Jo Mettee Zucker

A couple anecdotes from my childhood:

"Soul Brother"

"Soul Brother" is a term from the '60s. It was later shorted to Brother and then borrowed by white culture as Bro.

 

For the purposes of this Blog, I refer to the '60s meaning of the term Soul Brother which was a term of endearment referring to fellow african americans and their relationship in the saga of life as Soul Brothers.

 

How do you get to be a Soul Brother? Are you automatically a Soul Brother if you are born black or is it a state of mind? Though a part of me feels like its a state of mind, I tend to think it is the exclusive domain of those who have experienced firsthand- the trials and tribulations of living as a foreigner in their own land. But I digress.

 

It was a sad day in history and in the Zucker household. Apr 4, 1968 The day James Earl Ray brutally took the life of one or our heros Rev. Martin Luther King and forever changed the ebb and flow of history.

 

In Washington DC, confused and angry citizens started out in a peaceful protest, attempting to convince local businesses to close out of respect for Dr. King. However, the peaceful protest gave way to the pressures of over 100 years of oppression and turned violent. Citizens, began smashing windows and a riot ensued. The rioting grew to a size that could not be contained by local DC law enforcement. Bands of people were striding angrily through the city, breaking car windows, burning homes and generally expressing their rage and frustration at losing a key figure in the civil rights movement.

 

My mother got a phone call from a member of CORE who advised us to paint the words Soul Brother on our car and house windows. Up and down Wheeler Road, SE Washington DC, people were out painting their cars and houses with those words.

 

There are two things I will always remember about this.

 

bulletMe standing in my 2nd story bedroom looking out at a couple neighborhood kids who were yelling up to me that I wasnt a soul brother and me yelling back that I was.
bulletWe were the only white family on the block who wrote Soul Brother on our car and house. Only later did it strike me as so odd. Looking back upon it, I realize that some of our white neighbors held such a deeply rooted prejudice that they werent even willing to put these words on their property, even if it meant their property would be damaged

The saga of the Black G.I. Joe

Back in the mid '60s when I was 8, the vietnam war was in full swing and the GI Joe dolls were very big. All my friends had them and played war games with them. We were all too young to understand the atrocities of war. I kept bugging my mom to get me a GI Joe but money was short in those days and it seemed like months and months had gone by. One day, she came home from work and gave me a black GI Joe doll. I was shocked. All of my friends (black & white) had white GI Joe dolls. I told my mom I didn't want this one and asked her to take it back. I cried and made a fuss and my mom explained to me that the doll shouldn't be judged by the color of it's skin. Eventually I settled down and accepted her gift. It was a learning experience to hear some of the negative comments from my white friends and even my friends' parents when they saw the doll. It didn't matter to them that black solders were fighting for their freedom. All they could see was a color. The light went on and I began to see that the gift my mom gave me was not the GI Joe but something deeper.

I look around today at all the hostilities of Jews against Arabs, Arabs against Jews, Americans against Arabs, Arabs against Americans and it makes me sad. And unbelievable, in 2006, there is still a segregation in the performance arts scene.

Sometimes I wonder about these creatures we call human...

Jaz