RIP, Bob: Bridging The Race, Gender, And Generation Gaps
The events of the past week reminded me of two facts that I already knew too well: 1) I'm a dangerous witch who needs to watch what she says (see 10/12/14 post). 2) Those of us who blog every other week instead of every day should expect occasionally to change our planned topics, sometimes more than once, between postings. A couple of weeks ago, I was discussing with a former student/office mate, current friend the death of a man whom I knew before I knew her. The man who had taught at Cal Poly for many years was a fellow USC alumni, so we had known each other as graduate students in the early seventies. When I told my friend, who is white (as was the dead man), that I wouldn't attend the funeral, she wondered why. I knew that she would have attended the funeral of a man she had known for more than forty years, a man who had first been a fellow student (we had no classes together) and then a next door neighbor (his office was next to ours) in the English department. I reminded her that I had discussed the differences between the way blacks and whites view funerals in my second book, which she read, and then explained my relationship with the dead man, including a description of two of his comments that I saw as mildly racist. As part of my explanation, forgetting that I am a dangerous witch, I mentioned two older white male colleagues (the dead man was only a couple of years older) whose funerals I would attend. When the phone rang last week, and I saw the name of one of those white men, my heart sank. I had time as I answered the phone and heard his daughter's voice to hope that she was calling to report her mother's death, not her father's. Her mother, while two years younger than the almost 90 years old Bob, had been sick for years, and I had not recently mentioned attending her funeral. But, of course, Bob Morsberger's daughter reported that her father had died. Before that happened, I had been listening to the discussion of the battle between two of the Democratic 2020 candidates, B-boys Biden and Booker. Some commentators focused more on the generational differences between them because they really didn't want to discuss the racial differences. When I thought about my relationship with the twenty years older, white male Bob, I knew I had to change my blog post topic.
I first met Bob in late August or early September, 1977. He was the chair of the Cal Poly English Department then, and I was a graduate student looking for a part-time job to help me move above the poverty line while I finished writing my dissertation. Bob seemed very friendly, but slightly quirky, and he was (maybe more than slightly quirky). He told me that the assistant chair whom my petite white friend Karen and I had met earlier in the year when we dropped our resumes and were briefly interviewed gave me a very high recommendation. I had brought a second resume, in case the first one had been misplaced, and after offering me one freshman composition class for the rapidly approaching fall quarter, Bob handed me the old resume that had the assistant chair's comment on it. The comment read, "Mary is black and personable." That's high recommendation? Now it's possible that the assistant chair made other very positive comments in discussing me with Bob, but I recognize now that my being black was a positive for Bob and not because he wanted to check an affirmative action box. Bob liked my blackness. He wasn't one of those "colorblind" white folks who become uneasy when I mention race, nor was he like my white male colleague from Oklahoma who couldn't forget or let me forget that I'm black. For Bob, my blackness was just part of my identity, like my being another American Literature professor, being a woman, a baby boomer, and a graduate of USC. Of all those qualities, my blackness was probably what Bob liked most about me, and that's why we always got along (I can't say that for most people, whatever their race, gender, or generation, that I've known for more than forty years).
I described the resume incident in my memoir, and the unnamed Bob appeared several other times. He was one of the three white men who stood with me as I fought off the passive-aggressive, white male chair of the English department and the more aggressive white female College of Arts and Social Sciences dean's attempt to use me as the department chair of the retention, tenure, promotion committee to target the other black female in our department. In fact, it was Bob who wrote the positive evaluation that the woman I called Other Black in my memoir and I were able to place in her file instead of a negative one that the two white administrators wanted to use in preparation for overturning tenure and firing her. I wasn't usually a fan of Other Black, but I still fondly remember how we celebrated in the parking lot, high fiving each other and laughing about how quickly she whipped out Bob's evaluation when I had heatedly argued those two abusive administrators into (probably) temporary submission. As she handed it over, I folded my arms and glared, daring the two bigots to try to come up with an excuse not to accept it. Bob's eloquently written positive evaluation saved the day. He was also the older white male who I fantasized asking to teach my first graduate African American Fiction seminar when several of the white students annoyed me with their combative attitudes while I would teach his freshman composition class that met at the same time. I found the fantasy funny because a graduate seminar in black literature is obviously a more desirable course than a freshman composition class. And I'm sure all of the graduate students, whatever they thought of Bob and me as teachers (since neither of us is a deluded Donald Trump, I think we both would have agreed that I was the better teacher, and he was the better scholar), would have preferred having a black woman teach black fiction instead of a white man. But the more important point is that I knew Bob had read all of the books I was teaching. I could not say that about any of my other colleagues, including Other Black or the slightly older than I Asian and Latino male colleagues.
