Truth is proper and beautiful at all times and in all places. —Frederick Douglas

******************

My father died on October 18, 2022. I sent this email message to friends on October 29th. It is updated, modified, and expanded here.

As I write this, my father’s funeral is happening in Baltimore. I am at home in Delaware. The service is being live-streamed, but I am not watching it. I am busying myself around the house.

My father was absent for much of my childhood (he did not raise any of his children). On several occasions when he was around, he sexually abused me. I forgave him and tried to have a father-daughter relationship with him for many years, but this spring, I eventually walked away from him for good. I was told he became delirious the day before he died and was calling for me. When they called for “the family” to come to the hospital because he had less than 24 hours to live, I would not go. I stayed in Delaware, lit a candle for him, and wished him safe travels. Two days before Herman’s funeral, vases of flowers I ordered were delivered to each of his sisters and what I received in return was silence.

His family is livid because I chose to stay at home. They are especially livid that I challenged them about the obituary on the funeral home website that paints my father as a hero at the expense of the reputation of his children as though we were the ones who neglected him in his time of need. This is not surprising given that Herman and his family were/are given to gaslighting.

Life was good to Herman (I never called him Daddy), but he gave little to his children and family. Yet, he expected everything from us. Two of his four children are at the funeral. Herman’s children, with one exception (his youngest daughter who severed ties with him years ago; she was the smart one), live out of state in Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. Yet, we did all we could do for our father. My oldest sister is the primary caregiver for our 83- and 99-year-old mother and grandmother, respectively. I am the primary caregiver of my 28-year-old son, who is deaf and autistic. My brother works several jobs to provide for his family. Despite this, we did what we could for Herman and then some, and he took it all for granted. We were more than “on the other end of the phone,” as the obituary stated. “There was no challenge Herman would not face?” Unfortunately, he refused to face the most crucial challenge of his life, fatherhood.

I forgave Herman for his absenteeism and the sexual abuse. I spent years building a relationship with him and helping him navigate the realities of old age. We shared so much and had so much in common that I considered him a friend. I inherited his intellectualism, love for books, impeccable work ethic, and wicked sense of humor. Our political debates were intense and invigorating. But we never spoke about what happened, and he NEVER apologized to me. About a year ago, he even stated that he told someone, “The only one of my children I owe an apology to is Arica.” No, he owed us all an apology.

Yet, Herman (and his family) acted as though his children were beholden to him. His sense of entitlement was overwhelming. I, or anyone else, could never do enough for him. So, I walked away. I had done so twice before. It was guilt or what psychologists call trauma bonding, “a hormonal attachment created by repeated abuse, sprinkled with being ‘saved’ every now and then. The brain latches on to the positive experience of relief rather than the negative impact of the abuser.” The desperate need to have my father in my life motivated me to apologize to him and try again. I protected him at my own expense. But this time, I did not look back when I walked away. I wished Herman well and kept it moving. I had to choose myself and my responsibilities to my disabled son and my beautiful husband, an excellent husband, and father.

Sadly, because I walked away, his family has engaged in a full-scale character assassination and has disowned me. I cannot help them; they can think and say what they want about me. Yes, Herman was my father. But I was also his daughter. Why was I required to be loyal to him? Where was his loyalty to me? I was there when he needed me, but he was never there when I needed him. I skipped the funeral, yes. But I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the number of events he wouldn’t attend for my children or me though he was invited.

Herman’s family knows he was not the father he could and should have been to us, and they were well aware of his narcissism. But they also enabled him. In their own words, “We created that monster.” Herman’s sisters catered to him like he was a king. But they also complained about how he used, abused, and took advantage of them, and a niece who also cared for him. The cycle of traumatic bonding had gripped us all. Of course, when he died, the narrative changed. Hence the obituary on the funeral home website.

I implored a cousin directly involved in planning the funeral via text messages to speak with my aunt, a retired English teacher who writes all of the family obituaries, to make the necessary changes that would not cast Herman’s children in a negative light, as though we neglected our father. But the request fell on deaf ears. My two siblings at the funeral were also displeased with how we are portrayed in the obituary, but they believed they had to go along to keep the peace. Dr. King characterized this phenomenon in his Letter From A Birmingham Jail as “a negative peace,” stating that people are “more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice,” underscoring the notion, “You are not supposed to speak ill of the dead,” inculcated in the funeral performance. But is it okay to disparage the living? Language matters, and that section could have been written so that the dead and the living were not maligned. My aunt understands this as well as I do.

