Felicitations From Fairhope #17
10 February 2023
Hello there… Rodger French here.
February has a particular significance for me, one that does not necessarily involve prognosticating rodents. On 02 February 1972, I was discharged, honorably and six days early, from the U.S. Navy. I can objectively report that I (a) enjoyed being a sailor at sea, (b) detested military chickenshit, and (c) felt my hitch elapse like an eternity. But now, at an age where I may regard the passage of time in years, decades, and even generations... nah, it was still a long four years.
[Military Etymological Sidebar - “Chickenshit:” WWII troop slang for military bureaucratic regulations so silly and trifling that they don't measure up to the level of bullshit.]
Periodically, I found myself with a lot of free time. Since I’ve never been much of a boozer or tattoo aficionado - and one can spend only so much time in a gym - I gravitated to the library, where I could indulge in binge-reading, mostly biographies and science fiction. But I also took the opportunity to educate myself regarding more serious matters, foremost of which was Black History. This was a very big deal for me, given my background.
1962-65 - Growing up in Kentucky, I went to an integrated high school (Class of ‘65) and, as a student manager for the basketball and track teams, had regular interactions with Black guys. What I didn’t have, of course, was the education necessary to comprehend the true history, complexity, and legacy of “Race” in the United States. But the Civil Rights Movement was constantly in the news, and that helped provide a starting point for me to begin to learn.
1966-67 - At the University of Kentucky, I was part of the “Marching 100” band: 98 Whites, 2 Blacks, and no women. (I am not making this up.) UK surely needed a reality check/attitude adjustment and received one in 1966 when the Wildcat basketball team, an all-White group coached by Adolph Rupp, a notorious racist, got their asses handed to them in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Finals by Texas Western University, which started a defiantly all-Black lineup. And as much as I wanted the Cats to win (I was drumming in the pep band, after all), it was clear to me that this was a historically seismic event.
1968 - I reported to Navy boot camp at Great Lakes, IL in February 1968. Recruit Company 103 was integrated, although (like the Navy itself) largely White. We all got along alright, just trying to get through basic training in the butt-freezing cold. But on 04 April 1968, Dr. King was assassinated, Chicago was declared off-limits, and shit got very real. There was an incident within our Company that could have easily turned very ugly, had cooler heads not prevailed. It felt - again, still - like we were due a reckoning.
My self-education in Black History (and subsequently, Critical Race Theory) began in 1968 in the Naval Station Newport library with The Autobiography of Malcolm X, followed in short order (from a variety of sources) by Invisible Man, The Souls of Black Folks, Native Son, From Slavery to Freedom, The Wretched of the Earth, The Fire Next Time, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, The Peculiar Institution, The Negro in the South, Blues People, and basically any relevant book I could lay my hands on. The process was enlightening, embarrassing, and infuriating. It was also one of the wisest things I’ve ever done of my own volition.
50+ years further on up the road, I have that same feeling when I read, among other books, The 1619 Project. And while it is currently fashionable to forbid the teaching in public schools of subjects that offend the tender fee fees of White supremacist snowflakes, I call bullshit. I deserved the truth in the 1960s and our kids deserve it now. They can handle it and shouldn’t have to ferret it out on their own. And, after all, February is also Black History Month.
Onward.
Rodger