I finally gave Bob a name in the Epilogue of A REDLIGHT WOMAN WHO KNOWS HOW TO SING THE BLUES. He's Senior American, the man who didn't know what to do with his hands when I tried to high five him after a political victory, the one who used to Bush bash with me in e-mail exchanges and grocery store parking lots, the one I called when Obama won the historical 2008 election and who called me back, singing "Happy Days Are Here Again." And, yes, he's the one who thought I wanted to punch him in the head when I wanted to fist bump him. Good old Bob was ready to be punched in the head to celebrate the election of the first black President.
As I watched and commented on the B-boy (pardon me, Cory, but I called the much older than you and even older than I am Joe a boy too, and I'm a black woman who is old enough to be your mama, so stand down) debate, I became suspicious of my favorite Vice-President. Did Joe Biden think that those white people in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania who voted for Obama twice and Trump once were really voting for him in 2008 and 12? Did he think those bigots were hoping that Obama would be assassinated or impeached so that he could become President? Was his "I hung with the white supremacists" comment a way to bring them back to our party? I don't know Joe Biden, but I know white folks. And they are quite capable of being friends with blacks, supporting black causes, and still at least accepting racists and racism. In fact, favorite former Senator Al Franken, who I had to call out in an e-mail when he became too nostalgic for the racist fifties of our mutual childhoods, was friends with Alabama bigot Jeff Sessions. That was not true of Bob Morsberger. He hated racism and despised racists almost as much as I do.
Occasionally, I will find an example on Facebook of a much older white person who is the opposite of racist, and I will share the posts with my fb friends, pointing out that not all old white folks are bigots. Bob Morsberger was one of those not racist old white people. His political incorrectness was so mild that now that I'm in this period of extreme racism I'm ashamed that I was even annoyed by it. Bob would call me if a black writer like Chinua Achebe or August Wilson died (and would talk to me about black movies and plays) but never when white American writers died. I remember mildly chastising him (although he didn't get it) when he called me after August Wilson died. I mentioned Arthur Miller's earlier death, pointing out that I had taught him longer and more often than I did Wilson. But Bob was right to call me to discuss black writers. Who else was he going to call? I certainly was the Cal Poly colleague most likely to teach Wilson. I'm happy now that the friendly, civil Bob couldn't process shade.
RIP, Bob. You will be missed by your beloved wife of 64 years, Claremont, your adopted hometown of many years, fellow liberals, racism warriors, and me.
I first met Bob in late August or early September, 1977. He was the chair of the Cal Poly English Department then, and I was a graduate student looking for a part-time job to help me move above the poverty line while I finished writing my dissertation. Bob seemed very friendly, but slightly quirky, and he was (maybe more than slightly quirky). He told me that the assistant chair whom my petite white friend Karen and I had met earlier in the year when we dropped our resumes and were briefly interviewed gave me a very high recommendation. I had brought a second resume, in case the first one had been misplaced, and after offering me one freshman composition class for the rapidly approaching fall quarter, Bob handed me the old resume that had the assistant chair's comment on it. The comment read, "Mary is black and personable." That's high recommendation? Now it's possible that the assistant chair made other very positive comments in discussing me with Bob, but I recognize now that my being black was a positive for Bob and not because he wanted to check an affirmative action box. Bob liked my blackness. He wasn't one of those "colorblind" white folks who become uneasy when I mention race, nor was he like my white male colleague from Oklahoma who couldn't forget or let me forget that I'm black. For Bob, my blackness was just part of my identity, like my being another American Literature professor, being a woman, a baby boomer, and a graduate of USC. Of all those qualities, my blackness was probably what Bob liked most about me, and that's why we always got along (I can't say that for most people, whatever their race, gender, or generation, that I've known for more than forty years).