Herman’s family knows I supported my father as best I could. But I grew tired of his demands, finally put my foot all the way down, and said, “NO!” I did what his family could or would not do. Because I refused to co-sign on his bad behavior any longer, now I am a pariah. But it is not my fault; I did nothing wrong, there is nothing wrong with me, and I am not the problem. The problem is that as much as Black families teach their girls to grow up to be independent women, we are also expected to value our men and boys more than ourselves. This is particularly true when it comes to sexual impropriety. We must remain silent, not air the family’s dirty laundry. Yet, as Dr. King stated, “Silence is betrayal.” There is no greater betrayal than the betrayal of one’s self. But no more. Me too.

This short video aptly captures the complex family dynamics when an adult child terminates a relationship with an abusive parent. “If it is one thing a family hates is a truth-teller,” contends The Speech Prof. “When an adult child chooses to go no contact with that parent, that is a very loud truth.” Indeed. So, don’t hate me because — in the words of Colonel Nathan R. Jessup (Jack Nicholson) from the famous line from the movie A Few Good Men, who shouted at Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) — “You can’t handle the truth!”

Going "no contact" as an adult child #toxicparenting #narcissist #badparenting #nocontact

The truth is, I loved my father more than he or anyone will ever know. I was an excellent daughter. I did right by Herman despite his ill-treatment of me. I have no regrets. None. I would have hated Herman if I had not severed ties with him. As Maya Angelou stated, “Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in this world, but has not solved one yet.” Word.

When I informed my youngest sister of my decision to sever ties with Herman once and for all, she gave me the best advice. “ Sis, I know you are hurting, and that is because you care,” she said. “You must pray for Herman and forgive him every day, but now that you have drawn that line in the sand, for your own sake, do not cross it.” I told yall she was smart. I took her advice, and I am so glad I did.

R.I.P. Big Herm! I’ll see you again on the other side, and when that happens, I believe the both of us will be better than we were in this life. xoxoxo

The country and the world are buzzing about the slap heard and seen around the world when Will Smith bitch slapped comedienne Chris Rock at this week’s Oscar Awards for what many believe was a cheap laugh at his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith’s expense. “Jada, I love you. G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait to see it, all right? ”, stated Rock. Pinkett-Smith, who has been open about her struggle with alopecia, immediately gave Rock an intense Sistah-girl eye-roll to show her displeasure at his demoralizing sense of humor. Rock acknowledged her discontent but doubled down, “That was a nice one,” he stated as he and the audience, including Will, continued to laugh. But Will’s mood changed once he observed his wife’s displeasure. He cooly strolled onstage and gave Rock an open-handed slap across the mouth. Was it a pre-planned stunt, a joke, or actual revenge? The character of the moment was made clear to onlookers when Will returned to his seat and shouted to a stunned Chris Rock, “Keep my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth!” And in case the people in the back did not hear what he said the first time, he repeated his statement louder and with added force a second time.

I never watch award shows, and I don’t watch television anymore. A family member who was watching sent me a link to the incident in a text message. I watched the entire incident from the beginning of Rock’s monologue to the conclusion of Will’s outburst, then expressed my opinion on Facebook:

“I don’t think Jada has alopecia (I’ve talked about my struggle with alopecia here). I think Jada shaved her head to get sympathy because folk was sick of her because of “entanglement-gate” when the world found out that she had cheated on her husband with a friend of their son Jaden. Before Will and Jada became an item, Jada mainly sported short hairstyles like the one she sported at the Oscars. Will should have handled that backstage. Plus, he laughed until he saw his wife wasn’t happy. He slapped Chris so he wouldn’t have to sleep on the couch.”

Chris Rock never lost his composure as he quipped, “That was the greatest night in the history of television.” The audience laughed, but Rock did not receive a standing ovation for maintaining his cool. However, when Will Smith arose to receive the Best Actor Award, he received a rousing standing ovation as a pungent stank lingered over the award atmosphere. His acceptance speech was a load of patriarchal, pseudo-Black love bullshit.

“Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family. In this time in my life, in this moment, I am overwhelmed by what God is calling on me to do and be in this world. Making this film I got to protect Aunjanue Ellis, who is one of the most strongest, most delicate people I ever met. I got to protect Saniyya and Demi, the two actresses that played Venus and Serena. I’m being called on in my life to love people and to protect people and to be a river to my people.”

Naw Bro! As legendary journalist Maria Shriver tweeted:

Was there another way to handle Rock’s insult? Yes! Suppose the joke as Rock claimed, was about the 1997 blockbuster movie G. I. Jane starring Demi Moore, who played Lt. Jordan O’Neil, the first female trainee in the U.S. Navy’s elite SEAL/C.R.T. selection program? In that case, Jada should have defended herself by turning the joke on Chris.

