been sent packing from the National Rifle Association after a decade as the organization's chief spokesman. During that time, I weathered the John Lennon killing and attempt on President Reagan's life. My division - Public Education - slowly built credibility with the national media (more on that another time). Over my tenure at NRA I ran afoul of the entrenched regime for disrupting the status quo.
After a dozen accidental shootings in Houston, Texas, I worked with the local TV station, Sheriff's and Police Departments and public school system to create a pamphlet on gun safety in the home. Over a million were printed and distributed, mostly through the unbridled energy of a young woman named Kym King, then the community service director at one of the Houston TV stations. Upon my return to NRA headquarters, I was condemned by the NRA Secretary (who also sat on the board of the National Safety Council) because in his opinion, NRA "had no right telling parents how to raise their children." Yep he said that during a staff meeting of all NRA division directors. That was the beginning of a stretch of twilight zone antics that left my head spinning at the lack of logic or testicular fortitude of the handful of gentlemen running the joint.
Other areas where I "crossed the line" included having my department design and print the first updated gun safety brochure since the 1950s (oops stepped on the toes of the education and training director who never thought of the idea...after repeated attempts to get him to move in that direction went ignored) and took a recommendation (from again some members in Houston) to create a woman's self-defense program...and being told that we are a marksmanship not personal safety organization.
I guess that Maverick attitude started when I first got to NRA and found they had no literature on the origins and intent of the framers of the Second Amendment. My brochure addressing that issue was trashed (literally thousands were tossed in the dumpster by the house General Counsel not because of any misinformation but because he didn't write it). Had to wait about 5 - 8 years before some PhD types put the same info into book form.
Back to Hyattsville and St. Jerome's.
At first, even the parish pastor mouthed support for the fundraiser claiming to be a gun owner himself. OK. Hyattsville is just down the street from Congress and if you know anything about certain members of the clergy or watch the antics of Members of Congress you already know that in politics, an endorsement is only as good as the moment it's given. The pastor turned out to be a political weasel. He quickly cozied up to Ponytail and friends and showed us the door.
Before ponytail climbed out from under his rock to stir up problems, I headed off to Kenya and a U.N. conference on endangered species. A week or so later I returned to find that ponytail boy went to the local bishop, the Washington Post and and the pastor and got the sporting clays event condemned and forbidden. He and his wife and one other couple from the parish linked our efforts to crime in the streets of Washington DC and the bloodshed in the Middle East. We were, they claimed, trafficking in guns to juveniles.
Not being one to cave into poltroons and charlatans I created an organization quite separate from the parish, called it the Catholic Sportsmen Organization, and got non-profit status in record time. Over the past dozen years we've raised nearly $100k for athletic teams, helped young musicians from the local public middle school get to a national competition, donated to scouts, and purchased therapeutic tricycles for a local public high school for physically and mentally challenged youngsters to mention a few of our projects.
Oh, ponytail boy and his friends harrumphed and fumed and left the church because the church wouldn't excommunicate us. The pastor still hasn't dropped by the event but enjoys the money. Probably doesn't want to hurt his chances of progressing up the ranks.
At any rate we're staging the 12th Annual CSO Father's Day Weekend Sporting Clays Classic on Saturday June 18th. Did I mention that the first shotgun we raffled off went to, no not a DC crack dealer but to one of the assistant General Counsels of NASA and the first door prize shotgun went to one of the specialists in charge of loading the space shuttle's payload??? Or, that we award the "Ponytail" good sport statuette (it's the south end of a pony) to the low shooter that comes with free shooting lessons at the range?
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