My Vote

My father gave me two insights, among many, into the status of African-Americans in our country in the early 1960s. The first was on a trip to New York City to see relatives in Brooklyn and a ball game in Yankee Stadium. Wherever we went in the city, he cautioned me to stay away from various people of color and I developed a fearful respect of their existence. He never said it, but as I grew older, I sensed that he wasn't practicing racial discrimination, just the recognition that life in the city was difficult and people were just as likely to victimize you for the sake of their own survival (right or wrong) as they were to say or do something nice to you.

One Thanksgiving, Dad, who taught Mathematics at Union College in Schenectady, NY, brought home one of his students for dinner. His name was Bob Holland and he was a star basketball player. I don't remember if the trip to his home outside Detroit, Michigan was too long or if he couldn't afford it, but Dad decided that Bob shouldn't spend the holiday alone and invited him to join us. He was an immediate hit to this family of 4 boys aged 7-17. We all took our turns trying to defeat him at ping pong and when our efforts proved futile, he gave us a second chance by switching to his left hand. Still, his athleticism and skill lifted him to victory.

Bob became a family favorite and in the winters that followed, I begged to attend Union home basketball games to watch Bob and his teammates, who more often than not came away victorious. This congenial, athletic, intelligent, and charismatic man became my new standard for not only people of color, but remarkable individuals of any race. I knew then, at the age of 10 or 11, that race was no limitation in defining a person's potential or character.

Through the civil rights movement of the 60s, the death of Martin Luther King, my college years at a small New England liberal arts school with a limited minority population, I marveled at the dignity of African Americans in the face of such horrible treatment in white America. And I questioned how a country built on the values of equality and opportunity could continue to allow race to be such a divisive factor.

Over the last 40 years, events have suggested improvement in the situation, some with personal connections. I was pleased to see the Sports Editor of my college newspaper from my freshman year, Bryant Gumbel, rise to elevated network TV status. I celebrated in the early 90s reading that a African American college classmate, John Jenkins, had been elected Mayor of the City of Lewiston, Maine--at the time a mostly white town. (John is currently Mayor across the river in Auburn.)

And not long after our whole family was pleased to hear in the news that Bob Holland had been the first person not named Ben or Jerry to be President and CEO of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream. The irony of his rising to this position, I later learned, was the fact that he (and all others of color) had been barred from Sullivan's Ice Cream Shop, growing up in his hometown of Albion, Michigan.

In my recent visits to New York City, especially Manhattan, I noted the change since the 1960s in terms of the racial landscape. I've walked the streets of Harlem, where my father never would have gone, and witnessed the tremendous diversity downtown, where conceivably every ethnic group in the world is somehow represented; all of them participating in some fashion in the synergy of this financial capital of America.

While New York and other major American cities reflect ethnic diversity as a function of economics, one other place struck me in recent years in the same way: the Santa Monica Pier. A visit with a former Bates College roommate and ski teammate Norton Virgien in California included a walk out on the pier among Asians, Latinos, African Americans and others, all enjoying the beautiful day, the ocean, the pier vendors and performers. They weren't there by necessity and yet all co-existed and reveled in the day.

This week when I cast my vote for President of the United States, I thought of Bob Holland and John Jenkins, New York City and the Santa Monica Pier; and voted for a man who, for the first time in my opinion, will be a President for all Americans, not just those of a certain race or ideology. I don't think that America has a greater need than the leadership of someone who has compassion for all of its citizens and the ability to project it globally.

I'm truly proud to have cast my vote for Barack Obama.