In one of the most poignant and grueling scenes in the movie, O’Neil is interrogated and beaten to a pulp by Master Chief John Urgayle, played by Viggo Mortensen, who knocks the female trainee to the ground rendering her immobile and silent. O’Neil appeared defeated. But while Urgayle, who turned his back on his female opponent, lectured his men about the hazards of women in combat, ONeil, whose trash-talking emboldened the ire of her male officer, stood to her feet and yelled to him, “Master Chief, suck my dick!” Rather than encouraging him further, the verbal stunt that resulted in an avalanche of laughter, jeers, and howls from her fellow male trainees who loudly chanted the phrase continually, caused Urgayle to lose his center of gravity which left him psychologically deflated. Fight over. Winner, G.I. Jane.

Sunday night was not a win for the Smiths, Will’s female co-stars, or any women because, unlike Chris Rock or Jordan O’Neil, Will and Jada Smith seem unable to think on their feet. Had Jada assumed the character Jordan O’Neil and yelled out, “Chris Rock, suck my dick,” that would have brought the audience to tear-streaming laughter and the discourse of Rock’s comedic infraction would have focused on women’s empowerment rather than male bravado. Fight over. Winner, G. I. Jada.

Will Smith’s display of toxic masculinity decentralized his wife and made the issue all about him. There is no silver lining here. Last night was a monumental fail for us all.

Note: In 2021, 24 years after the release of G. I. Jane, the first female sailor completed Special Navy Warfare training. Follow the link here for more information.

What has become of the “natural hair movement” has made caring for our hair far more complicated than it should be. I was never really on that train. But once I cut off my locks in the fall of 2019, I started buying product after product to whip my hair into a curl pattern, much like I used perms and relaxers to whip my hair until it was straight. No more! What you and I see is what we both get. In 2002, I locked my hair to embrace my authenticity and free up the time I needed as a wife, mother, and doctoral student. My plate is as full now as it was back then. To those who insist that caring for natural hair requires more time and effort than chemically processed hair, I say it does not have to be that way.

I do not have a specific wash “day” or, for that matter, a particular routine. My wash day can occur anytime between one to three weeks from when I last washed my hair. And let me be clear, I do not have an entire day to dedicate to my hair. So my wash time occurs during the time that I shower. Last night while in the shower, I used the plant-based Alba Botanica products to shampoo/condition my hair. After leaving the shower, I added a little leave-in conditioner, oil, and butter by Melanin Haircare to my tresses. I placed a plastic cap over my damp hair and left it on for a few hours to let the products saturate my hair (NEVER LEAVE A RINSE OUT CONDITIONER IN YOUR HAIR LONGER THAN DIRECTED). Afterward, I plaited my hair in three parts, then late in the afternoon, I took out the plaits and used a pick to style the hair into a TWA (Tiny-weeny Afro). I did not add additional products to my hair. I spritzed a little water on my dry hair for added moisture. Then I used a Twist It Up Comb (hair racket) to form Bantu-like knots to add a little pizzazz.

Here’s a little-known Black history fact. The Afro was called “the bush” in the 1960s. We styled our bush using a bush comb and a bush pick. By the 1970s, the term “bush” was replaced with “the natural” and later “the Afro” to give the style respectability. F@#& your respectability. But I digress.

In conclusion, I want to dispel a myth about curly, coily, “kinky” hair. According to numerous studies on hair texture, naturally straight hair is stronger but less versatile than textured hair. Textured hair is not as strong as it looks and feels, so do not be too heavy-handed when styling or using styling products. If you want to increase hair moisture, try drinking more water and adding water-rich foods to your diet (the same goes for protein). In fact, your hair can tell you a lot about your diet, sleeping habits, stress levels, and overall health.

For seventeen years, my hair was locked, and excessive palm rolling in the name of keeping my hair neat and respectable caused traction alopecia. It has been three years since I cut off my locks, and there has been some hair restoration to the crown area. But the regrowth process has been slow, and whether my hair will be fully restored to its original thickness is anybody’s guess.

I don’t want long hair. I want healthy hair. The shrinkage is awesome!

My son Manny is almost 28 years old, and he is deaf and autistic. For years he has engaged in self-injurious behavior, and these scars are from an episode he had late Saturday night.

Sunday morning (1 a.m. when all was quiet again), I told his father that while we often say, “people don’t know,” to express our frustration with people who really don’t know our struggle to understand this unique person and get for him the proper services and accommodations he needs — a fight that is now entering into its 25th year — “I honestly do not want people to know. I don’t want anyone to see him like this.” I sat on the bed, drew my shaking knees to my chest, and allowed a cacophony of emotions to envelop me as I tightened my entire body to shield myself from the brute force of the emotional tidal wave that washed over my body and my soul.

