A Message from a Black Psychologist to My White Father on Martin Luther King's Birthday

On MLK Day, before I post pictures on a City Guide Walk through Dogpatch and the staged  reading of a former colleague's play Samaritan, I want to write something about growing up in Columbia, South Carolina, where my father was born and where I lived from the age of 10 through 18, when I graduated from high school in 1964--ten years after the Supreme Court decision making segregated schools unlawful.

At my father's memorial, which lasted 2 1/2 hours, one of the people who spoke was Dr. Moses Rabb, a black psychologist, who said that my father was the first to integrate the University of South Carolina before it was integrated officially.

This was news to me.

But I found Dr. Rabb's written description of this in a book of tributes people wrote in 1997 for my father's birthday.

          Thank you for recruiting and hiring me to your staff in 1960.  By doing so, you not only fulfilled a lifelong dream but enabled me to become one of the early black psychologists in the state.  (This happened just as I was about to become a high school teacher/coach).

            I remember the training seminars that we had where us guys from State park (Now called Crafts Farrow) with our black college degrees had the opportunity to match skill, wit, intelligence and common sense with the people from the other world (S.C. State Hospital, USC and other white school graduates).  You were not only aware of all the underlying issues but stayed on top of them and made sure that we learned from each other what living together was all about.

            Thank you for facilitating the opportunity for me to attend graduate school not only at one of the prestigious institutions, Washington University, but also at what must have been the best terminal Master Degree Programs in clinical psychology—Hays State College.

            I remember how you ran interference for our staff at Crafts Farrow when Dr. Tarbax said we were not qualified to do psychotherapy, that only psychiatrists could do such.  You handled him very gently and by the time you finished, it became clear that he didn’t even know the meaning of the word, and you were able to please him by calling our psychotherapy sessions “Group Therapy.”

            Thank you for teaching me to be a change agent.  Lessons from this area have proved most helpful when, as often is the case, I am surrounded by, if not outright hostile individuals, at least persons who do not have my better interests in mind. 

            I remember you inviting us to SF Psychological Association meetings knowing that there were those who not only opposed our being there, but also resented you for inviting us.  Such was the society in which we lived.

            This letter reminds me of one of those dissertations that you used to write to us.  However, I bring this thesis to a close by saying—THANK YOU MOST OF ALL FOR BEING WHO YOU ARE AND FOR HELPING ME TO BECOME WHO I AM  

I'm really grateful for Dr. Rabb for providing this bit of private history--something, as I say--I didn't know about.  

I hope this shows that even back in the 1960's my white (through no fault of his own) father, who was born in Columbia, SC, the city where he got his undergraduate degree and where he later returned more than once to live and work, believed that BLACK LIVES MATTER.  

Revenant, as in Come Back to Taunt Us

Revenant, as in come back to taunt us, returns not just as the epic film but as the epic escape film.  The hero's escapes ring falser than even the "spiritual" moments.   Whether he's falling down the mountains or rolling down a water fall, the theme song seems to be "Pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and start all over again."   

I liked Leonard di Caprio's acceptance speech at the Golden Globes as much as did any movie goer who's read The Sixth Extinction. 

But it's too bad that the movie he starred in is getting so much more attention than more nuanced,  convincing movies "based on a true story." 

Before the Golden Globe Awards  I was marveling at how many good movies came out late last year.  Brooklyn and Room are as good as the books.  Spotlight and The Big Short both deal more artfully and honestly with problems we need to confront.  The only film that disappointed me was Revenant, which I saw only because it had been nominated.   I hate to think of how many not very good movies I've seen over the year because they've been nominated for--and sometimes won--the Oscar!

An Open Letter to Emily Steward and an Ode to Squalor

Dear Emily Stewart,

Thank you for helping your readers begin the year avoiding the task of writing self-defeating (and self-defeated)  resolutions.  Your example of the futility of vowing to get our home in order resonated with me.  Years ago I realized that if I have 15 minutes to clean up a mess, I use the time instead to create another.

It's something I've put on my list of things I simply will not give up or will never get around to doing.    I will not give up creating more clutter.  I will never get around to cleaning up the clutter I create.

Right now, for example, instead of writing to you, I could be cleaning up the mess of piles that seem to have merged, but instead of eliminating the clutter, I'm writing an ode to it:

Ode to Squalor

dedicated to Emily Stewart, author of "Resolutions Be Damned!"

I'd pay to have more storage space for clutter--worth each dollar.

Instead I teach me not to mind living in this squalor.

Stepping over piles around is something I surmise

That develops balance and also is weight-bearing exercise.

"Pretend that you're normal.  Pretend that you're normal! Keep yourself at bay."

This is the mantra I say to cope.  (Life piles are in my way.)

"It's okay not to be normal," he says. "As long as you consider

The comfort of friends who are"-- a thought that makes me kind of bitter.

I look at this him, this son of mine, withdrawing the welcome mat.

"I thought that I had chosen my friends a lot better than that."

Thanks again, and happy, messy, self-indulgent New Year,

Tina Martin