Back Doors

Early morning thoughts: While standing “Quarterdeck Duty” once on a Navy base, I was told to deliver a message to the Admiral’s home. I carried out my mission smartly, but was told by the butler, “Next time, you are to use the back door.” It wasn’t a big deal, but it did mark the first time that I, a Caucasian male of European descent, had ever been told to use anyone’s back door. Walking back, I remember thinking, “What if it wasn’t the Admiral’s house and I wasn’t in the military? What if every day of my life, my father’s life, and my grandfather’s life, my people had been told to use the back door? How would that have shaped my life? How would my father have felt at the end of a day of denigration, humiliation, and back doors when he came home to assume his part in the rearing of his children?

At the time this happened, the military had its doors open for people of all colors. If one didn’t enter willingly, the draft was applied without regard to race, creed or color. So a man forced into war against his will, who served his country, perhaps being damaged in process, was still relegated to back doors at the end of his service if he didn’t fit our standards of racial purity. This means that there are more than 7,400 names of men on the Vietnam Memorial who would not have been allowed to live in many cities of the American South had they survived the war. These are names of men whose parents would have been denied service in many restaurants on the day of their son’s death, a denial supported and defended by “strong religious beliefs.” A life of back doors still awaited those mourning families.

How dedicated would I have been in service to my country if that end result awaited me?

A few short years later, the owner of an apartment building would say to me when I called to inquire about a rental, “You’ll have to come by in person so I can check the color of your eyes.” I declined and thought again of that night I walked back to the headquarters building from the Admiral’s house.

 It made an impression on me and I still wonder how many Americans survived our country’s wars only to be denied a home in which they could rest and recover, or the right to marry the person they loved, or the privilege of living free of another person’s religious dogma. That is why I’m appalled that some elected leaders–not many, but enough to terrorize the rest—would have us return any of our precious brothers and sister to those awful “back door” days.
 

Let us mourn for those who died without ever
 gaining the full rights of American Citizenship.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See also:

www.wattensawpress.com

www.travelswithanalien.blogspot.com