This journey has been difficult for our family, to say the least, but I have come to believe that it is most difficult on Manny. What must it be like for him to enter a verbal/hearing world and struggle to find his place in it? What must it be like to live in a deaf-autistic body in which your sympathetic nervous system is, well, unsympathetic? Due to no fault of his own, Manny cannot verbally articulate his daily struggle. So when he reaches his boiling point (despite the meds), he explodes and begins to beat his head, neck, and face with his fist. He tries to hit his head on a hard surface or ever so mercilessly poke at the middle of his now calloused chest continuously. Or, as you see here, he tries to scratch himself until the blood runs, similar to people who cut themselves.

Neuroscientists believe that self-injurious behavior in most cases reflects the need to find relief from the disharmony and disconnection of mind and body, which is a result of trauma. It is the only way to come back to oneself. So, “How can traumatized people learn to integrate ordinary sensory experiences so that they can live with the natural flow of feeling and feel secure and complete in their bodies?” A far deeper complex question, it seems for those with the added limitation to communicate.

Manny’s self-injurious behavior developed over time due to the failure of the Delaware school system, which refused to provide him an integrative education grounded in developmental communication (IEPs be damned) even though the schools for the Deaf and the Autistic were next door to each other and only 10 minutes from our home. Manny spent his last five years of school (ages 16 to 21) at schools in Vermont and Connecticut. Unfortunately, he regressed, and “the system” blamed us — and him. He was labeled violent, dangerous, and intellectually disabled.

But Manny is none of those things. He is a beautiful human being who wants to FEEL HUMAN. Now, how he goes about it doesn’t make sense to you or me. It does, however, explain why he retaliates against us whenever we try to intervene with the helmet and the gloves to prevent him from further hurting himself. The interventions do not deescalate the situation, but rather they escalate and prolong his behavioral episodes. We do it anyway because it is the only response we know. It seems we (Manny, my husband, and me) are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

Which is to say, there are no answers here — only more questions. Yet as Ranier Maria Rilke stated in Letters to A Young Poet, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. . . . Live the questions now. Perhaps you will gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Hence, our journey to love our way unconditionally towards the answers continues.

Note

van der Kolk, Bessel. The Body Keeps the Score (p. 89 and 92). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

History News Network, April 4, 2017

I am sure that since you have been engaged in one of the hardest struggles for equality and human rights, you are among those who understand fully, and who share with all their heart, the indescribable suffering of the Vietnamese people. The world’s greatest humanists would not remain silent. You yourself cannot remain silent. — Letter from Thich Nhat Hanh to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 1965.

On April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood before a crowd of 3,000 expectant listeners gathered at the Riverside Church in the City of New York. King was no stranger to Riverside Church, known for its national and global activism since opening its doors in 1930. For almost a decade, the civil rights leader’s visits to the Neo-Gothic edifice was an annual event; but this evening was different, as King’s message was a departure from domestic issues about race and economic inequality. Instead, he addressed the most pressing foreign policy issue of the day: the war in Vietnam.

The even-toned eloquence of King’s voice echoed throughout the heightened cathedral as he patiently laid out his case against “my own government” which he characterized as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” Using the platform of the Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam (CAlCAV), an interfaith organization created in October 1965, and the sponsor of the Riverside Church event, King admonished his audience, “Silence is betrayal.” Hence, “For the sake of those oppressed in the [American] ghettoes, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.”[i]

King’s nearly hour-long speech, “A Time to Break Silence: Beyond Vietnam,” was a scathing rebuke of the American government for its role in the escalating violence in the small Southeast Asian country riven by civil war. The official platform was that U.S. intervention was necessary to prevent what officials characterized as a “domino effect” for the potential spread of communism. But King challenged this assertion by recounting a laundry list of U.S. overreach in Vietnam spanning two decades which included the financial backing of France’s post –WWII effort to recolonize the peninsula (1946–1954); its disregard for the Geneva Agreement; its support of dictator Ngo Dinh Diem (1955–1963); its deployment (beginning in March 1965) of an estimated 400,000 American troops — disproportionately Black and/or poor — to the region thus “testing out our latest weapons [Napalm] on them just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe”; and engaging in human rights atrocities with impunity “destroying families and villages.” The esteemed orator concluded that rather than a war against communism, the Vietnam War was a war of imperialism.

That historic evening served as a capstone of what had been a two-year journey of King’s move “to break the betrayal of my own silences,” which began not with his membership in the CALCAV, but rather with a letter from a young Buddhist monk in Saigon named Thich Nhat Hanh.[ii]

A prolific author, calligraphy artist, social activist, and humanitarian, Thich Nhat Hanh was born in Central Vietnam in 1926; he was ordained a Buddhist monk in 1949 and established the Phuong Boi (Fragrant Palm Leaves) Meditation Center in 1955. Hanh came to the United States in 1961 to study and teach at Princeton and Columbia Universities, but returned to his “fatherland” in 1963 after several monks self-immolated in order to bring international attention to the ruthless policies of the Diem regime which included government raids on Buddhist temples.

In his June 1, 1965, letter to King, “In Search of the Enemy of Man” — written three months after the U.S. campaign Operation Rolling Thunder began in Vietnam — Hanh began by refuting Western interpretations of self-immolation as mere suicide which is caused by, among other things, “a lack of courage to live and cope with life’s circumstances,” which “is considered by Buddhism one of the most serious crimes.” But to sacrifice one’s self — as the Buddha had done in Jakata: Or Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births when he allowed a starving lioness to devour him instead of her cubs — the monks and nuns believed they were “demonstrating a willingness to protect the people” by “practicing the doctrine of highest compassion by sacrificing [themselves]in order to call the attention of, and to seek help from, the people of the world.” Hanh reminded King of the most recent self-immolation which occurred on April 20, 1965, when “a Buddhist monk named Thich Giac Thanh burned himself.” These were acts of desperate people continually victimized by the atrocities of war with no end in sight. As Hanh emphatically stated to King, “Nobody here wants the war. What is the war for, then? And whose is the war?”[iii]

The Buddhist monk compared the long struggle for an independent Vietnam to the Civil Rights Movement, identifying the enemies of man as not man himself, but rather in the case of Vietnam “intolerance, fanaticism, dictatorship, cupidity, hatred, and discrimination;” and in the case of the U.S., “intolerance, hatred, and discrimination.” All were a condition of the heart which could only be cured by divine intervention via the activism of communities of faith. Hence, Hanh implored the prominent Black southern preacher stating, “You cannot be silent since you have already been in action and you are in action because, in you, God is in action — too.” Hanh’s letter awakened King’s conscience and he began immediately to speak out against the war; however, due to strong opposition from those within his inner circle who feared that his anti-war stance was counterproductive to the Civil Rights Movement, King tempered his public criticism and agreed that it would be more prudent, at least for the moment, to use his influence behind the scenes.[iv]

King and Hanh met in Chicago in 1966 during the monk’s three-month international tour as a representative of the people, particularly the Vietnamese village peasant population who were pleading for an end to the war. At a June press conference in Washington, D.C. Hanh stated: “that the war kills far more innocent peasants than it does Viet Cong.” He reiterated this point in his book, Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire — A Buddhist Proposal for Peace, stating that the masses cared little about ideology and did not support the South Vietnamese-U.S coalition or the National Liberation Front. “The first problem of the Vietnamese peasant” Hanh asserted was “How to survive in the midst of all the forces that threaten him; how to cling to life itself.”

King was so impressed with Hanh that in January 1967, he wrote a letter to the Nobel Institute nominating the peace activist for that year’s Nobel Peace Prize stating, “I do not personally know of anyone more worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize than this gentle Buddhist monk …. Here is an apostle of peace and non-violence.” King also echoed the views of his Buddhist colleague and friend in his Riverside speech, quoting directly from his peace proposal:

This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words, and I quote: Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism (unquote).[v]

In other words, the U. S. presence in Vietnam guaranteed a Viet Cong victory.

The following month King and Hanh met again in Geneva, Switzerland, at the Pacem in Terris (“Peace in the World”) Conference sponsored by the World Council of Churches; they would meet for the final time in Atlanta, Georgia, in late February of 1968. By this time Hanh — having been assured that he faced certain assassination if he returned to Vietnam for his peace activism — was living in exile in the South of France. As was customary, the two men spoke about their common goal for peace and their longing to create Beloved Communities built on compassion and mutual respect for all of humanity.

On April 4, 1968, on the anniversary of his historic speech, King was shot dead by an assassin’s bullet. The long night’s war in Vietnam persisted for an additional seven years.

In the poem “Our Green Garden” from his collection of poems on Vietnam, Hanh reflected on the tragedy of war stating,

Here is my breast. Aim your gun at it, brother, shoot!

Destroy me if you will

And build from my carrion whatever it is you are dreaming of.

Who will be left to celebrate a victory made of blood and fire?[vi]

Indeed. On April 30, 1975, King and Hanh’s prophetic words were fulfilled as the red and blue flag of the Viet Cong was raised over the presidential palace in Saigon. The last of the troops headed home to an America awash in bitterness and disillusion.

Postscript: After 39 years in exile, Hanh made his first subsequent visit to Vietnam in 2005. According to a statement released by the Plum Village Practice Center in southern France dated September 18, 2020, Thich Nhat Hanh, the beloved Buddhist Zen Master affectionately called Thầy by his students, turned 94 years old on October 11, 2020. “Since October 2018,” the statement reads, “Thầy has been residing at Từ Hiếu Temple Huế, [Vietnam].” Despite fair health, “He has been able to make frequent visits to the familiar temple grounds, join the monastic community for walking meditations, ceremonies, and festivals, and interact with his students and well-wishers coming from all over the world to pay their respects. Since the coronavirus pandemic emerged, the temple has been closed, and precautions put in place to protect Thầy’s health. He passed away peacefully in Vietnam on January 22, 2022.

Notes

[i] Martin Luther King Jr., “Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence” (speech, Riverside Church, April 4, 1967), American Rhetoric Online Speech Bank, https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm.

[ii] King was the lone Black and only southern member of the CALCAV. According to Hanh in his book Vietnam: A Proposal (see footnote 36) “The word ‘Thich’ has been widely but erroneously interpreted as meaning ‘Venerable’ or ‘Reverend.’ Its actual purpose is to replace, for the monks and nuns of Vietnamese Buddhism, the family names to which they were born . . . and represents the family name of the Lord Buddha, Sakya (in Vietnamese, Thich-Ca; abbreviation, Thich), of whose spiritual ‘family’ they have become a part. The appropriate title in Vietnamese, which is the equivalent of ‘Venerable’ or ‘Reverend,’ is Dai Due.’’

[iii] Thich Nhat Hanh, “In Search Of The Enemy Of Man (addressed to (the Rev.) Martin Luther King,” African American Involvement In The Vietnam War: Letters, June 1, 1965, http://www.aavw.org/special_features/letters_thich_abstract02.html; E. B. Cowell, Jakata Or Stories Of The Buddha’s Former Births, New Edition (New Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass, 2014).

[iv] Hanh Letter to King.

[v] King, “Beyond Vietnam.”

[vi] Thich Nhat Hanh, “Our Green Garden,” Viet Nam Poems (Santa Barbara, CAL: Unicorn Press, 1972).

“Never ask what’s wrong with someone. Ask what happened to them.” — unknown

What happened to Dr. Schubert should not happen to any human being. But it does every single day in this racist, sexist (fill in the blank) cult known as the United States of America. This country is exceptionally SICK because it prides itself on being founded on ideals of equality, liberty, and justice which was reserved only for elite white men.

“Give me liberty or give me death!” — Patrick Henry, slaveowner, 1775

“We hold these truths to be self-evident that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL. . .” — Thomas Jefferson, slaveowner, child rapist, 1776

“O’er the land of the free. . .” — Francis Scott Key, slaveowner, 1812

But I digress.

Beth was a brilliant, compassionate woman who practiced medicine “like a GIRL.” She started her practice Just For Women in Newark, Delaware I believe in 2000. She became my GYN/OB in 2002. Beth always made time to talk to her patients and catch up on what was happening. We hit it off immediately. Sometimes we would talk and laugh so much that she’d have to hurry out of the room because she was late for her next appointment. I watched her medical practice grow until she had outgrown the smaller office at Christiana Hospital and moved to a larger facility offsite.

In a disciplinary letter she received in 2016, a few months before her passing, the report stated that she was an “employee” for the practice from 2012–2014 then afterward began her own practice. No, that was a lie!!!! Just For Women was HER brainchild, was Her baby, was HER practice. She did not leave that practice in 2014 to start her own practice. She was pushed out of her own practice by her male colleague and business partner whom she brought in, I think, 2009. It could have been earlier but not much earlier.

Anyway, in 2013 when I found out I was denied tenure, I left campus and went straight to her office. I did not have an appointment. A staff member who went back to consult with her came back to me and stated that I would have to wait a bit but the doctor WOULD see me. She escorted me to an examination room where I waited for Dr. Schubert. Sometime later Beth came through the door and almost snatched me up from my seat. She held me so tight I almost couldn’t breathe. I cried, spit, and snotted all over that woman. When I finally got a hold of myself she helped me to the chair and asked “What happened?” She did not leave me or let me leave her office until she was sure I was not a threat to myself and could at least drive myself home which was only 5 mins away. A year later, when I visited her “new” much smaller practice, she confided in me that her male partner had robbed her of her practice.

