The Working Catholic: Private and Public by Bill Droel

The best-selling Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance (Harper Collins, 2016) is about fierce loyalty within Appalachian families, including those displaced to Ohio, Indiana and Michigan for lack of jobs in Appalachia proper. These close-knit families are a source of love and fidelity. In support of this pro-family theme Vance says, for example: My grandparents “were, without question or qualification, the best things that ever happened to me”

Hillbilly Elegy would not, however, be a bestseller without its companion theme, as anticipated in its subtitle: A Family and Culture in Crisis. It doesn’t take too many pages to conclude that Appalachian families are plagued by physical and psychological violence, by lethargy, by habitual avoidance of reality, by addiction, by low education attainment, by a high cancer death rate and more. An over-reliance on family closeness, one can conclude, actually inhibits stability and progress. One might further conclude that a clannish subculture abets poverty.

Each immigrant group to our country struggled with balancing the protective strengths of family closeness with the necessity to launch children into the wider society.

Herbert Gans lived Boston’s West End neighborhood (around the Bruins hockey arena) in the late 1950s. In The Urban Villagers (The Free Press, 1962) he writes about what happened to its Italian-American residents when so-called urban renewal was declared. He sets the scene with observations about the younger parents there. The “vital center” of adult life for these Italian-Americans, Gans says, was “a routine gathering of relatively unchanging peer group” that met even “several times a week.” This get-together, which often included dinner, was the purpose “for which other everyday activities are a means.” There is no formal invitation; people, including children, implicitly know when to arrive. The conversation is not really “give-and-take of discussion,” Gans continues. “There is little concern with politics.” The content is almost entirely gossip. Strong connection to an extended family is a resource, Gans concludes. But it is not enough to successfully negotiate with bigger forces, like non-Italian employers when seeking a job, much less with urban developers.

Joseph Luzzi makes the same point in his affectionate memoir, My Two Italies (Farrar, Straus, 2014), particularly in a chapter titled “No Society.” A slogan like “family comes first” sounds OK. But to presume that the family is an exclusive form of socialization actually erodes its strength. Unless an ethnic group moves beyond the family as an end in itself, harmful influences and bureaucracy will actually have greater and more direct access to family members, particularly to children. That is because too much family, as it were, leaves no competency for the good outside of family, for civic life, for the common good.

Peter Skerry, in Mexican-Americans: the Ambivalent Minority (Harvard University Press, 1993), says the same: Strong family ties are the greatest “resource of Mexican-Americans,” yet those ties can also be the “greatest liability.” During the initial phase, Mexican-Americans tend to think of their extended family and close friends as their political agent. But that is asking too much. Such an expectation, says Skerry, causes extended family “relationships [to become] unstable, subject to arguments and bickering.” Effective entry into the wider society occurs only when Mexican-Americans and other groups actively “distinguish private and public roles.” 

At their best, local institutions—the parish, labor local, school assembly, precinct and the like—act as a halfway house. They provide a dress rehearsal. They have a balance of informality (everyone needs a feeling of belonging, a sense of community) and formality (everyone wants to move up in the wider world and make a difference). These buffer organizations are a unique mix of the familiar and the challenging.

Unfortunately, our society’s mediating structures have withered. Most young adults assume they can make it without the obligatory, five-course Sunday dinner at grandma’s home and certainly without participating in parish groups, union meetings and precinct events. Consequently, most young adults are equipped only with ragged individualism as they move through an economy of global competition, in and around a health care system of changeable specialties, and deeper into an impersonal cyber-world where, for example, customer service means waiting for the next available recorded message. 

There is loyalty and pride in Appalachian families. They have not gained traction, however, because those families often don’t act together for the common good. Even religion’s window to the world is absent. “Despite its reputation,” Vance reports, “Appalachia has far lower church attendance than the Midwest” and elsewhere. Appalachians, Vance implies, are not disposed to aggregate, agitate and then negotiate for any purpose beyond the immediate, material interest of the nuclear family.

Nowadays many of us in the Midwest, the Plains, the Great Lakes areas and elsewhere likewise experience powerlessness. We have an immediate circle of family and friends. Then we come up against a big world, with no effective society in between. Demagoguery only perpetuates our isolation. A march here and a rally there is not the way. We need to arduously build our own launching pads. These likely will not be exact copies of 1950s-style institutions (parish clubs, precinct groups and the like). But with discipline and a creative mix of the private and the public we can craft ways of participating in the wider world without forsaking our compassionate roots.

Droel edits a newsletter on faith and work, INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629) 

BASEBALL: A RAY OF SUNSHINE IN DARK TIMES

A recent trip to Phoenix with a visit to the White Sox Spring training camp stirred up some memories. Being a White Sox fan and dreaming of someday being a Sox third baseman was a big part of my life as a child.

   I remember my dad taking me to my first game in 1943.  It was war time but President Franklin Delano Roosevelt thought baseball should continue; it would be a valuable diversion in a difficult era.  The Allies were moving on Italy.  The Germans occupied the “boot” and in October Italy deported over 1000 Jews from Rome to Auschwitz without a complaint by Pius XII.  

    My younger brother and I were not entirely shielded from the horrors happening in Europe and the Far East.  We had uncles in the military and prayed for them every night.  My uncle Harold survived the Normandy invasion and the Battle of the Bulge.  After the war he made sure I understood what had happened in the concentration camps.  He showed me concentration camps photos which are burned in my memory.

Uncle Harold with Johnny(left) and me(right).

    I was eight; Dad told me he would take me to a game if I could recite to him the White Sox starting line-up.  I passed the test and the date was set during Dad’s vacation time.  He was a switchman on the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad.  Dad often said there would be no vacation if it were not for F.D.R.  

