Published: July 31, 2008 05:06 pm            

HAMILTON: Being is more than seeing

The quantity of things to write about in Niagara Falls is literally overwhelming and if given the opportunity, it would be easy to write one or more columns a day. But, the Gazette only gives me one column a week and I have to choose from acid columns, caustic columns, or columns that are pretty neutral and are written just for the purposes of, well, just because I felt like writing it. The following is the latter.

One of the greatest assets that a people can have is to know, in no uncertain terms, who they are.

While nearly every group of people have had their turn at the sharp end of a spear, one of the most persecuted, yet successful, people in history are our Jewish brothers and sisters. I believe that they have survived and succeeded so well both because of, and despite of, their persecution. Their chief liability was in the fact that in most places where they lived, they were readily identifiable in their features, culture, and their collectiveness. Those assets were also liabilities.

Recently, I was a guest at an Allentown garden party where of the 100 or so guests, my date and I were the only African-Americans. She had gone to school with the Jewish hostess and they were close friends. The group that I sat down and listened to was discussing the declining enrollment in yeshiva schools due to declining populations in the area and their educated children going elsewhere in the country for employment.

My interest in the subject was the result of the closing of Catholic schools in the area, and my commitment to charter schools as an alternative. Their conversation was very enlightening, and realizing that the religion is as fragmented as any Protestant religion, with different schools of thought on different subjects, they absolutely schooled me on their thoughts.

With I asked them if a student would have to be Jewish to attend a yeshiva school, to which they replied that, unlike Catholic schools, were many Protestants attend, a yeshiva’s education is nearly 50 percent religion. In Christian schools the curriculum is about 90 percent secular academics. “Why is there so much religion taught in the schools?” I asked.

“We continually study our religion,” one gentleman said.

As the conversation progressed, I asked a question that had nagged me forever, and received a very logical answer. “Why are there an over-abundance of Jewish lawyers and bankers?”

Himself an attorney, he answered, “Because we were not allowed to be farmers, so we had to do the things that an education would allow.”

I understood immediately. To be a farmer you had had to own land, and in many of the places where Jews settled, land ownership was denied. So, they took their assets, which included a strong belief in education and a very strong sense of person and culture, and secured their future. A people have to know, in no uncertain terms, who they are.

Though I had hosted WJJL’s “Voices of the People” for many years prior to going to WBEN as a guest/substitute host, I did not become a caller to any talk show until coworker Bob Ripley turned me on to Sandy Beach’s predecessor, Gary McNamara. McNamara was prattling about “hyphenated-Americans” and African-Americans in particular, asking, “Why do they have to say that they are African-Americans. We all are just-Americans, and we all would be better off when the day comes that we all realize it.”

I agreed with him up to that point, however, he continued with, “You don’t hear me talking all of the time about my being an Irish-American. I am not,” he said. “I am just an American.” That pushed me over the edge.

I called in to explain to him that every time that he said, read or heard his name, he WAS reminded that he was an Irish-American. His name is not Polish or Italian — it is Irish. Every time he ate a corned beef sandwich or dined on a plate of cabbage, he reaffirmed his heritage.

African-Americans have no such luxury. While we have gone through much of what our Jewish brothers have gone through, education was denied to us. The food that we eat is more a southern cuisine that is common to most whites throughout the Appalachians than it is African soul food. And while Jewish families can trace their heritage nearly as well as Christ himself could through his genealogy in the Book of Matthew, DNA is the only way that most of us can find our African roots.

With African-Americans, we lack a clear understanding of “who and what” we are and while it is improving, we certainly lack that strong value of education. Last week, I asked six teenaged African-American boys who their father’s father was, and only two knew.

I got a call from an African friend of mine named Hamadoune Sow, who asked me when I was going to go back to Africa with him again. I look forward to the trip. Even though it had been nine years since I have been there, he said that everyone is still asking about you, “They are asking, ‘Where is the fat, funny one?’ ”

They all remember me because when I went, I went not to see Africa, but to ‘be’ Africa, and became one with my people. While I don’t know from where in Africa my ancestors descended, I fully accept those people whose homes I ate to be my next of continental kin.

Many of the difficulties that African-Americans have in melding into American society is due to the fact that the only part of our identities that have not been stripped from us is the color of our skins. And then, even still, our African and Caribbean kin manage to find success in America, simply because, like the Jews, the Irish, and virtually every other person in America, they know from they came and subsequently know who they are. It is easier for us to ‘be’, and for others to ‘see’ us, as just an American under such circumstances.

Ken Hamilton is a Niagara Falls resident. Contact him at kenhamilton930@aol.com.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.