I had an experience in being pre-judged the other day. It didn't set well with me. In fact, it made me feel quite uncomfortable. I had picked up a Anti-Defamation League Invitation in a office where it was promptly, but gently removed. When I told the person that it's an event that I am interested in attending, the immediate response was, "are you Jewish?" to which I affirmed that I was not and expressed to the person that he apparently didn't know me very well and that I would like to attend the event. I never got the invitation back.
It's a bad thing to pre-judge somebody. It's hurtful. It's demeaning. The person would adamantly disagree that he is prejudiced. It's called denial. Prejudice can include race, sexual preference, elitism, one's financial standing in life and a host of other characteristics.
A person can have all kinds of advanced degrees and still be ignorant. And to respond to a gay man who has faced prejudice much of his life and knows it when he sees it and hears it is a double whammy. But education is important when attempting to combat racism or any kind of prejudice or intolerance. And it's best to NEVER, NEVER assume anything about anybody and just spout out with your mouth without thinking. It's ignorant to do so.
Those who know me personally and those who have followed my blog, know that I spend a chunk of my time on street corners, sign in hand trying to rid my community of this scourge on society. It's a love of humanity that makes me speak out about injustice in America. It's what makes me fight for the rights of the poor and the middle class person trying to make a living.
It's why I go to Washington, DC and knock on my senators and representatives doors.
When the Sun-Sentinel interviewed me a couple of weeks they told me that they would have to use my first and last name. "Why, I asked the reporter, would somebody want to be interviewed and not give their full name?" It was inconceivable to me that I would be ashamed of standing up for what I believe in.
While growing up in Cleveland, my Quaker Church was having a guest speaker: Corrie Ten Boom, the author of The Hiding Place. Many of us have read the book or seen the movie or both. Corrie grew up in WW II Germany. Her family hid their Jewish friends in their home and found more homes to hide other Jewish neighbors and friends in. The Ten Boom family and their network saved hundred of Jewish lives.
Cleveland, when I was 8 or 10 had the first woman news Anchor in the United Stated. Cleveland Channel 5 was blessed to have Dorothy Fuldheim who left her elementary school teaching career at age 54 to become a news anchor on the early evening news. She also hosted her own talk show daily at 1 PM. It was called The One O Clock Club.
My mom called the Channel 5 studio and left a message for Dorothy Fuldheim about Corrie Ten Boom coming to Cleveland. Ms. Fuldheim returned my mom's call and Corrie Ten Boom was on the show the next day.
Dorothy Fuldheim always spoke out about unjust things, about prejudice, about the treatment of the poor. But she also gave guests pure hell who she thought were totally and unacceptably inappropriate. Two guests I can remember getting thrown off the set were Jerry Ruben and H. Rap Brown. They thought they could use Ms. Fuldheim's show to get their opinions across using the most course language and in one case, trying to show a magazine pull out of a naked woman to television viewers.
WEWS Channel 5 also used her as a roving reporter on assignments ranging from the Mideast to Northern Ireland. An interview she did in Hong Kong with 2 American prisoners released by Communist China in 1955 brought her a National Overseas Press Club award. Named one of America's Most Admired Women by a Gallup Poll, Fuldheim was the only active journalist included among the charter members of the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame, established by the PRESS CLUB OF CLEVELAND.
In my opinion, Dorothy's best book was "I Laughed, I Cried, I Loved (1966). I highly recommend it. I've read it several times in my adult life. Moving around, I've managed to loose it. It's probably out of print now, but possibly available on Amazon or EBay.
I grew up in a city in turmoil, a city of race riots, of anti-war demonstrations and last but not least the Kent State shootings when I was in high school. How I respond to modern day racial discrimination, anti-war demonstrations and social justice issues such as health care, locking up border patrol agents in prison for shooting a drug dealer, a stubborn president who refuses to listen to the best minds in the world, our environmental crises are a part of me. And a part of me asks the question, "how would Dorothy Fuldheim respond?" And I try to respond with action that Dorothy Fuldheim would approve of.
The person who pre-judged me the other day doesn't know me. And he hasn't heard the last of me. Ignorance must be defeated through education.
