You're A Better Man Than I

You're A Better Man Than I                              4338

Tuesday, July 1, 2008-10:30 A.M.

Good morning from sunny Florida, where I am in the third week of my three-week summer tour.  I am performing tomorrow night in Cordele, Georgia, for the Comedy Zone and then travel south to Fort Myers, Florida for my yearly engagement at the Laugh Inn Comedy Café.

I’ve been coming down to Florida for about five or six years now, starting when my late father begun experiencing  health complications due to cancer (he passed away last year).  I had planned a small Florida tour every year to visit Dad and stayed with him on the off-nights.  It was a great way to both fill my summer tour schedule (Florida clubs don’t suffer the way clubs in other parts of the country do because of the hot weather; it’s hot all year so it’s not noticeable) and get a chance to keep in touch with my parents, make sure they were o.k.

My mom is still here in Florida, so I stay with her on my off-nights while I’m on tour.  She doesn’t so much need my attention as her health is still pretty good, but I know she enjoys the visits and the company.  Last night, she took me out to dinner with her buddies, the Karaoke Mafia (my nickname for her roving band of singers who hop bar-to-bar and sing, and there’s a different bar each night that hosts karaoke), and we sat on the lakeside deck of a seafood restaurant called Tailchaser’s and took turns warbling classic country and soft rock hits beneath a hazy setting sun as the ‘gators peered from the lake with their beady, red eyes.

This morning, I woke early to join my mother’s singing buddy, Rick, at the gated community’s clubhouse for coffee and chatter.  Joining us were Rick’s mother and a friend of theirs, an older man who I will call “Howard.”  We got to chit-chatting, and somewhere along the line, Howard mentioned that he felt there were “too many blacks on TV.”  It was the sort of thing that startled me, but I recovered because once I thought about it, the bigotry didn’t surprise me…I’m speaking with a man who grew up with institutional racism, and the sad truth is that by the time most folks are in their late 20’s, their attitudes are already in place for the rest of their lives.

So I didn’t make mention of my offense, because I didn’t see the point in confronting it; this man wasn’t going to change and there was no reason for me to try, or even to show my distaste.  The bottom line was that this clubhouse was part of his home, and I was a visitor, and it was in better taste to hold my tongue.  But I’m also not the type to let a lesson go unlearned.

Howard continued by mentioning that someone forwarded him a funny cartoon in his morning e-mail, and the cartoon featured Barack Obama, with blacks running away from him in every direction.  The caption read “Why Blacks won’t vote for Obama” and the word balloon coming out of Obama’s mouth said “If I am elected President, every American who can work will have a job.”

Now, I’m a comedian and I enjoy a good joke.  Hell, I even enjoy a bad one from time to time.  But today, I just wasn’t willing to absorb this talk, so I responded with humor.  And I peppered the conversation with every “old fart” joke I could remember.  I did it with a smile on my face, like there was nothing wrong, and I was just being part of the party.  I didn’t bother to mention that my wife is of African American descent; it justdidn’t seem necessary.  And so the coffee klatch broke up, uncomfortably, and I’m guessing it was probably because Howard had to pee.

The reason I even bring this up is that my mother made a statement a few weeks ago, (in front of people!) that America still isn’t ready for a black President.  When she said it, in front of my wife, my sister-in-law and her parents, and me, I thought it just to be a very narrow-minded, tasteless thing to say.  Either she didn’t remember my wife’s ethnic heritage or chose to ignore it, either way I shriveled inside, that embarrassed, pain-in-the-balls feeling that you get when you bring someone to the party and they piss in the punch bowl.

At the time, I dismissed my mother’s statement as pithy; she’s not exactly a political genius.  I once made reference to the “thousand points of light” comment from Bush 41’s inaugural address (and this was while he was still in office!) and she had no idea what I was talking about.  But after hearing Howard make his comments this morning, about “too many blacks on TV” and the Obama cartoon, I had to deal with the sobering fact that this man’s generation, folks in the United States entering retirement age, now represent a huge chunk of the voting public.  And their attitudes were put in place in the 50’s and early 60’s, that magical time when blacks weren’t welcome at certain lunch counters, were set upon with dogs and fire hoses, and still got the stink eye if they mingled with whites.

Some of my mom’s karaoke buddies were a little younger than the rest of the group, and living in redneck Florida (Fishin’ Boat Florida, I calls it), I was holding out hope that they weren’t just towing the party line.  Luckily, they were not; they were Obama Democrats, and we spoke joyfully about donating money to the cause (the wife, Barbara, a little more joyous than Denton, the husband) and volunteering to register the thousands of unregistered black voters to help turn the tide.

Everything happens for a reason, and my coffee invitation this morning opened up my eyes.  There’s still a lot of work to be done in this country.  And I know that Howard isn’t reading this blog today, but if he did, the thing I would say to him this morning is that there are two men running for President this year, one of them young and black, and one of them old and white.  And if the black one wins, old people will be treated with kindness, fairness, equality and love.  Their opinions will be considered and they will have a place at the table.  Their medical needs will be attended to, and their dignity will be protected.

If the reverse happens, could Howard say the same?  What will America look like then?

I don’t like to think about it.  And the more I hear, the more I feel that we need just one more black on television.  Standing on the steps of the Supreme Court with his hand on a bible.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY