There was, once upon a time, a really foul board game called “Public Assistance”
But it wasn’t alone. There were more. In the case of the first game, public outrage was swift and not the least bit subtle. Courts in New York and Maryland, along with NOW and the NAACP managed to get it pulled from shelves. The creator planned to market it and a game called “Capital Punishment” a decade later because he was hoping that the political “climate” had changed. It must not have been changed enough because a copy sells on Amazon for about 300 bucks. That means it’s a classic collector’s game, and it never went into production on a larger scale. After 1980.
I had a girlfriend whose parents had “Public Assistance” and I actually played it. Don’t come down too hard on me: this was a brick in the road of my journey to escape the racism and bigotry that was ingrained in my heart from a very young age. It was eye opening for me. It was outlandish to throw dice and hope to get on welfare. Why the fuck would anyone do that?
Plus the extra money you collected for each illegitimate child. How is that a fucking game?
As my eyes began to open, I’d meet people who suffered. From different things. Alcoholism, drugs, spousal abuse or other domestic abuse, mental illnesses, and more. I grew up working with a lot of truckers and most were angry white men. Intolerant, opinionated, bigoted, bitter. Some were Vietnam veterans and some Korean war veterans. They were damaged but didn’t know it. Back then such things were not spoken of out loud. Racial hatred especially toward Asians was a shared trait.
Ralph and Betty Smith
My parents were astoundingly bigoted to the point of phobic hatred.
They were wrong.
I can’t say how I began my learning about what was right and what was wrong, or when certain realizations hit me, but I never liked the way us kids were treated. Everything was wrong and I just knew it by the way I felt when being yelled at, told I was stupid, slow, retarded, or faced accusations that were so utterly ridiculous that not only had I not done them, I never would have. I was accused of doing things I didn’t even know were possible. Grilled for hours on end, like torture to a POW under interrogation. The whippings that left either scarlet stripes or open and bleeding lashes. Punched, sexually abused, forced to eat food that invariably made me vomit on my plate or later, both of which were equally horrible.
I knew it was wrong. All wrong, and I couldn’t stop it. I was a kid.
But there were times…
Some times, like Christmas. We were similar for a day to a normal family. There were real Christmas trees, beautiful old ornaments they don’t make anymore, lights they don’t make anymore and records played on the huge console stereo.
One year (records for Baltimore indicate the biggest Christmas storm in my lifetime was in 1966, but there were others, with lesser amounts, in 1969 and 1970, yet this doesn’t mean greater amounts didn’t fall South in Pasadena) we had a white Christmas I’ll never forget. A Christmas Eve and day that were magic. Nice toys, no beatings and no yelling. That was such a contrast and contradictory situation that I learned from it. The year? It does not matter, but I remember ’66 and ’69 and ’70.
Years of abuse and having a fear of black people and a hatred for Jews instilled in me took a toll. I lived a life that made me old before I was 21.
But I couldn’t live in hate. I couldn’t live with it. It was killing me. Hatred is something I’m not hardwired for. It goes against my soul. It’s poison. And so, gradually, over time, I unlearned what I had been taught. I forced myself to do things that frightened me. I wasn’t always good at it and certainly wasn’t consistent, but I was at war for my soul.
I revolted. The jokes I’d once laughed at and told weren’t funny any longer. I always had empathy, but as I let go of my learned hatred, it grew. I’ve reached a point where even on psychotropic medications, I cannot stop being an empath. If I see someone suffering, I suffer too. I can even feel pain. I feel their loss, heartbreak and fear. I don’t like it much, but it helps me temper my words at times.
My humor is sometimes offputting to others, but I don’t mean it to be. I’ve come to understand that humor is often at the expense of others, and what one person laughs at will deeply hurt another.
I like fair play. Truthfulness. Mercy. Forgiveness. And love. Hatred and anger take away those things. Hate has enabled our president to divide this country. To tear families apart. To cause violence and rioting as peaceful demonstrations take place. Our dialogue has become poisoned and deadly. Threats of violence are so common on social media that I fear everything has gone too far. I get anxious that perhaps there’s no coming out of this.