Regards,
Gordon
www.cafepress.com/fartotheleft
For Those Interested, here is more information about Dorothy Fuldheim:
Dorothy Fuldheim (June 26, 1893 - November 3, 1989) (born Dorothy Violet Snell) is considered one of the pioneer women of US television news. She is credited with being the first woman in the United States to anchor a television news broadcast as well to host her own television show. Sometimes Ms. Fuldheim is referred to by biographers and persons in the broadcast industry as the "First Lady Of Television News"
Fuldheim, an American of Jewish descent, was born in Passaic, New Jersey. She spent her childhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Prior to working in broadcasting, she was an elementary schoolteacher. During the 1920s, after her first marriage, Ms. Fuldheim moved to Cleveland, Ohio where she began her theatrical, lecturing and broadcasting careers. She started in radio hosting a biography program for the ABC Radio network. Ms. Fuldheim was their first female commentator. Prior to World War II, she had interviewed both Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler.
[edit] Television career
Ms. Fuldheim began her television career at age 54 when joined the staff of WEWS-TV Channel 5 in Cleveland in 1947. At that time, it was the only television station between New York and Chicago. Despite spending her entire broadcasting career based in Cleveland, she traveled widely to cover a variety of news stories, and was regarded as a broadcaster of national importance.
In 1959, Ms. Fuldheim, who had been with the station before it even went on air, began to formulate her own newscast in response to the new 30-minute newscast on KYW, the first half-hour newscast in the country. Fuldheim utterly hated hard-hitting newscasts such as the one KYW had created. Instead, Fuldheim centered her newscast around her interviews, a general overview of the news, and her commentaries (during which the very opinionated Fuldheim frequently inserted her own opinions about the stories). Fuldheim was the first female in the United States to have her own television news analysis program.
While the format of her show, The One O'Clock Club consisted primarily of news analysis, it also included commentary, book reviews and interviews. In the years that the One O'Clock Club aired, Ms. Fuldheim interviewed a number of diverse notable persons including the Duke of Windsor, Helen Keller, Barbara Walters and Martin Luther King Jr. She also interviewed several 20th century American presidents.
Ms. Fuldheim was known for her fiery red hair, and equally fiery opinions. She was not shy about supporting unpopular causes, nor in voicing her opposition if she disagreed with a guest. On one program, she interviewed 1960s activist Jerry Rubin about his book "Do It". His perceived rudeness, as well as referring to the police as "pigs" offended Ms. Fuldheim, resulting in her kicking Rubin off the set as the cameras continued running.[1]
At times, Ms Fuldheim could offend some members of her audience. A month after ejecting Rubin from her television show, she found herself in the controversial hotseat. On May 4, 1970 while live on the air, Fuldheim made the following statement regarding the actions of the Ohio National Guard during the Kent State shootings, "What is wrong with our country? "We're killing our own children." [2] Due to her reference to the shooting of the four students as murder, there were numerous calls from viewers for Fuldheim to resign from her position at WEWS. However, she had an equal number of supporters plus the backing of station management. She did not resign.
In 1980, Ms. Fuldheim was inducted in the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame [3]and went on to cover major 1980s events: She traveled to London to cover the 1981 royal wedding of Prince Charles and Diana, the funeral of assassinated Egyptian prime minister Anwar Sadat and to Northern Ireland to interview the family of IRA activist/hunger striker Bobby Sands. Ms. Fuldheim's long and distinguished career ended when she suffered a stroke in July 1984, shortly after interviewing U.S. President Ronald Reagan. She never again appeared on television and died in Cleveland five years later at the age of 96.[4]
In 2003, she was awarded an Ohio Historical Marker for her contributions to journalism.[5]
Some at NewsChannel 5 believe her ghost still haunts her old office, stating that the doors open on their own, calling it her way of "checking up on them." [6]
[edit] Famous quotes
"This is a youth-oriented society, and the joke is on them because youth is a disease from which we all recover."
"It takes a disciplined person to listen to convictions which are different from their own."
"Every American carries in his bloodstream the heritage of the malcontent and the dreamer."
[edit] External links
New York Times Obituary
WEWS-TV slideshow of Dorothy Fuldheim
A list of Ms. Fuldheim's various commentaries
Biography of Ms. Fuldheim
Humorous on air clip of Fuldheim
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Fuldheim"
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