Baby, The Rain Must Fall

Taz Caracal

Conservators Center

Mebane, NC 2012
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When I left work yesterday it was raining. Nothing too heavy, but more than a sprinkle. By the time I was three blocks away from werk it had turned into a wind-whipped gale that was blowing rain everywhere. The small umbrella I was trying to keep over my head snapped back and forth, leaving a thin, broken metal arm snagging onto my hair while a large section of the umbrella sagged onto my shoulder. I ducked into a small campus bus shelter, hoping the worst of the storm might blow through quickly. If anything, the storm got worse while I waited, making the rest of the walk a cold and soggy mess.

On the bus I collapsed into a seat, chilled and wet. From my satchel I pulled out my copy of A.M. Sperber's "Murrow: His Life and Times" and found that the rain had soaked through two layers of canvas and had gotten to one corner of the book. I managed to read for all of about five minutes before closing the book, putting my head in my hand and going to sleep.

I'm at the part of the book where Ed Murrow is in London as Hitler began promoting the idea of German expansion. Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, was working hard to give away parts of Europe to Hitler by way of avoiding another world war. Hitler, of course, wanted not only the nearby lands, but all of Europe to be under his control. Chamberlain, now seen as a pacifist at the wrong time, was initially given broad support by the British press as well as the British people. Like America, the British memories of World War I were still fresh in their minds. Unlike the Americans, however, the British people were too close geographically to those countries to remain isolationistic for very long. England was pulled into the war via when Hitler invaded Poland. The US waited (and waited) until Pearl Harbor.

In the months leading up to the war, Murrow knew that war was coming. Reading with my perfect 20-20 hindsight, it was clear that Chamberlain was on the wrong side of history, that appeasing Hitler was not going to work and the coming months and years were going to be difficult, horrible ones.

As a kid I remember trying to make sense of that kind of wrong-thinking history and the current world, a world where things were so different from what impassioned people were wrongly proclaiming as being right. In 1968 Alabama Governor George Wallace ran for president of the US and the TV news aired his famous segregation quote:

"In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."

I had a very hard time wrapping my head around that ideology. That kind of thinking had been proven wrong! We live in a better world than that. After all, I went to a school with black kids and white kids. We went to church with black families and white families. Sure I knew our skin was a different color, but what difference did that make? Why should someone be treated differently because of that?

Two days ago North Carolinians went to the polls to vote on an amendment to the state constitution that would define marriage as something that took place between one man and one woman. Thirty other states have said yes to this idea, thereby denying married status to two people of the same sex. I had read something earlier in the year that said the majority of North Carolinians had disagreed with the amendment. This gave me hope that the state where I live was continuing its trend towards more modern thought. Then the election came and the amendment was passed, leaving me feel sickened and embarrassed to live here.

I was naive as a kid, thinking that I lived in a world where prejudice didn't still exist. However, by growing up thinking my world was past that way of thinking has helped me to live a life far less tainted by prejudice than those kids even a generation before me. That, I think, is one of the best things we can pass down to our children: the belief that the world is becoming a better place for all people.

I believe there will come a time when a future generation will look back on the discrimination that North Carolinians voted into the state constitution and think, "How could anyone think like that? That kind of thinking has been proven wrong! We live in a better world than that." I'd even like to be alive to see that day come.

Today the sun is shining. The streets have been washed clean, the grass, trees, and flowers all seem to be standing taller and stronger from the rains. May we do the same one day.

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