What Have You Changed Your Mind About?

That was Jonathan V Last’s question to his readers the other day.

JVL is the Editor of The Bulwark, and he provides three essays (a Triad) each weekday.

Here’s the original, so you can read it for yourself:

Changing Your Mind: From Ayn Rand to Hillary Clinton

I was intrigued by the question.

So am taking a crack at three big mind changes in my own life.

Hope you’ll share your own big mind changes in the comments.

What have you changed your mind about?

Belief that changed #1: “That I’m not bigoted or privileged, because I’m nice”

When I was 17, I spent three months in France living with a French family, studying French.

I fell in love. He looked like a young Paul Newman. And he was French. His name was Jean-Yves.

His mother suspected it was serious and asked to meet me.

She was scary as hell.

I felt our meeting didn’t go well.

It had not.

The next day Jean-Yves and I met on the bridge as usual.

He told me his mother wouldn’t let him see me anymore.

“Why?” I asked.

He said, “Parce-que tu est de couleur.” Because you’re colored.

My brain did a whappity-whap like a revolving door in my head.

“What? What are you talking about?” I was confused.

“Ta mere est Libanaise… Arabe… tu est Arabe. Tu est de couleur.”

(Your Mother is Lebanese. Arab.

You are an Arab. You’re colored.”)

He couldn’t grasp why I didn’t “get” it.

Apparently after the French-Algerian war, the French had a new group to prejudge.

“No, I’m not! I’m not colored. I’m white!” Je suis blanche!

Then something snapped inside.

Enraged,“SO WHAT IF I’M COLORED? WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES THAT MAKE?”

I recall yelling it. In French.

And then in English, to myself “What is happening?”

The conflict eventually ended with him sneaking around the rest of the summer to be with me. Which was nice.

But I had changed. Now I was a colored girl! And proud of it.

It was the single best thing that’s happened to me, in a backhanded way.

In the USA I’m still regarded as white.

Apparently not so much in other parts of the world though.

When I was in my early 30’s, my then-husband was producing a popular rock band in Sydney, Australia.

I left the hotel to hail a cab.  As I opened the door the driver sped away yelling,

“Not you, Paky!”

I didn’t know what a Paky was.

So I asked the concierge inside the hotel.

She replied apologetically, “It’s a Pakistani. Why don’t you let us call your taxis for you?”

(I had no idea Pakistanis were a group anyone hated. Another revelation.)

Here’s how my mind was changed:

Skin color never tells us anything useful.

Reality is, we are all one species, one race: the Human Race.

And I may sometimes be a nice person, but I’m involved in a system that suppresses others for no good reason.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Belief that changed #2:

"It’s not safe to be in certain neighborhoods.”

When I was forty,  Mother Teresa of Calcutta came to Los Angeles to open her first House in South Central Los Angeles, one of the most notorious and underserved neighborhoods in LA County.

The Church where the Mass was to be held was mobbed. Weirdly, attempting to avoid the large crowd, I walked down the street.

And ran into M. Teresa!

Something profound shot through me when she took my hand. She kept patting it and asking me to please help the sisters, who were from many different countries. They didn’t know Los Angeles… or even have a car. Would I help?

I spent every day of the next two years working alongside the Sisters as a volunteer. They treated me as one of them.

One night, as I was ready to head back to my condo in Brentwood, one of the sisters called out “DeeDee! DeeDee! Help!”

One of the newborns in the shelter was hemorrhaging profusely out of his nose and mouth.

The sister stood at the top of the stairs with blood all over her iconic white sari and a gasping infant in her arms. The baby’s mother was hysterical.

Sister asked me to take them to LA County hospital.

We waited in a jammed ER over an hour. Eventually they found a doc who spoke Spanish. The baby was admitted and the frightened mother permitted to stay with him.

I was exhausted. It was 3a.m. I’d been up for 24 hours. (I rose at 3:30 each morning to be at the Sister’s house for morning chapel at 4:30. Those women didn’t get much sleep)

I staggered into the hospital parking lot. I had no clue how to get home from there.

