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Shacks today
In the 70’es I took thousands of
photos of shacks to give to the Schomburg Collection in Harlem in the belief
they would soon be history. How wrong I was. I still see delapidated
shacks everywhere. Here are a few from my last tour in 2012.
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Similarly, I felt it difficult to photograph
America’s rich upper class. Unlike today’s boastful rich, the rich displayed
guilt in the 1970s. The gap between rich and poor has grown dramatically
since the 1970s, when the US had achieved its greatest equality ever. At that
time, the upper class allowed only “modest” mansions and ranches around the
country. I could only photograph one room at a time, which in no way showed
the true dimensions of their mansions. Although the photographic gap between
rich and poor was small, the psychic leaps I took from shack to plantation
home or urban ghetto to millionaire home always felt as if I’d taken a trip
from Earth to the moon.
So I used Søren Kierkegaard as my guidance:
”The philosophy of our time is like the rich
man who on a dark, but starry night goes out in his comfortable carriage with
its brilliant head - lights and carries his own light and darkness with him.
He enjoys his security and the light which is cast
on the immediate surroundings, but he does not understand that this strong
glare dazzles him and prevents him from seeing the stars which the poor
peasant, on foot or in his lamp less cart, can observe to perfection in the
vastness of the sky.”
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On hitch-hiking and psychic leaps
Hitch-hiking in America is a perpetual attempt to try to overcome
people’s fear and make it a positive experience for them to pick you up. When
you see the thrilling red brake lights and rush up in the dark and tear open
the car door only to look into the barrel of a
frightened driver’s gun you know that it is to your mutual advantage and
security that you should be forced to show the contents of your pockets or
passport in this way. Trust can be promoted with a nice elaborate sign. I
experiment with all kinds of slogans such as “Saving fuel for you” (during
the 1973 fuel crisis) and “Bible belt - and no Good Samaritan?”, but sad to
say the only thing which gives people real trust is advertising that I am not
American.
Trust is essential for demographic hitch-hiking. Rides with women are
regarded among hitchhikers as a special psychic encouragement and security
after all the aggressions of so-called “rednecks” and “perverts.” But women
are a problem, too. Since foreigners usually find white American women extremely
open and, unlike female drivers in Europe, they often invite you home making
themselves extremely vulnerable. On the one hand it is important always to
let the woman set the boundaries of the new friendship. In this way there is
some chance of avoiding the sexism inevitably imposed on you as a man.
Society has never given you the choice of whether or not
to become a sexist or racist, instead you are left trying to counter-act the
negative acts that cause so much suffering. Without an awareness of your suffering you are bound to hurt the oppressed with your
“master-vibrations.” On the other hand you cannot
just - as with male drivers - float along into any situation, as you can then
easily cause hurt feelings. To be a good vagabond is harder than being a
tightrope walker. Even the most competent vagabond makes mistakes here, not
least because you yourself are so vulnerable and the immense hardships on the
road often make you fall in love with types you would never otherwise open up to. I had a striking experience of giving such
injurious signals when a driver offered me the so-called “love drug” MDA
which makes you unbelievably in love with all people. But the next ride I had
was with a stiff 80-year-old woman who due to my ungovernable love couldn’t help
being affected and in the course of the next hours
began to behave like an amorous teenager. So, we were both left a bit
crestfallen when the intoxication disappeared. Among the most beautiful
things you experience as a vagabond are, however, such relationships with old
people whom you one way or another manage to avoid in normal life. They are
the most harmonious group for the hitchhiker as they - unlike working people
- live with the same sense of time as the vagabond and furthermore can give
your journey its important fourth dimension: the historical perspective. When
you hear statements from them like “What this country needs is another great depression to bring us all together
again” you experience the enormous alienation which makes being together with
the vagabond so important for these people. But the hyperactive ones can kill
you with their psychic leaps! In Florida a 72-year old
rich man, the notorious “Wild Bill” Gandall, picked me up. When he heard that
I photographed he made me his private photographer. He wanted me to expose
the “filthy rich” on Palm Beach and took me to the most exclusive parties,
where we wallowed in champagne, women and
multimillionaires. Immediately afterward he would take both me and luxurious
gifts over to the black slums in West Palm Beach or the slave camps outside
the city. Then in the next moment he would be driving around to report these
“criminal” conditions to police, courts and city
councils. From six in the morning to two at night he stormed and raged over
the injustices. If we were lost, he would stop anywhere to ask directions.
