I experienced for a moment with a New Haven girl the power over women that a Yale Man has. We went to East Rock Park. I doubt she would have gone with me if I had not been a Yale Man.
The moment was generated by the sensation I had taking her in my arms. It was the first time I ever felt lust with a woman. I had had the feeling of lust when I was cross dressing in secret and had my first orgasm. But with this woman I felt lust equal to that and was equally stymied by unsuitability of it. My first instinct was to say to her, "I love to feel you!" hoping she would open herself to equal lust herself. She didn't. She was struck by my virginity as if it was laughable, and that's just what she did. She laughed almost uproariously. It wasn't true virginity as I had copulated before, but once it was without attraction to the girl and the other time it was phobic to intercourse, for the sake of nominal virginity. This New Haven girl, of course, knew nothing of my history, but what was laughable about my behavior I cannot fathom. She probably was not aroused at all and my expression of feelings plainly declared that I was, and this inequality she took as some bizarre type of social advantage, and used that advantage to exult over my gullibility that she would be responsive. The words I said stand as a monument to the cruelty of people, for though her expression of advantage seems to me bizarre, to her it bespoke totally a presumption of due ridicule. She was laughing into her crowd, her social circle, while I spoke into the history books, for such is the nature of my published writings. My lust is empowering, and I never make excuses for it. If Yale taught me anything, it is that social circles are best left behind one as he sets out on a quest for eternal significance. Let the circles feel the effects in peculiar or distant ways, as is their need. I have a sense of the beautiful, or I would never have gotten this far, and it serves as a light on my products, hinting at the existence of some or other place where others, not just myself, will welcome them. It is not the complete product, but it counts. I think there is something beautiful in the story of the New Haven girl who laughed. It didn't lessen my lust. It served notice that lust for me is always close at hand, at which there will always be those who laugh. It could be worse, and in fact, in places it is. Other stories append there. Read the autobiography. The name of the New Haven girl of this story is Cindy Koval.
Showing posts with label New Haven. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Haven. Show all posts
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Monday, August 23, 2010
Three eras of my relationship to blacks.
There are three eras in my life which bear on my relationship to black people.
1.) My junior year of high school.
2.) My freshman and sophomore years at Yale College.
3.) Starting with my homelessness in 1981 and ending with my writing of the poem, "Black Girl's Husband I".
In the first era, I was keenly aware of my mother's position, which was that intermarriage was the only solution to race relations in the United States. Then one day at school I was approached by my friend Norm Swett who invited me to join him and others in picketing the A&P food store in Glen Ellyn, our home town, because it had reneged on a written agreement to hire more black workers. I was not in the habit of verifying incendiary claims such as this, so to this day I don't know if it was valid. In any case, I trusted Norm and joined the picket line.
Before I did so I felt that I should give my father a chance to veto my decision to do this, since I was as keenly aware of his counter position to my mother's as I was aware of my mother's. Besides that, he paid the bills.
So I went to my father's beauty shop and presented him with my decision to picket. He kept his temper and made clear to me two things, one of which he didn't live up to. One was that he didn't want me to do it. This he did live up to. The other was that it was up to me to do or not do as I saw fit. This he was not able to follow through on even though he didn't stop me from picketing. He came home from work the day I picketed and was in a furious rage. He had gotten a report from a customer that I had gone ahead and done it.
Well, what was I to think of his word? He came off to me as a real unreliable testifier to his will. Moreover, he and my mother got into a huge argument over it, she defending my action. I didn't follow the argument long and I'm not sure how long it went. In any case, I was upstairs in my bedroom at some point and he came up and got down on his knees in front of me (the ceilings were angled because the roof was angled so maybe this was due to his height not fitting in the part of the room where I was sitting) and said, crying, that he was leaving because my mother had said they didn't communicate. Then he did leave. The divorce followed several years later. Clearly his marital problem was deeper than his race problem, or he wouldn't have quit being angry at me for the picketing, which he apparently did. He stated to me numerous times later than the divorce wasn't my fault.
