"A boy is born
In hard time Mississippi
Surrounded by four walls
That ain't so pretty
His parents give
Him love and affection
To keep him strong
Moving in the right direction
Living just enough
Just enough for the city.
His father works
Some days for fourteen hours
And you can bet
He barely makes a dollar
His mother goes
To scrub the floors for many
And you'd best believe
She hardly gets a penny
His sister's black
But she is sho'nuff pretty
Her skirt is short
But Lord, her legs are sturdy
To walk to school
She's got to get up early
Her clothes are old
But never are they dirty
Her brother's smart
He's got more sense than many
His patience's long
But soon he won't have any
To find a job
Is like a haystack needle
'Cause where he lives
They don't use colored people
Living just enough...
Just enough for the city... ohhh
His hair is long, his feet are hard and gritty
He spends his life walking the streets of New York City
He's almost dead from breathing in air pollution
He tried to vote but thim there's no solution
Living just enough, just enough for the city... yeah yeah yeah!
I hope you hear inside my voice of sorrow
And that it motivates you to make a better tomorrow
This place is cruel no where could be much colder
If we don't change the world will soon be over
Living just enough, just enough for the city!"
--Stevie Wonder, Living for the City
Innervisions, 1973
(A song which awoke me from my childish slumber of white privilege.)
* * * * *
Deke's Note: Whew! What a week. It was one of the busiest in recent memory, given the Pacific Northwest's odd gift of sunny and warm late-winter weather. Still, it was a great one even though I suffered physically from the onslaught of 56 hours in service. Giving people rides is what I do, and I certainly did. It might have been a record-setting week for number of rides, but Deke's "Positive Thought for the Day" added a generous amount of positive passenger interactions. A rarity, I must add, and it was more than I had hoped for.
Ralph Waldo Emerson: “What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.”
A few times, it seemed as if the bus farts meant more than what I had proclaimed. Nobody seemed to notice my desperate attempt to engage the riding public with what I believed a truly-inspirational and uplifting message. Then, magic happened. As passengers exited from the back of the bus, they purposefully walked to the front and thanked me for Emerson's quote.
"That was really cool," one lady told me as she exited, "to give me that Emerson passage," one kind lady told me. "Thank you."
It struck me with a force of affirmation equal to that with which I had offered it: honestly and with passion. Her tone was sincere, and the smile she left me with shone as bright as that winter sun we have been graced with this week. It warmed me just as equally. I had made a difference in her transit experience! YES! Faaaarrrr out! Isn't that what my employer brags about even though it has no idea who it manages, the very souls who drive Portland to and from whither they go?
After a week of this "experiment", all I can do is give thanks to he who reached out and helped me see the light I have shaded my eyes from all along: Tommy Transit. This dear man has uplifted thousands of Vancouver, British Columbia's passengers for three decades, and now those who ride his Party Bus on Galiano Island. It is borne from one kind, decent soul who decided his mission as a bus operator encompassed the unselfish desire to lift people from the despair of darkness into the light of love and positive thoughts. Tommy reached out to me just a few weeks ago. Since then, we have had several email and text conversations on the plight of bus operators who toil through the darkness without seeing the light of what could be.Full-time city bus operators of worldwide metropolitan areas have the grand opportunity of reaching millions of people just like us every day, each year. More than the Pope, the US President or Queen of the United Kingdom. Each full-time bus operator provides rides to approximately 150,000 people each year. Most are just like US. Those who toil for infinitely less than our collective worth, just to stay afloat beneath the rich man's realm.
We collectively await the day our bank account is awarded the wages we have earned, only to see those precious pennies sucked away by the landlord or mortgage or student loan leeches and other countless bills our tenuous existence depends upon. After all that is paid, we're left with the meager slop described by the Charles Dickens "Oliver Twist" character when he asks for just a wee bit more sustenance. Of course, Oliver is met with the cruel ridicule of the headmaster who mocks his cries for mercy... something we're all too accustomed to as hard-working pawns to the master of capitalism which ultimately enslaves us all.
I pay my countless bills which allow me the least of luxuries, levies galore even to the point of local transit tax extortion I had no choice to vote upon, and countless extra leechy-grabs upon the wages I slave to earn every minute I'm in service to our beautiful city. Whatever is left goes to food, gas and other necessities, only to afford me the crumbs I'm expected to be grateful for earning while bowing to the master's feet each day of occupational slavery. If I'm lucky, these leftovers are enough to afford me the occasional trip away from the urban prison I call "home".
As a loyal citizen to my city, I'm expected to suffer pain and not complain. That's capitalism at its worst. Anyone who calls for anything progressively better is labeled socialist. I'm sorry, but my life's devotion to hard work should afford me more than the "privilege" of working oneself to death for little more than basic sustenance.
You may not recognize it when you board my vehicle, but even through this dazed glaze derived from millions of miles in service to humanity, I am there to see you safely home. That's what my thousands of brothers and sisters do as well, millions of times worldwide each day. You only hear about transit when a rare occurrence of tragedy strikes while people roll. Without fail, local media assails you with the suggestion painting transit workers as the ultimate culprit. It doesn't matter how many millions of safe miles we provide each minute of every day; when shit goes down involving injury or tragedy, the headlines automatically blame the operator.