One night it was outside a full suburban church. He ran in, stopped the
service, presented me as a minister’s son from Denmark, then delivered a
thunderous indignant sermon after which he conducted the choir. After half an
hour the congregation lay in fits of ringing laughter and he suddenly
remembered his real mission and sent church-goers to
their cars to get maps, after which a large circle lay on the church floor to
find “Indian Road”. Every day he had new projects. One day he learned from
some young people about “organic farming” and got so inspired that we got
started right away on procuring four truckloads of manure from the Everglades
in order to fly it over to his estate in the Bahamas.
After a week like this I was totally defeated from lack of sleep and
proportion and had to leave. Oh, how I enjoyed the freedom on the highway
again! But the next ride was with an 82-year old
woman who was so hyper-active that she only napped while I was actually
driving. If she had not sent me up to Philadelphia a few days later to get
one of her cars and let me use her credit card to invite my poor friends from
the cotton and tobacco fields as well as passing drifters and hitch-hikers to the finest restaurants on the way back to
Florida, she might very well have worn me out completely.
Letter to Mog, an American friend.
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One reason I can never get tired of traveling in America is that it’s
the only country I know of where you can take such psychic leaps almost
daily. Sometimes, when I lived with, for instance, a poor welfare mother in a
northern ghetto, I would go hitchhiking north of the city, where the rich
people live, in order not to burden her food budget. Often
I was picked up by a well-off businessman, and when I entertained him with my
travel stories, I would occasionally be invited home for dinner in his big
home with central air- conditioning. During dinner I’d tell
about how the mother with three children in the ghetto rarely could afford
decent food. If I was with a conservative family, sooner or later they’d
usually say I was certainly welcome to live with them so that I didn’t have
to return to those conditions. But liberal families would generally load me
up with expensive food items from the freezer and drive me all the way to the
border of the ghetto and give me money for a taxi the rest of the way. “Here
comes Robin Hood,” I would say and laugh proudly when I came home. Being a
good vagabond, I’d learned, is a matter of give and take. One doctor in
Skokie gave me eight pot roasts for a welfare mother in South Chicago, and a
businessman in North Philadelphia gave me a big bag of tokens so the son in
my family in South Philly wouldn’t have to walk to Temple University.
I rarely found the same effusive compassion for the poor in the South,
but I experienced psychic leaps there too.
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One morning I was cutting firewood for this 104-year-old woman in
South Carolina. She and her 77-year-old daughter, Scye
Franklin, usually had to cut their own firewood. Their shack resembled the
medieval houses in the Open-Air Museum in Copenhagen though it had a well
(many did not). Scye’s husband was 97, and all
three slept in the same bed to keep warm when the fireplace turned cold in
the morning. Their house was owned by the white landlord (living behind the
trees in the rear), to whom they paid $30 a month.
Since then, when I hitchhiked by and showed drivers my photos, they’d
say, “You must have taken these in the ’60s.” I’d say, “Well, come and visit
my friends in that shack right there in the fields.” They’d sit with Scye’s family, looking down in disbelief and shame at the
wide cracks in her floor, then give her some food and me a few dollars for my
photography.
These donations enabled me to lecture for the next
40 years, and I often brought my wealthy students and friends—such as
multimillionaire Anita Roddick here (owner of the cosmetic chain The Body
Shop)—to visit my friends in the shacks, even after the year 2000. Anita
later sent them big checks and wrote about them her books, “Poverty shames us
all. I tried to see if The Body Shop could set up a small-scale economic
initiative within the communities that we visited.” The meeting between the
super-capitalist and the sub-proletariat is always mutually rewarding.
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To switch environments so fast can be shocking when the physical
distance is only a few miles. But when you roam about for many years, you
realize that such psychic vagabonding is necessary for your survival. Having
been shaped by a middle-class Danish environment, I found it overwhelming to
live entirely in ghetto homes for very long with their overcrowding, constant
noise, and psychic oppression. After a while I found it necessary to search
out to more affluent homes where I could spend a few days in my own room and
get peace of mind. But I soon got bored here and found my way back to the
ghetto homes.