I described the resume incident in my memoir, and the unnamed Bob appeared several other times. He was one of the three white men who stood with me as I fought off the passive-aggressive, white male chair of the English department and the more aggressive white female College of Arts and Social Sciences dean's attempt to use me as the department chair of the retention, tenure, promotion committee to target the other black female in our department. In fact, it was Bob who wrote the positive evaluation that the woman I called Other Black in my memoir and I were able to place in her file instead of a negative one that the two white administrators wanted to use in preparation for overturning tenure and firing her. I wasn't usually a fan of Other Black, but I still fondly remember how we celebrated in the parking lot, high fiving each other and laughing about how quickly she whipped out Bob's evaluation when I had heatedly argued those two abusive administrators into (probably) temporary submission. As she handed it over, I folded my arms and glared, daring the two bigots to try to come up with an excuse not to accept it. Bob's eloquently written positive evaluation saved the day. He was also the older white male who I fantasized asking to teach my first graduate African American Fiction seminar when several of the white students annoyed me with their combative attitudes while I would teach his freshman composition class that met at the same time. I found the fantasy funny because a graduate seminar in black literature is obviously a more desirable course than a freshman composition class. And I'm sure all of the graduate students, whatever they thought of Bob and me as teachers (since neither of us is a deluded Donald Trump, I think we both would have agreed that I was the better teacher, and he was the better scholar), would have preferred having a black woman teach black fiction instead of a white man. But the more important point is that I knew Bob had read all of the books I was teaching. I could not say that about any of my other colleagues, including Other Black or the slightly older than I Asian and Latino male colleagues.
I finally gave Bob a name in the Epilogue of A REDLIGHT WOMAN WHO KNOWS HOW TO SING THE BLUES. He's Senior American, the man who didn't know what to do with his hands when I tried to high five him after a political victory, the one who used to Bush bash with me in e-mail exchanges and grocery store parking lots, the one I called when Obama won the historical 2008 election and who called me back, singing "Happy Days Are Here Again." And, yes, he's the one who thought I wanted to punch him in the head when I wanted to fist bump him. Good old Bob was ready to be punched in the head to celebrate the election of the first black President.
As I watched and commented on the B-boy (pardon me, Cory, but I called the much older than you and even older than I am Joe a boy too, and I'm a black woman who is old enough to be your mama, so stand down) debate, I became suspicious of my favorite Vice-President. Did Joe Biden think that those white people in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania who voted for Obama twice and Trump once were really voting for him in 2008 and 12? Did he think those bigots were hoping that Obama would be assassinated or impeached so that he could become President? Was his "I hung with the white supremacists" comment a way to bring them back to our party? I don't know Joe Biden, but I know white folks. And they are quite capable of being friends with blacks, supporting black causes, and still at least accepting racists and racism. In fact, favorite former Senator Al Franken, who I had to call out in an e-mail when he became too nostalgic for the racist fifties of our mutual childhoods, was friends with Alabama bigot Jeff Sessions. That was not true of Bob Morsberger. He hated racism and despised racists almost as much as I do.
Occasionally, I will find an example on Facebook of a much older white person who is the opposite of racist, and I will share the posts with my fb friends, pointing out that not all old white folks are bigots. Bob Morsberger was one of those not racist old white people. His political incorrectness was so mild that now that I'm in this period of extreme racism I'm ashamed that I was even annoyed by it. Bob would call me if a black writer like Chinua Achebe or August Wilson died (and would talk to me about black movies and plays) but never when white American writers died. I remember mildly chastising him (although he didn't get it) when he called me after August Wilson died. I mentioned Arthur Miller's earlier death, pointing out that I had taught him longer and more often than I did Wilson. But Bob was right to call me to discuss black writers. Who else was he going to call? I certainly was the Cal Poly colleague most likely to teach Wilson. I'm happy now that the friendly, civil Bob couldn't process shade.
RIP, Bob. You will be missed by your beloved wife of 64 years, Claremont, your adopted hometown of many years, fellow liberals, racism warriors, and me.
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