Transit workers are the most-defiled and least-defended of service personnel. True, there are others who toil at the mercy of the public yet are denied society's respect. Still, those who do the work are viciously pitted against one another. People today are encouraged to blaspheme the holy rather than assail the evil. It has been so for millennia, and so it will continue until we RISE UP against those to whom we unfailingly bow.
Dem vs. Repub, blue vs. white collar. Rich vs. poor. White vs. black vs. brown vs. beige. It doesn't matter which flavor you favor, the opposition will fight you at the expense of us all. They will constantly build walls to separate us because if we could somehow all unite, their power over US would quickly dissolve. It's an ages-old tactic to pit us amongst ourselves, by those who stand to gain the most from it: those who have what they don't want us to attain. Blood will forever be spilt amongs us, as long as we agree to be conned by whatever media flavor encourages us.
One-hundred sixty-or more years ago, blacks were enslaved by ruthless masters who ripped them from their African homeland and shipped them to a faraway, foreign land. Here, they were bought and sold them as worthless chattel. President Abraham Lincoln paid with his life to ensure their supposed "freedom". The 14th Amendment to our Constitution gave way to bigots working even harder to ensure their being held down for another century before Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcom X, and Senator Bobby Kennedy sacrificed their lives to ensure all voices mattered in our society.We are still senselessly-separated by once-realized victories of past racial wars. Even though people whose skin color differs from mine have provided valuable contributions to human kind's collective good, these values have been degraded by the ancestors of past slave masters who somehow still maintain control. This has always insulted my sense of what it means to be an American. We're all connected by the shared bond of what our Founding Fathers based this country upon: that all men (and women) are equal. It took them nearly another hundred years to make slavery illegal, another hundred to begin advocating for full voting and basic decency rights. Today, we still have a lot of work needed to ensure we look at one another equally, regardless of societal differences.
For a country that was supposed to be the beacon of freedom to a world of ancient cruelty, some still harbor a general lack of respect for one another. Discrimination is borne by any group which believes itself superior to another, while its collective actions suggest it collectively lacks the decency which is the basis of their complaint.
Let us be reminded of the sacred words of the United States of America's most beloved of all documents save for our Constitution, the Preamble to our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
Upon the power of this sacred passage, our country could have been overthrown a few times already throughout our sordid history. First, we had to reaffirm that ALL people are created equal. Given the Bible's insistence that humankind was created from the coupling of Adam and Eve, who are we to argue what color these two were? Given the location of their meeting, biology itself dictates their skin color differed greatly from my own: white. Ideally, that would mean our Biblical origins suggests God Himself wanted from us his highest command: to love one another.
I believe there is but one race: the human one. Please do not refer to me by my skin color. Rest assured I will not judge you for yours. We are all brothers and sisters in the eyes of whatever God we honor. I love us all. Even when you piss me off.
Once bigots realize they are truly equal to that other-colored co-worker who shares their own daily struggles, hopefully they will finally accept we're ALL equals. Acts of cruelty against one another are the only disqualifying factor to our shared humanity. We're all of intrinsic value, yet we needlessly fight each other while the big fishes gleefully feast upon our unnecessary hatred. Those who have will tear at those who have not. For millennia, they have laughed at us as we have always done their evil bidding.
This is not a post supporting socialism: it's simply my description of the powerful minority encouraging the masses to cannibalize ourselves. As we battle one another, they get richer and gleefully gather the delectable crumbs of our mutual self-destruction. Once WE have been disposed of, nobody will remain to do their bidding; humanity will eventually cease to exist. The coddled rich will not know how to fend for themselves without a caste system to support them. Perhaps that what Planet Earth needs most to survive: the extinction of humanity. I hope and pray not. I'll bet the survivors: fishes, land animals and insects would appreciate our demise. We've done enough to ensure their annihilation, truly.
I don't "hate" you for feeling differently than I do. Please stop using the word HATE in relation to our differences. Instead, find an avenue through which you can substitute its four-letter opposite: LOVE. I really do feel that for you. I'm sad we have lost our ability to compromise. Our political divide is over-amplified by those who rule the working class, rather than what constitutes our history of shared beliefs.
I safely transport those who either don't have their own transportation or choose to ride public transit. Whatever the case, I'm here with, for, and living among you. Please treat me with the respect my millions of miles of safe driving deserves. My near-60 years have seen me driving for almost 50 of them. My first trainer was Albert, my father. He once taught driving to 1950s Chicago residents who had previously flunked Driver's Ed, and was the most patient man I've ever known. He decided to teach me early, when I would still listen to him. His simplistic but common-sense lessons remain with me today as I guide my lumbering Beast full of my beloved Portlanders.
Yeah, I drive a bus. It's not something to be looked down upon, or to be some easy target for your collective frustration. I'm your equal, and also your biggest fan. We're swirling within this gene pool together, and I hope we can someday learn to find harmony. That's why I have decided to regale you with my "Positive Thoughts for the Day". One step at a time, they say, may find our paths intertwine. And that, my friends, is where we become collectively vital.
Thanks for riding, and operating, alongside me.
With respect, I am
Deke N. Blue
Living For The City... one of many of my Stevie Wonder favorites, and a song to think about for sure, along with your words in this post!
ReplyDelete