In Washington, NC, I lived in four black homes, three of them without
electricity or running water. When I stayed with this young woman, Cay
Peterson (beside the kerosene lamp), I had to sleep all night in an armchair
since she was sleeping on a couch with a baby. There was no more space. My
situation was even worse the next night in a shotgun shack where the mother
screamed all night in a piercing soprano at her son, James Paige, because
he’d brought a white guy home to share his bed. I hid his pistol in a stack
of clothes for fear they’d use it against each other. In another shack I was
kicked out by an angry neighbor who hated whites. It was hard to understand
this constant rejection by most blacks, who refused to let a white inside the
doors. I didn’t at first see that this was a natural reaction to our own
white rejection when in precisely those same years we actively pushed
millions of blacks into ghettos. “You must not fraternize with the
oppressor,” said our outcasts, seen in parallel today among Europe’s
marginalized Muslims.
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The conditions in these homes were so miserable that in the end I
walked around with a constant headache from hunger and lack of sleep. One
night I was so sick and overwhelmed with fatigue that I found myself on my
way to the city jail hoping to be allowed to spend the night there—an escape
I’d never sought before. But, as always, when I was exposed to pain and
suffering, the gates of heaven opened up. Without
this almost religious belief, the vagabond cannot survive. Just before jail,
a young white woman picked me up and took me to the most lavish home I’d
lived in in a long time. There were private tennis courts and golf courses as
large as half the ghetto in that town, an indoor swimming pool—even airplanes
and sailboats. In the ghetto homes, I’d been able to hear every sound,
whether outside or private, through paper-thin walls.
Here we had an intercom to communicate between the
different sections of the house. There was even an indoor fishpond as big as
some of the pools in the shacks when it rained. Where had all this abundance
come from? The answer’s not always so simple, but people later told me that
the woman’s father, a lawyer, owned many of the dilapidated ghetto shacks in
this town, a town where 60% lived below the poverty level. I wondered how I’d
ended up in his home just when the misery he’d helped create in the ghetto
had practically driven me to prison. Again, I felt the blacks’ indictment of
my white privilege and how everything in society forces us immigrants into
the white side of the pattern of oppression in the US.
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Others were not so lucky. Just then a black woman whose family I knew
was sitting in the city jail. She’d been raped by the white prison guard and
soon became world famous because she, Joan Little, killed the rapist. White
rape of blacks is not uncommon in the South, but it was startling that Joan
Little had had the courage to kill her rapist. Without a major human rights
campaign, she would’ve been sentenced to death in this state, where even
burglary was punishable by death.
All over the world, children are born with open and loving minds, with
an appetite for life. But in America this wonderful innocence is brutalized
early on by the government’s harmful and incomprehensible message— that it’s
right to take another person’s life! This brutalization they reenact later in
life, whereby the violence increases, whereas in Denmark it decreased when we
abolished the death penalty.
The psychic leaps I’d made in Joan Little’s hometown had
coincidentally given me insight into the economic preconditions for white
supremacy. Such contrast journeys are necessary to see society clearly. I
can’t, e.g., stay long in white homes before I begin to see with their eyes,
to see “negroes” as inferior. Oppressors all over the world develop this
devastating view of those they’ve harmed.
I always try to be open to such
brainwashing, for if you don’t allow yourself to enter the worldview of the
oppressor, you have no opportunity to love them and understand the pain we
get when, as open and loving children, we learned to
dehumanize our closest neighbors. Without understanding our deeper motives
and pain, I wouldn’t be able to understand why racism continues generation
after generation despite our lofty ideal of “love thy neighbor.” In my years
as a vagabond, however, I was able to break out of this brainwashing and
return to black culture.
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Vor tids shacks
I 70'erne tog jeg tusindvis af billeder af
shacks for at give dem til Schomburg museet i Harlem i den tro, at de snart
ville være historie. Hvor tog jeg dog fejl. Jeg ser stadig forfaldne shacks
overalt. Her er nogle fra min tur i 2012.
