Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Timing is Everything
Say what you want about Italians, but when it comes to expressing their grievances or disapproval, they have a gift for making themselves heard. The recent ruckus in the streets of Rome over Bush's visit to the Vatican--like the earlier anti-war demonstrations there--warmed my Italian-by-association heart. I mean, can you imagine if Baghdad was a Sicilian enclave?
Not to get too personal, but for some strange unexplainable reason, when I saw the photo of 300,000 anti-Occupation protesters in Baghdad last week, I thought of my uncle who died some thirty years ago, and the time in the late 1960s when he was president of the school board. He was, incidentally, married to an Italian immigrant, but that had nothing to do with why he and his neighbor decided to drive across the tracks into the black ghetto to witness the Martin Luther King assassination riots in progress.
As a high-school sophomore at the time, there was a lot I didn't understand about the world then, especially about my uncle's generation, but I remember clearly his calm, respectful demeanor, his willingness to listen attentively, and his nonchalant acceptance of my newly-acquired hippie counterculture attire.
Now that I'm approximately the age he was then, I like to think he simply wanted to see for himself what was going on, and might even have desired to engage some participants in an enlightening discussion on racism in America. Maybe it's my inclination to fight for lost causes that makes me laugh recalling his neighbor's recount of the experience, who, when under a bombardment of flying bricks and rocks he shouted, "Those aren't bibles they're throwing--let's get the hell out of here!"
Not to get too personal, but for some strange unexplainable reason, when I saw the photo of 300,000 anti-Occupation protesters in Baghdad last week, I thought of my uncle who died some thirty years ago, and the time in the late 1960s when he was president of the school board. He was, incidentally, married to an Italian immigrant, but that had nothing to do with why he and his neighbor decided to drive across the tracks into the black ghetto to witness the Martin Luther King assassination riots in progress.
As a high-school sophomore at the time, there was a lot I didn't understand about the world then, especially about my uncle's generation, but I remember clearly his calm, respectful demeanor, his willingness to listen attentively, and his nonchalant acceptance of my newly-acquired hippie counterculture attire.
Now that I'm approximately the age he was then, I like to think he simply wanted to see for himself what was going on, and might even have desired to engage some participants in an enlightening discussion on racism in America. Maybe it's my inclination to fight for lost causes that makes me laugh recalling his neighbor's recount of the experience, who, when under a bombardment of flying bricks and rocks he shouted, "Those aren't bibles they're throwing--let's get the hell out of here!"