The second era is important because it was my first public verbalization of my own particular feelings about race. At a three day event at the beginning of freshman year, sponsored by a New Haven Christian group, I was exposed to New Haven's black community and leaders. At a meeting with Willie Counsel, president of the Hill Parents Association, I and my coattendees were asked to go around in our circle and express our feelings about what he had said about what was going on in the Hill, a poor black neighborhood in New Haven. When my turn came I was in tears thinking about what I had to say, which was that I was actually a racist despite my thinking I was very sympathetic towards black people, and that's what I said. After we all spoke Mr. Counsel gave his reaction to each of us and when he got to me he said he thought I had a potential for doing a lot of good in the black community.
The next year I learned about a Yale work-study program in which if I found a community group to work for Yale would pay my wages.
My first thought was Willie Counsel and the Hill Parents Association. But when I met with Mr. Counsel he didn't seem to recognize me and made no mention of meeting me and speaking of me when I had visited him with the church group the previous year. I certainly didn't think it admirable for me to bring up that event with him myself, as it would have been terribly selfish. So when he asked me what I thought I could do for his organization I got the sense he didn't see that there was very much. I mumbled a little about some flakey notion of service and it made no impression on him. He didn't want me to work for him.
I finally ended up being a totally uninspired and unproductive employee of the Hill Neighborhood Corporation for sophomore year. I had no contact with anyone of authority and had no actual supervisor. Nominally my assignment was to start up a neighborhood newspaper. I had no budget. What was I to do? I went around in the Hill acting like a reporter investigating stories. That's all I did. I'm embarrassed to have billed Yale for it.
The next year I went back to visit my employer and met the man they hired full-time to start a newspaper. He impressed on me the fact that he loved comic books. He didn't say anything having to do with a newspaper. I don't know what his budget was.
The third era began in New Haven when I was homeless. I went often to a soup kitchen in an Episcopal Church, Christ Church as I recall, and there were a lot of blacks. I felt there was unnecessary crowding in the line to the food and I decided to make a stand of leaving plenty of space between myself and the person in front of me. The guy behind me would always complain and threaten me. I kept my stand. Something needed to be done. I was feeling a lot of pressure from blacks and I didn't like it. Too many stories to tell in a blog.
The era ends in about 2001 when I wrote a poem entitled, "Black Girl's Husband, I." It was fiction, but represented a form of truth about what was possible. It was a semi-finalist in an on-line poetry contest. When I tried to display it on the website I owned at the time, the system shut down and prevented me from doing so.
At about the same time I gave $20 to the United Negro College Fund. They asked me online if I wanted to inform anyone and I indicated Dorothy Jackson, the assistant administrator at my nursing home. They asked me if I wanted anyone else to be notified and I said no. Dorothy didn't mention getting notification and I didn't ask her about it. Better it remain our secret.
Another event within the third era was when I told the Chicago police I wanted to join the Mafia. I said then that I wanted to bring harmony between blacks and whites.
In 2006 I was the Republican candidate for state representative in the fourteenth district of Illinois. I didn't mention race.
In 2008 Barack Obama emerged from Illinois politics to become the president of the United States.
These two events were not within the three eras. They were the fruits of them, when taken together.
1.) My junior year of high school.
2.) My freshman and sophomore years at Yale College.
3.) Starting with my homelessness in 1981 and ending with my writing of the poem, "Black Girl's Husband I".
In the first era, I was keenly aware of my mother's position, which was that intermarriage was the only solution to race relations in the United States. Then one day at school I was approached by my friend Norm Swett who invited me to join him and others in picketing the A&P food store in Glen Ellyn, our home town, because it had reneged on a written agreement to hire more black workers. I was not in the habit of verifying incendiary claims such as this, so to this day I don't know if it was valid. In any case, I trusted Norm and joined the picket line.
Before I did so I felt that I should give my father a chance to veto my decision to do this, since I was as keenly aware of his counter position to my mother's as I was aware of my mother's. Besides that, he paid the bills.