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På
samme måde var det svært at fotografere USAs
rige overklasse. Selvom forskellen på rig og fattig i USA i 1970’erne var
meget mindre dramatisk end i dag, havde overklassen, modsat nutidens pralende
rige, skyldfølelse. De tillod derfor kun ”beskeden” besiddelse af
herskabshuse og ranches, og jeg kunne kun
fotografere ét værelse ad gangen, hvilket ikke gav indtryk af husenes sande
dimensioner. Skønt den fotografiske forskel på rig og fattig derfor var
lille, fornemmedes de psykiske spring, jeg tog fra shack til plantagehjem
eller fra ghetto til millionærhjem, hver gang som en rejse fra jorden til
månen og var allerede dengang store nok til at mine fotos chokerede verden.
”Naar
den Velhavende i en mørk men dog stjerneklar Nat kjører
beqvemt i sin Vogn og har Lygterne tændte, ja, da
er han tryg,
han frygter ingen Vanskelighed, han fører selv
Lyset med, og det er ikke mørkt nærmest omkring ham; men netop fordi
han har Lygterne tændte og har et stærkt Lys
nær ved sig, netop derfor kan han slet ikke see
Stjernerne, hans Lygter for-
mørke Stjernerne, hvilke den fattige Bonde,
der kjører uden Lygter, herligt kan see i den mørke, men dog stjerneklare Nat.
Saaledes leve de Bedragne i Timeligheden: enten have de, beskæftigede
med Livets Fornødenheder, for travlt til at vinde
Udsigten, eller de i Velstand og gode Dage
have ligesom Lygterne tændte, rundt og nærmest om dem Alt saa
betryggende,
saa lyst, saa beqvemt — men Udsigten mangler, Udsigten, Udsigten til
Stjernerne.”
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Om blafning og psykiske spring
At blaffe i Amerika er et evindeligt forsøg på at overvinde folks angst og at
gøre det til en positiv oplevelse for dem at samle en op. Når man ser de
berusende røde bremselygter og i nattemørket styrter hen og river bildøren op
blot for at se ind i løbet på en skræmt chaufførs pistol, ved man, at det er
til gensidig fordel og tryghed, at man på denne måde bliver tvunget til at
vise sit pas eller indholdet af sine lommer. Tilliden fremmes af et flot,
udførligt skilt. Jeg eksperimenterer med alverdens slogans såsom ”Saving fuel for you” og ”Bibel belt – and no
Good Samaritan? ” (under oliekrisen i 1973), men, trist at sige, er det
eneste, der giver folk virkelig tillid, at skilte med, at jeg ikke er
amerikaner.
Tilliden er uundværlig for demografisk blafning. Lifts med kvinder regnes
blandt blaffere for en særlig psykisk stimulans og tryghed oven på
aggressionerne fra fattige hvide og ”perverse”. Men kvinder er også et
problem. Da amerikanske kvinder er meget åbne og, i modsætning til kvindelige
bilister i Europa, ofte inviterer en hjem, gør de sig yderst sårbare. På den
ene side er det vigtigt altid at lade kvinden sætte grænsen for det opståede
venskab, hvis man skal gøre sig håb om at undgå den sexisme, man uundgåeligt
er blevet påført af samfundet. Fra vor tidligste barndom fik vi aldrig valget
om vi ville være sexister og racister eller ej, men kun til at prøve at
modvirke de mest negative forløb, som vores lidelse kan forårsage. Er man
ikke bevidst om sin lidelse, vil man uundgåeligt skade den undertrykte med
sine ”herrevibrationer.” På den anden side kan man ikke, som med mandlige
chauffører, blot sige ja og flyde med til det punkt hvor sårede følelser kan
opstå. Selv den dygtigste vagabond begår fejl her. Ikke mindst fordi man selv
er så sårbar, og de voldsomme strabadser på landevejen ofte gør en forelsket
i typer, man ellers aldrig ville åbne sig for. Et grelt eksempel på sådanne
uheldige signaler fra min side opstod, da en bilist tilbød mig det såkaldte ”love
drug ” MDA, som gør en utroligt forelsket i alle mennesker. Det næste lift,
jeg fik, var med en stiv 80-årig dame, som på grund af min ustyrlige
forelskelse ikke kunne undgå at blive påvirket, og i løbet af de næste par
timer begyndte hun at opføre sig som en nyforelsket teenager. Så det var en
lidt flad fornemmelse, vi begge stod med, da rusen forsvandt.
