An open letter to Joshua:
Dear Joshua,
You will be 8 years old in a few days. Sorry I won’t be with you, but happy we will Zoom so I can see the cars driving by to wish you a happy birthday.
Your dad said you told him how afraid you are of the coronavirus and the riots in the cities, including your own.
I’m afraid, too. Fear feels awful but it has a positive aspect. It can keep us safe if we listen to it, if we stay away from the virus and the dangerous areas. Let me tell you about the riot your father and I witnessed.
On Sunday, July 23, 1967, (your Dad was about to turn 6) we were aboard our little fishing boat on Lake Saint Clair, the lake between Detroit and Windsor, Canada. It was about 4 in the afternoon and we were headed back from what was called the “Canadian side” after a day of fishing and picnicking. Heading west, we saw smoke billowing up over Detroit.
Was the Dodge plant on Jefferson burning? No, there was too much smoke.
There were no cellphones in those days. We did have ship-to-shore radio that crackled more than it informed but as we got closer to Detroit we learned that the west side of Detroit was burning … the Detroit Riots had started. We docked and drove home as fast as we could.
The usual happened: curfew, rush to buy groceries, watching the TV in disbelief. The fighting between the Detroit police department and the black population was hard to watch.
The fighting now between the police and protesting citizens is even harder for me to watch because it points out that we have done little or nothing to solve America’s ever smoldering, still unsolved race problem.
Way before we became a country, 401 years ago in 1619, a ship landed on the shores of the English Colony of Virginia with a manifest that included 20-30 black slaves. Nobody foresaw that this combination of free black labor and a vast area of fertile land would make our country one of the richest and most powerful nations in the world.
But slavery is evil. Owning human beings to raise cotton cheap so you can make money on the often-whipped backs of both male and female slaves is an unspeakably evil way to build a country. It took a Civil War to free the slaves . This country is still wearing the bloody scars of racism from stealing the labor of blacks.
We managed to become a strong and wealthy country, even when we had to pay workers of both races. But slavery was like a disease and diseases can be very hard to cure — like COVID-19 now. Despite attempts to make amends with civil rights legislation, slavery has left terrible scars on people of all colors.
(By the way there is still a big bunch of people who were not mentioned in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” To fix this, support the Equal Rights Amendment, but that is for another letter.
You are pretty smart to connect the virus and the riots. On the day I am writing this, the front page of The New York Times declared, “They are parallel plagues ravaging America. The coronavirus. And police killings of black men and women.” Both are deadly and we must find ways to treat and cure both of them.
How can you deal with your fears? You already did the first two important things. You figured out what you were afraid of and you talked to your parents. Acknowledging fears and talking about them is a good start. But there are other things you can do. Use the power of healthy distraction, which prevents you from playing the fear tape over and over .
Avoid boredom. School is over but you can continue learning. Pick something that really interests you like space travel (or viruses or riots) and ask your parents to help you find information about it in books or online.
Think of a big project you can do all by yourself. Help your parents with a big project they are doing. Ask your parents to assign you new chores. Take long walks with your parents. Cheer your parents up every day with one of your funny jokes. Read for fun, not just for school. Have a family hug and a dog hug three times a day. Play games on your computer and board games with your parents. Get exercise.
Count your blessings. You live in a nice house. You have loving parents. You have food to eat. You have three dogs to play with. You go to a great school and have many friends.
I always tell parents to limit screen time, but I expect you to keep up with what’s happening. History is being made and your generation will have a part in dealing with both infections and racism.
Let’s make a pact. Whenever either one of us is feeling down, we will call the other. After sympathizing with each other we have to tell each other a joke and laugh together. Deal?
One last thing. In the future, you will be one of the people that solves the multiple problems of disease, racism, inequality and saving our planet. Study hard in school and college. Keep up with the news. Think of ways we can do things differently in the future. Talk with your friends about the future of our nation. Write down your ideas. Raise money for important causes. Vote. Write letters to newspapers. Protest injustice but find only nonviolent ways to change things in the future. Never forget we are all human beings regardless of the color of our skin or the language we speak. We are all in this together. We are counting on you!
Love, Grandma
