{"id":128,"date":"2015-06-27T09:56:14","date_gmt":"2015-06-27T13:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.meersworld.com\/blog\/?p=128"},"modified":"2016-06-05T21:17:30","modified_gmt":"2016-06-06T01:17:30","slug":"getting-my-ears-cut-off-becoming-bi-racial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meersworld.com\/blog\/2015\/06\/getting-my-ears-cut-off-becoming-bi-racial\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting My Ears Cut Off: Becoming “Bi-racial”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Roscoe Harvey<\/strong>, a wise and very dignified black gentleman who lived in my hometown, La Grange, Kentucky, holds a special space in my earliest childhood memories.\u00a0 I see him in overalls and wearing the stripped, dark blue and white cap worn by railroad workers in those days.\u00a0 I remember him as tall and thin with white hair– and perhaps a close, grey beard.<\/p>\n

Roscoe was close to my father and may have helped from time to time at my father\u2019s hardware store.\u00a0\u00a0 Roscoe and his wife Mary also occasionally helped at our home, but I don\u2019t remember their work or any social visits.<\/p>\n

He was a kind, spiritual man.\u00a0 When I think of him, I immediately smile as I can hear him teasing me.\u00a0 I would laugh when he would tell me that he was going \u201cto cut my ears off.\u201d\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t laughing in fear, but because the teasing was great fun coming from such a gentle man.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t have any photographs of Roscoe.\u00a0 My family didn\u2019t have much of a camera and it was rarely used.\u00a0 The small drawer where our family kept some photos had only a few images of my brother and sister and me when we were very young– and the fish we caught on vacation.<\/p>\n

Years later, as a freshman in college, I became interested in civil rights.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure I had been learning much about civil rights from Roscoe during my early years.\u00a0 As a college senior, I talked with him about segregation.\u00a0 I shared with him my idea of including the town\u2019s two black churches in the joint community church service the white Protestant churches held on Easter and Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

He took me with him on a Saturday evening to the white fundamental Assembly of God Church in our town. He attended services there from time to time, and I think he wanted me to see that not all churches practiced segregation.\u00a0 He was the only black person there.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember our conversation about the black and white churches worshipping together, but I am sure he offered me his support and gave me the courage to invite the two black churches to the sunrise service the following Easter.<\/p>\n

After college, I was away in military service and didn\u2019t see Roscoe again.\u00a0 My father had told me that he went to Roscoe\u2019s home from time to time to pray with him.\u00a0 I must have heard about his death from my father, but I don\u2019t remember getting the news.\u00a0 Now 50 years later, I have not been able to learn anything about Roscoe or to find the Harvey\u2019s children who had left La Grange for somewhere \u201cup North\u201d when I was very young.<\/p>\n

One day a year ago, I was talking with a friend who told me she was \u201cbi-racial.\u201d I was surprised as I had not noticed.\u00a0 I replied without thinking, \u201cI am bi-racial, too.\u201d\u00a0 My response was also a surprise, but it seemed a natural thing to say.\u00a0 And I was pleased to reveal how I saw myself.<\/p>\n

If Roscoe were still living, I would tell him of my new \u201cidentity.\u201d\u00a0 He would understand and tell me that his teasing and friendship had touched me like he had hoped.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t want to \u201ccut off my ears,\u201d but was cutting away at my prejudice and racism.<\/p>\n

William J. \u201cBill\u201d Meers; May 2012<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roscoe Harvey, a wise and very dignified black gentleman who lived in my hometown, La Grange, Kentucky, holds a special space in my earliest childhood memories.\u00a0 I see him in overalls and wearing the stripped, dark blue and white cap<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meersworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meersworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meersworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meersworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meersworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.meersworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158,"href":"https:\/\/www.meersworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions\/158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meersworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meersworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meersworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}