Noget af det smukkeste, man oplever som vagabond, er dog sådanne forhold til
ældre mennesker, som man på en eller anden måde let undgår som ung. De er for
blafferen den mest harmoniske gruppe, fordi de – i modsætning til folk med
arbejde – ligesom vagabonden har mere tid og tilmed kan give ens rejse den
vigtige fjerde dimension: historiens perspektiv. Når man hører udtalelser fra
dem som: ”What this country
needs is another great depression to bring us
all together again” oplever man den enorme
fremmedgørelse, som gør samværet med vagabonden så vigtigt for dem. Men de
hyperaktive bør man vogte sig for! I Florida samlede en 72-årig rig mand mig
op, den kendte ”Wild Bill” Gandall, og da han hørte, jeg fotograferede,
gjorde han mig til sin privatfotograf. Han ønskede, at jeg skulle afsløre de ”svinsk
rige” på Palm Beach og tog mig med til de mest eksklusive selskaber, hvor vi
væltede os i champagne, kvinder og multimillionærer, for straks efter at
bringe både mig og luksuriøse gaver over til de sorte slumkvarterer i West
Palm Beach eller slavelejrene uden for byen, og i næste øjeblik køre rundt og
anmelde disse rystende forhold til politiet, domstole og byråd. Fra seks
morgen til to nat skældte han indigneret ud over uretfærdighederne. Kunne vi
ikke finde vej, standsede han det første det bedste sted. En aften var det ud
for en fyldt forstadskirke. Han løb ind, standsede gudstjenesten og
præsenterede mig som præstesøn fra Danmark, holdt derefter en dundertale til
menigheden og gav sig så til at dirigere koret. Efter en halv time, hvor
menigheden til sidst lå i rungende latter, kom han i tanke om sin virkelige
mission og sendte kirkegængerne ud i deres biler efter kort, hvorefter en
større kreds lå rundt på kirkegulvet for at finde Indian Road. Hver dag var
han i gang med nye projekter. En dag hørte han fra nogle unge om økologisk
landbrug og blev så inspireret, at vi straks gik i gang med at skaffe fire
vognlæs kogødning fra Sydflorida for at flyve dem
over til hans gods på Bahama-øerne. Efter en uge på
denne måde var jeg kørt helt i sænk af mangel på søvn og proportioner og
måtte tage afsked. Åh, hvor jeg nød friheden på landevejen igen! Men det
næste lift var med en 82-årig dame, der var så hyperaktiv at hun var ved at
slide mig helt ned. Heldigvis sendte hun mig efter et par dage op til
Philadelphia for at hente en af sine biler. Hvis hun ikke havde ladet mig
bruge sit kreditkort til at invitere mine fattige venner fra tobaksmarkerne
og opsamlede bumser og blaffere på de fineste restauranter på tilbagevejen
til Florida og således ladet mig pynte mig med lånte fjer, ja, så kunne det
let være endt i et psykisk nederlag i stedet for endnu et psykisk spring.
Brev til Mog, en amerikansk ven.
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En grund til, at jeg aldrig bliver træt af at rejse i Amerika, er, at det er
det eneste land, jeg kender, hvor man kan tage sådanne psykiske spring næsten
dagligt. Ofte, når jeg boede f.eks. hos en fattig mor på socialhjælp i en ghetto i det nordlige USA,
tog jeg ud at blaffe nord for
byen, hvor de rige mennesker bor, for ikke at belaste hendes madbudget.