Former RNC chairman Steele, a staunch conservative, has just endorsed Biden. That should tell you something. Even Republicans are tired of the chaos and divisiveness and they know we can’t survive like this.
But Trump has made racism worse, brought it into the open and validated it.
Those board games could come back now, and video games could eventually trend to themes like race wars. There are already games with themes and characters that capitalize on stereotypes. We’re going the wrong way. I don’t want to see it go further.
My parents were, as you know if you’ve followed my blog, Christians. The kind that make the name a bad word. Racists. Child abusers. Cheats and crooks. A pastor visited once and told a racist joke with the N-word. He laughed like hell. Coming from him I saw how truly ugly that joke was (I had laughed at it in the 4th grade).
The fight never ends, though. What is taught from an early age and constantly reinforced is a stubborn enemy. One of my father’s favorite ways to prevent me from getting a beer with my friends was the warning that I’d wind up in prison with blacks who would rape me. Yes, it scared me and made my progress into a problem.
People are not born with racial hatred. They’re not born assholes or Christians or murderers. Plenty of people are sociopaths and never become serial killers. Plenty of people have careers that see them to retirement despite severe depression and other forms of mental and physical illnesses.
I see what the human spirit is capable of surviving. I see also how a poisoned one can reach out and cause great agony and destruction. I know some fight their demons while others feed them. Certainly I’m not above feeding my own demons, because like most people I get weak and give in.
That’s not the end. After decades of self-hatred and guilt, I know that the path to redemption begins with giving that guilt to Abba, the Holy Father. Guilt is always partnered with regret, and those are burdens too heavy to bear. I have had terrible difficulty with that fight.
George Floyd would never have understood my fight. Probably would not have cared how much heat I took during the long trip to escape from madness and hate.
What went through his mind while he was being murdered?
What is it like and what does it mean to be a person of color in this country?
I can’t tell you that and I’ll never be able to. I have listened for hours as I engaged others in my search to know the truth. I had one friend who I could freely ask questions of, and who was patient with me and who encouraged me and once said, “I like what I’m hearing from you.”
One more step. One more lesson. This time, in the form of an unforgettable friend and teacher.
I had other teachers. Some had to put me in line. Others invited me to their homes to hang out and watch sports and drink beer.
I could not go because I was socially dysfunctional and had anxiety attacks before I went to a 7-eleven, so you can imagine my inability to socialize. Those who did invite me took my excuses hard.
I wish there was no racism in this world. It isn’t funny and it isn’t a game. And Public Assistance was a game that never should have been conceived at all.
I knew poor white people who were on government help and some were so mentally ill that they were monsters. One woman was such a hardcore alcoholic and drug addict that she had a baby with serious birth defects. It was a boy.
And from his birth, he had to be fed with a tube that was stuck down his throat and into his intestinal tract. The county caught her drunk during a welfare check and the baby was being neglected. She lost custody that very day. Then she got pregnant again and the baby was deaf. He was born with a crack cocaine addiction. I’m not really sure if he survived. She was sick, and it was so sad what she did to those kids. But the stereotypical welfare recipient is false. He or she isn’t always mentally ill and not always addicted to a drug or alcohol.
I’ve seen my share of evil. I’ve lost friends and I lost my own children. Some things teach lessons more mercilessly than others. And there was a time when such bitter losses as having my kids die would have driven me to death, suicide and as much more destruction before I made it that far. Life ain’t fair. It just never was.
But if I can battle, every day, and in single combat vanquish the enemies I was conditioned to embrace, such as sexism and racism, then anyone can. One merely needs to have the desire for it. The longing to learn, and the thirst for what’s right.
I only know this: I will not die a wastrel, a bigot and full of hatred. I’ll have it known that I fought back. That the fight never ended.
I just wish more people could try to fight back, just a little, because the world would be so much better off.
Memoirs of an American Asshole 