So I went to my father's beauty shop and presented him with my decision to picket. He kept his temper and made clear to me two things, one of which he didn't live up to. One was that he didn't want me to do it. This he did live up to. The other was that it was up to me to do or not do as I saw fit. This he was not able to follow through on even though he didn't stop me from picketing. He came home from work the day I picketed and was in a furious rage. He had gotten a report from a customer that I had gone ahead and done it.
Well, what was I to think of his word? He came off to me as a real unreliable testifier to his will. Moreover, he and my mother got into a huge argument over it, she defending my action. I didn't follow the argument long and I'm not sure how long it went. In any case, I was upstairs in my bedroom at some point and he came up and got down on his knees in front of me (the ceilings were angled because the roof was angled so maybe this was due to his height not fitting in the part of the room where I was sitting) and said, crying, that he was leaving because my mother had said they didn't communicate. Then he did leave. The divorce followed several years later. Clearly his marital problem was deeper than his race problem, or he wouldn't have quit being angry at me for the picketing, which he apparently did. He stated to me numerous times later than the divorce wasn't my fault.
The second era is important because it was my first public verbalization of my own particular feelings about race. At a three day event at the beginning of freshman year, sponsored by a New Haven Christian group, I was exposed to New Haven's black community and leaders. At a meeting with Willie Counsel, president of the Hill Parents Association, I and my coattendees were asked to go around in our circle and express our feelings about what he had said about what was going on in the Hill, a poor black neighborhood in New Haven. When my turn came I was in tears thinking about what I had to say, which was that I was actually a racist despite my thinking I was very sympathetic towards black people, and that's what I said. After we all spoke Mr. Counsel gave his reaction to each of us and when he got to me he said he thought I had a potential for doing a lot of good in the black community.
The next year I learned about a Yale work-study program in which if I found a community group to work for Yale would pay my wages.
My first thought was Willie Counsel and the Hill Parents Association. But when I met with Mr. Counsel he didn't seem to recognize me and made no mention of meeting me and speaking of me when I had visited him with the church group the previous year. I certainly didn't think it admirable for me to bring up that event with him myself, as it would have been terribly selfish. So when he asked me what I thought I could do for his organization I got the sense he didn't see that there was very much. I mumbled a little about some flakey notion of service and it made no impression on him. He didn't want me to work for him.
I finally ended up being a totally uninspired and unproductive employee of the Hill Neighborhood Corporation for sophomore year. I had no contact with anyone of authority and had no actual supervisor. Nominally my assignment was to start up a neighborhood newspaper. I had no budget. What was I to do? I went around in the Hill acting like a reporter investigating stories. That's all I did. I'm embarrassed to have billed Yale for it.
The next year I went back to visit my employer and met the man they hired full-time to start a newspaper. He impressed on me the fact that he loved comic books. He didn't say anything having to do with a newspaper. I don't know what his budget was.
The third era began in New Haven when I was homeless. I went often to a soup kitchen in an Episcopal Church, Christ Church as I recall, and there were a lot of blacks. I felt there was unnecessary crowding in the line to the food and I decided to make a stand of leaving plenty of space between myself and the person in front of me. The guy behind me would always complain and threaten me. I kept my stand. Something needed to be done. I was feeling a lot of pressure from blacks and I didn't like it. Too many stories to tell in a blog.
The era ends in about 2001 when I wrote a poem entitled, "Black Girl's Husband, I." It was fiction, but represented a form of truth about what was possible. It was a semi-finalist in an on-line poetry contest. When I tried to display it on the website I owned at the time, the system shut down and prevented me from doing so.
At about the same time I gave $20 to the United Negro College Fund. They asked me online if I wanted to inform anyone and I indicated Dorothy Jackson, the assistant administrator at my nursing home. They asked me if I wanted anyone else to be notified and I said no. Dorothy didn't mention getting notification and I didn't ask her about it. Better it remain our secret.
Another event within the third era was when I told the Chicago police I wanted to join the Mafia. I said then that I wanted to bring harmony between blacks and whites.
In 2006 I was the Republican candidate for state representative in the fourteenth district of Illinois. I didn't mention race.
In 2008 Barack Obama emerged from Illinois politics to become the president of the United States.
These two events were not within the three eras. They were the fruits of them, when taken together.
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