Ikke sjældent blev jeg samlet op af en velhavende forretningsmand, og når jeg
underholdt ham med mine rejsehistorier, blev jeg i reglen inviteret hjem til
middag i hans store, airconditionerede villa. Under middagen berettede jeg så
rørende om, hvordan moderen med de tre børn i ghettoen ikke havde råd til
ordentlig mad. Hvis jeg var
sammen med en konservativ familie, ville de før eller siden som regel sige,
at jeg bestemt var velkommen til at bo hos dem, så jeg ikke skulle vende
tilbage til disse forhold. Men liberale familier ville som regel overdynge
mig med dyre madvarer fra fryseren og køre mig helt til grænsen af ghettoen
og give mig penge til en taxa resten af vejen. ”Her kommer Robin Hood,”
grinede jeg stolt, når jeg kom hjem. At være en god vagabond, havde jeg lært,
er et spørgsmål om at beherske kunsten at kunne både give og modtage. En læge
i Skokie gav mig otte roastbeefs til en enlig mor i
Sydchicago, og en forretningsmand i Nordphiladelphia gav mig en pose
poletter, for at sønnen i min familie i Sydphiladelphia ikke længere skulle
gå den lange vej til universitetet.
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I Syden mødte jeg sjældent
den samme overstrømmende medfølelse for de fattige, men de psykiske spring
kunne jeg også opleve der. En morgen huggede jeg brænde for denne 104-årige
kone i South Carolina. Hun og hendes 77-årige datter, Scye
Franklin, måtte selv hugge alt deres brænde. Deres shack lignede
Frilandsmuseets middelalderhuse i København, selv om den havde en brønd (det
havde mange ikke). Scye’s mand var 97 år, og alle tre
sov i samme seng for at holde varmen, når ildstedet blev koldt om morgenen.
Deres hus var ejet af den hvide udlejer (som boede bag træerne bagved), som
de betalte 30 dollars om måneden til.
Sidenhen, når jeg blaffede
forbi og viste mine billeder til chaufførerne, sagde de typisk: “Dem må du
have taget i 60’erne.” Jeg svarede: “Så kom med og besøg mine venner i shack’en lige derinde der på marken.” Så sad de sammen
med Scyes familie og kiggede vantro og skamfuldt
ned på de brede revner i hendes gulv, og gav hende lidt penge til mad og mig
et par dollars til mine fotografier.
Disse donationer gjorde det muligt for mig at holde foredrag i de næste 40
år, hvorunder jeg ofte tog mine velhavende studerende og venner - som f.eks.
multimillionæren Anita Roddick her (ejer af kosmetikkæden The Body Shop) -
med på besøg hos mine venner i disse shacks, selv efter år 2000. Anita sendte
dem senere store checks og skrev om dem i sine bøger: “Fattigdom gør os alle
til skamme. Jeg forsøgte at se, om The Body Shop kunne iværksætte et
økonomisk initiativ i mindre skala i de samfund, vi besøgte.”
Jo, mødet mellem superkapitalisten og subproletariatet er altid gensidigt
berigende.
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At skifte miljø så hurtigt kan være chokerende når den fysiske afstand kun er få kilometer. Men
når man rejser gennem mange år, er en sådan psykisk vagabondering nødvendig
for at overleve. Da jeg er præget af et dansk middelklassemiljø, er det
overvældende at bo i længere tid i ghettohjemmenes trængsel, larm og psykiske
undertrykkelse. Efter en tid må jeg søge ind i mere velhavende hjem, hvor jeg kan tilbringe nogle
dage i mit eget værelse og få ro i sjælen. Men snart keder jeg mig dog her og
søger tilbage til ghettohjemmene.
I Washington, North Carolina, boede jeg først i fire sorte hjem, tre af dem
uden elektricitet og rindende vand. Da jeg boede hos denne kvinde, Cay
Peterson, ved petroleumslampen, måtte jeg sidde og sove i en lænestol om
natten, da hun selv sov på sofaen med et barn. Mere plads var der ikke. Næste
nat var jeg endnu værre stillet i en ”shotgun shack” (aflang, så man kan
skyde gennem alle rummene). Moderen råbte natten lang i en skingrende sopran
efter sin søn, James Paige, fordi han havde bragt en hvid fyr hjem for at
dele sin seng med mig. Jeg gemte hans pistol i en stak tøj af angst for, at
de skulle bruge den mod hinanden. I en tredje shack blev jeg smidt ud af en
gal nabo, som hadede hvide. Det var svært at forstå denne konstante afvisning
af mig hos flertallet af sorte, der nægtede at få en hvid inden for dørene.
Jeg så ikke dengang, at det var en naturlig reaktion, fordi vi hvide i præcis
de år aktivt pressede millioner af sorte ind i ghettoer. ”Man må ikke
fraternisere med undertrykkeren,” sagde vore udstødte og det ses jo i dag
parallelt blandt Europas marginaliserede muslimer.