The last time I saw Beth was for a pre-surgery appointment right after the new year scheduled a few days before my hysterectomy in 2016. I could tell she was not 100%. The month before she had had a mental breakdown and was hospitalized. I swear as I sat across from her that day it was like looking at a mirror image of myself. She seemed her normal self, but the light in her eyes and smile were gone. I still believed I was in good hands and agreed to move forward with the surgery. Beth had performed a minor surgical procedure I needed a few years back. I remember teasing her while I was in recovery. I called her a “mean doctor” because right as I was about to be put under I could hear the song “Hey Ya!” by OutKast and hollered out, “Wait, that’s my soooooooooong!” The next thing I knew I was waking up in recovery. I playfully scolded her for not letting me finish listening to the song. In the end, we agreed that it was the fault of the anesthesiologist although I could swear I heard her faintly say, “No, put her to sleep. Night.”

But Beth did not perform my hysterectomy. The day following my pre-surgery appointment her receptionist called to inform me that I would have to reschedule the surgery or have another doctor perform it because Christiana Hospital still had not cleared her for surgical duties. I did not want to wait since we had gone back and forth about the surgery for the past eight years; so I went with another doctor, a charming white male who I met 30 minutes before I went under anesthesia. I told him before I was put to sleep, “Hey, don’t you think for one minute that I am easy. I never do this on the first date!”

I don’t know. Maybe God stepped in and saved my life, and hers, that day.

I was sad that my professional relationship with Beth had ended so abruptly, so unceremoniously. But I assured myself we would both be fine and that we would catch up with each other during our inadvertent meetings at the supermarket, drugstore, or clothing store. We would hug each other like old friends and run our mouths and laugh so loud that other shoppers would look our way as if to say, “What in the world?!” We would snicker like two little girls and huddle closer still laughing and not caring that we disturbed polite society.

But that never happened. I’d been under my own fog as a result of my shattered academic career, a casualty of systemic racism/sexism. Thankfully the fog is starting to lift. To borrow from Bill Withers, I am beginning “to see clearly now that the rain has gone. I can see all obstacles in my way. Gone are the dark clouds that had me down. It’s gonna be a bright bright bright bright sunshiny day.”

On Monday, April 12, 2021, when I Googled my friend to find out where she is now, I learned that she is no longer here. Beth passed away unexpectedly on June 3, 2016, just six months after I last saw her. She has gone where God and the angels live. Where the sun always shines and where nothing or no one can ever hurt her again. I am beyond heartbroken to learn of the tragic end in this life to such a beautiful soul. But I am not surprised. I know first-hand what this white supremacist capitalist patriarchal system can do to you. Beth is no longer here. I am thankful that I am still here and I am honored to tell her story.

I will end with the words of my own daughter poet Julienne LaFrance who like me knew and loved Dr. Schubert. “I am so very sad to hear this. She had such a wonderful, refreshing presence.” Rest in peace Beth. Rest in peace my sister-friend. I will see you on the other side, in the land of the Son. xoxoxoxoxoxo

Postscript: This week I also learned how close Beth and I were in age. I was born in ’61; she was born in ’65. My career ended in the academy when I was 52. Her medical career ended when she was 51. While anyone can start over again, being a woman at 50 forced back to the bottom rung will drive anyone mad. Perhaps the only difference between us was that I had a creative outlet to sustain me. I don’t know. I do know exactly how she felt when she read that eviscerating report about herself from the Delaware medical board. It read just like my letter from the Dean who denied my application for tenure. The letter that she received, like the letter I received, was intended to devalue, denigrate, and dehumanize. It was a hit piece. A public assassination of her character from which she never recovered. Shame on the folks in power who do this and all those who are complicit in such inhumane acts.

All funds from this article will be contributed to the Beth R. Schubert Memorial Fund.

Setting the Record Straight On The Case of Loving V. Virginia

By: Arica L. Coleman

The recent death of Bernard Cohen, one of the lawyers who represented the plaintiffs Richard and Mildred Loving in the landmark Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia, which overturned proscriptions against interracial marriage in the United States in 1967, has once again thrust the case back into the headlines. In 1958, Richard Loving a “white” man, and Mildred Jeter a “colored” woman, violated several Virginia codes when they married in the District of Columbia, where interracial marriage was legal, and afterward returned to their home in Caroline Country, Virginia, where interracial marriage was illegal, to live as husband and wife. The couple was taken to jail, tried for the crime of being married, and then banished from Virginia for 25 years.

Fittingly, the 86 year old Cohen who this month of Parkinson’s Disease has been eulogized for cementing his place in American legal history at the young age of thirty-three when he and his co-counsel Philip Hirschkop rocked the Supreme Court with a two-pronged legal argument against state-imposed anti- interracial marriage laws which included a poignant direct quote from Richard Loving who told the attorneys, “Tell the court I love my life, and it is just unfair that I cannot live with her in Virginia.” The Court unanimously agreed.