I asked someone where to find a freeway, but the directions didn’t compute.

I got in the car and drove. Hopelessly lost. No sign of a freeway, or even other people.

Then I ran out of gas.

In a Mercedes Benz.

In South Central LA.

At three in the morning.

I got out of the car and pretty much went crazy. Pounded the car hood with my fist. Then raising my face to the sky I bellowed “AAAARRGGHH” and otherwise created a disturbance in what was a quiet, peaceful neighborhood. Except for me.

Dimly, in the distance I saw four men walking toward me.

I called out to them, “Oh! Can you help me, please?”

They started jogging toward me.
“Thank you for coming! I need gas!”

Ive never been so happy to see four strangers before. I was crying and carrying on about the baby and the ER and the Sister’s House, and how tired I am. And, “Is there a gas station nearby?”

One of the young men said,“There’s a gas station that’s open just around the corner. We can push your car there.”

I asked, “Can one of you steer?” and they said, “No, Lady. We won’t get in your car. You steer. We’ll push.” And they did.

We arrived at the gas station. Self-service. Bullet proof glass surrounded the man in the booth.

I handed him my credit card.

He laughed.

“Cash only.”

I had not even one penny in my purse. I started crying again. I was feeling beaten, and was so very tired.

The four heroes dug into their pockets and pooled their cash, which amounted to about 7 or 8 dollars.

They shoved the cash toward the guy in the booth. Then they pumped gas into my car, and told me how to find the freeway.

I begged for their address or some way to return their money. They politely let me know that the only thing they wanted was for me to get in my car and leave. In peace.

Those young men patrolled their ‘hood all night long. To keep trouble at bay. To keep their people safe. And a whiteish woman in a Mercedes yelling her head off at three in the morning was not a trouble they wanted.

To this day, I think of them with expansive gratitude, and hope they are safe.

Here’s how my mind was changed:

I realized I wasn’t in a “dangerous neighborhood”

I had inadvertently made the neighborhood more dangerous

with my loud voice and disruption of their peaceful night.

The neighborhood wasn’t the trouble.

I was the trouble.

And not the good kind. (Forgive me, John Lewis.)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Belief that changed #3:

“Chain stores sell the same things wherever they’re located. That’s why we trust them. Reliable consistency!”

In addition to serving homeless pregnant teens, the Sisters also had a food kitchen for anyone who was hungry. We made about 200 meals each day for the general public.

One day, none of the donations arrived. (Donations would come in from local grocery stores in the form of past-dated baked and canned goods, and old produce which required the rotten portions cut out.)

This day, NADA.

I asked if I could just go buy lots of bread and peanut butter and jelly. And the head Sister asked me to look for apples too.

I found the Safeway and grabbed a bunch of breads and jars of PB & J.

Then headed to the produce section.

EWWW! The smell was unappetizing. The produce was limp and sometimes rotten. There was mold on many of the fruits. Nothing looked edible.

I was outraged.

I asked to speak to the manager. The manager looked at me with pity, and sorrow at my ignorance.

“Lady, where do you live?”

I didn’t want to admit I was from Brentwood, so I said, “North of here”.

He replied, “I see. And where you live all the produce looks fresh and delicious, right? Well… guess what? ALL THIS? THIS IS YOUR PRODUCE that doesn’t sell at peak in your neighborhood! Did you think they just throw it away? NO no no no no… They send it to us. Here.” as he gestured at the poorly maintained super market.

I sputtered something about the prices being higher here than in my neighborhood. The manager just shook his head,

“Well, Ma’am, I guess it costs money to gather it up and truck it our way. Somebody has to pay.” He looked sad.

I grabbed the apples, paid for the food and headed back to the House.

Here’s how my mind was changed:

I went from believing “All chain stores sell the same things in each location.”

to “Big businesses need regulations because human greed is powerful, ugly, and requires strict regulations.”

It pushed me pretty hard to the Left politically. The system needs serious tweaking.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

So that’s it. Those were my three big mind changes. What are yours? I really want to know.