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Forholdene i disse hjem var så
elendige, at jeg til sidst gik rundt med en konstant hovedpine af sult og
mangel på søvn. En aften var jeg så syg og overvældet af træthed, at
jeg befandt mig på vej mod byens fængsel i håb om at få lov at overnatte der
– en udvej jeg aldrig før havde brugt. Men som altid, når jeg udsatte mig for
smerte og lidelse, åbnede himmeriges porte sig op. Uden denne – næsten
religiøse tro – kan vagabonden ikke overleve. Lige før fængslet samlede en
ung kvinde mig op og tog mig hjem i det mest overdådige hjem, jeg længe havde
boet i. Der var private tennis- og golfbaner så store som den halve ghetto i
byen. Der var indendørs svømmebassin, flyvemaskiner og sejlbåde sågar. I ghetto-hjemmene havde jeg kunnet
høre enhver lyd, uanset om den var udenfor eller privat, gennem papirtynde
vægge.
Her havde vi et intercom
til at kommunikere mellem husets forskellige afdelinger.
Der var endog et indendørs fiskebassin større end de søer, regnen lavede på
gulvet i de utætte shacks.
Hvor kom al den rigdom fra? Svaret er ikke altid så enkelt, men folk
fortalte, at pigens far var sagfører og ejede en stor del af ghettoens shacks
i denne by, hvor 60 % levede under fattigdomsgrænsen. Jeg havde svært ved at
forstå, hvorfor jeg var havnet netop her i hans hjem, når den nød, han havde
været med til at skabe i ghettoen, i realiteten havde drevet mig så godt som
i fængsel. Igen følte jeg de sortes anklage mod mit hvide privilegium, og
hvordan alt i samfundet straks tvinger os immigranter ind på den hvide side
af undertrykkelsesmønstret i USA.
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Andre var ikke så heldige.
Netop da sad en sort kvinde, hvis familie jeg kendte, i byens fængsel. Her
blev hun voldtaget af den hvide fangevogter og blev kort efter verdensberømt
fordi hun, Joan Little, myrdede den hvide voldtægtsmand. Hvides voldtægt af
sorte er ikke usædvanligt i Syden, men det vakte opsigt, at Joan Little havde
mod til at dræbe sin hvide voldtægtsmand. Uden en stor menneskerettigheds-kampagne
ville hun være blevet dømt til døden i denne stat
med dødsstraf selv for indbrud.
Overalt i verden bliver børn født med åbne og kærlige sind med appetit på
livet. Men i Amerika bliver denne vidunderlige uskyld således meget tidligt
brutaliseret af regeringens skadelige og uforståelige budskab – at det er
rigtigt at tage et andet menneskes liv! Denne brutalisering afreagerer de
senere i livet hvorved volden stiger – mens den i Danmark faldt, da vi
afskaffede dødsstraffen. De psykiske spring, jeg havde foretaget i Joan
Littles hjemby, havde således tilfældigt givet mig et indblik i de økonomiske
forudsætninger for det hvide overherredømme. Sådanne kontrastrejser er
nødvendige for at se samfundet klart. Jeg kan f.eks. ikke bo ret længe i
hvide hjem, før jeg begynder at se med deres øjne på ”negrene”, som de
nedsættende kaldes, som mindreværdige. Et sådant ødelæggende syn på dem, vi
har voldt skade, udvikler undertrykkere overalt i verden. Jeg prøver altid at
være åben for denne hjernevask, for lever man sig ikke ind i undertrykkerens
tankeverden, har man heller ingen mulighed for at holde af dem og forstå den
smerte, vi tidligt i barndommen fik ved som åbne og kærlige børn at skulle
lære at dehumanisere mennesker, der er vores nærmeste naboer. Uden at forstå
vores dybere bevæggrunde og smerte ville jeg ikke kunne forstå, hvorfor
racismen kører videre generation efter generation på trods af vore egne høje
idealer om næstekærlighed. I årene som vagabond kunne jeg dog i tide bryde ud
af denne hjernevask og flytte tilbage til den sorte kulturs anderledes
påvirkning.
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