Yet, in recounting the events which led up to the couple’s triumphant victory of love over hate, the storyline in these accounts follows the popular narrative of the Loving story. But there is more to this case than many have supposed. This article highlights a few unknown facts and debunks some myths about this historic case.

First, many assume that the Lovings made the decision to marry when it was discovered that Mildred was pregnant. While that is correct, what many do not know is that Mildred was carrying the couple’s first child, but the oldest child Sidney C. Jeter, who kept his mother’s maiden name his entire life was from a previous relationship. Mildred stated on numerous occasions that she “married the only man she ever loved.” That much was true, but Richard was not the first man with whom she had been sexually involved. Sidney was born on January 27, 1957, almost a year and a half before the Loving’s married on June 2, 1958. The child Mildred was carrying when the couple married was Donald, her second son, but the couple’s first. Donald Loving was born on October 8, 1958, four months after the marriage. Moreover, Sidney identified Richard as “stepfather” on his Social Security application in 1973.

Second, many assume the couple married in Washington, D.C. because interracial marriage was illegal in Virginia. While this is also true, there is more to the story. Due to Virginia’s 1924 Racial Integrity Act, which forbade interracial marriage, Richard and Mildred married in the District of Columbia. The couple framed and displayed their marriage license on the back bedroom wall of Mildred’s parent’s house where the newlyweds slept; but, the Lovings also married in D.C. because Virginia law forbade anyone from racially identifying as Indian on any government documents, except for those residing on the reservations in King William County, the oldest Indian reservations in the United States owned by the Pamunkey Indians (federally recognized) and the Mattaponi Indians (state-recognized). As demonstrated in my 2016 TIME article “What You Didn’t Know About Loving v. Virginia,” the couple’s Central Point community overwhelmingly identified as white or Indian. It was common practice for Virginia residents who claimed an Indian identity to marry in the nation’s capital. Richard and Mildred’s names and racial identity on the marriage license reads “Richard Perry Loving, ‘white’; Mildred Delores Jeter, ‘Indian’.” Hence, while many assume that Richard Loving was fighting for the honor of a Black woman, he on the other-hand believed he had married an Indian woman as Mildred Loving, like many residents in Central Point Caroline County Virginia denied Black ancestry. Notwithstanding, the marriage license and the racial identity she chose were invalid in the Virginia Commonwealth.

Third, the Lovings were arrested not once but twice. The first incident occurred on July 11, 1958. At approximately 2 a.m., Sheriff R. Garnett Brooks and two of his deputies barged into the Lovings’ bedroom (in those days residents of rural communities did not lock their doors) and arrested them for the crime of miscegenation. On January 6, 1959, the Lovings, represented by Caroline County, Virginia lawyer Frank Beazley, entered a guilty plea before Judge Leon Bazile. The judge suspended the couple’s one-year prison sentence on condition that they immediately leave Virginia and not return to the state together for 25 years. They could return separately to visit their respective families.

The Lovings were arrested a second time in March of 1959 when Donald, who was delivered by his paternal grandmother Lola Loving and midwife, was 5 months old. Attorney Beazley had misinformed the couple that the judge’s ruling allowed them to return to Virginia together for family visits if they did not sleep in the same house. The couple was taken into custody while visiting Richard’s parents during the Easter holiday weekend. However, Beazley took responsibility for the error and the Lovings were released and immediately returned to D. C.

Fourth, many believe that the Lovings’ subsequent legal case which bought the issue of anti-miscegenation laws to the high court began with a letter Mildred wrote to Robert Kennedy who was the Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice, a position he assumed under his brother President John Kennedy. According to family lore Mildred, sick of urban life, wrote Kennedy about the family’s dilemma. In his written response to her, he recommended that she write to the ACLU. However, there is no documentary evidence of any correspondence between Mildred Loving and Robert Kennedy. Not only was I unable to locate these documents during my many years of research, but Attorneys Cohen and Hirschkop also assured me that they did not have any documents from Kennedy in their possession. In 2016 I received from Hirschkop via email attachment, a copy of the letter Mildred had written to the ACLU dated June 20, 1963. In that letter, Mildred stated, “We wrote to the Attorney General, he suggested that we get in touch with you.” But to date correspondence between Loving and Kennedy has yet to be located.

In 1965, Judge Bazile denied Cohen’s motion to vacate his earlier ruling which banished the Loving from living in the state of Virginia as husband and wife; the judge infamously concluded, “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement, there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”

The irony that he was defending the right to marriage equality for a couple named Mr. and Mrs. Loving was not lost on Cohen who often commented about it in his many conversations about the historic case. The irony that he died on October 12, 2020, on the federal holiday known as Columbus Day should not be lost on us.