   My mother told me not to tell my younger brother Johnny that Dad was taking me to a ballgame.  But I did anyway.  Why would a 4 year old care?  John, who through the years was a much more loyal White Sox fan than me, remembered the incident all his life.  We talked about it and laughed, but it was painful for both of us.   

   Mom drove us to the ‘El’ station in Oak Park.  For me riding the El was a drama in itself.  Speeding along - above the traffic was exciting.  I wore shorts and remember the wicker-covered El seats.

   We arrived at Comiskey Park early for the game against the Philadelphia A’s. 

 As we walked to our 3^rd base box seats we encountered an old man with a straw hat.  It was Connie Mack, manager of the A’s and one of the founders of the American League.  My dad was called ‘Bud’ by friends and relatives.  Dad greeted Mr. Mack – “Hi Connie,” and he responded, “Hi Bud, how are you?”  I was more than somewhat impressed. 

Luke Appling

   

To see the field and sense the magic was overwhelming.  I saw Luke Appling, not drafted in the Army yet, won the American League batting title with a 328 average that season.  Other stars like Williams, DiMaggio and Bob Feller were in the military.   Heroes such as Hard Luck Eddie Smith, The Blue Island Bird Dog – Don Kolloway and Bill Bullfrog (he had bulging eyes) Dietrich were right in front of me.  Dad went down to the field to talk to White Sox coach Muddy Ruel.  I never found out how he knew Muddy Ruel.  We saw seventeen year old Casmir Kwietniewtski who played several games that year.  He changed his name to Cass Michaels and was an outstanding post war player. 

   Late in the game the White Sox got to Don Black, the A’s pitcher. During the rally I shouted, “Come on Lu-u-uke,” when Appling was up.  It was a hot night and I could see Black was exhausted.  The A’s called in a relief pitcher and as Black walked off the mound to the dugout the Sox fans clapped for him.  It took a couple of days and some discussion before I accepted my dad’s explanation of sportsmanship and why you would give a hand to an opposing pitcher.  

   The excitement wore me out, and despite the wicker seat, I fell asleep on the El on the trip home.

   A wonderful White Sox team won the World Series in 2005, but I still remember the line–up of the 4^th place White Sox of 1943.

   Visiting the White Sox Spring Training Complex in Phoenix was loads of fun and it brought back precious memories.  Carson Fulmer, a top pitching prospect, generously shared a few minutes with my youngest brother Jim and me; we are grateful.  My advice to Carson:  look to Ted Lyons, the Baylor Bear Cat, for inspiration.  

Jim Lange(left), with me and Carson Fulmer

BRONZEVILLE - MILWAUKEE

   

   St. Benedict the Moor parish has its roots in Bronzeville, a name given to the African America neighborhood where the church is located. Marquette University had its beginnings at the location, but after M.U. moved, the property became the home of St. Benedict the Moor Parish and boarding school. Bronzeville no longer exists as it was because of its destruction by urban renewal projects and the construction of a freeway through the area. A renewal is well underway.  The boundaries of Bronzeville were: North Avenue, State Street on the South, Third Street on the East and 12^th Street to the West.  (Ivory Abena Black, p. 11)  In his promotion of urban renewal, Mayor Frank Zeidler in 1959 decried the wretched living conditions of the inner city of which Bronzeville was a part. (Gurda, p. 365)

    The Parish sponsored boarding school for African American children boasts of famous students such as Lionel Hampton, Red Foxx, Harold Washington (the first and only Black Mayor of Chicago), and N.B.A. basketball star -“Downtown” Brown.  A hospital, St. Anthony, was built next to the church to service the community.  (1930 ).  Twins were born to baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron  and his wife Barbara at St. Anthony’s but only one of the twins survived. (1957) (Bryant, p. 224)

  Aaron lived in Bronzeville with other black ball players because of Milwaukee’s very rigid unwritten discrimination code which still exists.  A 1955 Milwaukee Human Rights Commission reported on Milwaukee housing:

All those restricted within the arbitrary confines of the racial ghetto must find shelter as best they can within its circumscribed bounds. (Bryant, p .94)

A St. Benedict the Moor parishioner remembered Marquette Olympic champion of the 30’s, Ralph Metcalf, jogging from Bronzeville to the Marquette campus.

   A generous white woman who volunteered to teach sewing at St. Benedict the Moor school is remembered commenting on Aaron’s move to an adjoining suburb – “They are where they are supposed to be.  Just because he is rich and famous doesn’t mean he can live in Mequon.”  White ballplayers lived and were idolized in the suburbs.  Warren Spahn lived in Wauwatosa.    

   The legacy of racism in Milwaukee appears in many forms. The dirtiest jobs were given to blacks and immigrants.  Immigrants were able to advance from these positions but not blacks.  (W. Ozzane, p.162)   

        

   During the Great Depression there was competition for jobs.  A 1934 strike at Wehr Steel Foundry involved white workers insisting that blacks not be hired. Blacks trying to cross the picket line were met with violence with the police supporting the white pickets.  Wehr sponsored a black baseball team. (Trotter, Jr. p. 162, photo of the team p. 147)  A parishioner’s father worked at Wehr and was told to expect a long strike.

   Historian John Gurda reports that Milwaukee reached its pinnacle of prosperity and population in 1960 and the years just before and after. (Gurda, p. 354 )  The success story is memorable because of Big League  Baseball.  The Braves won the World Series in ’57, the National League Pennant in 58, and tied for the National League championship in ‘59.

   But there is more to the story.  In 1958 a young black man, Daniel Bell, was shot by a Milwaukee police officer at the outside edge of the Bronzeville neighborhood. Despite protests the officer was exonerated; he and his partner claimed that the young man threatened the officers with a knife.   In 1979 one of the officers involved confessed that a knife was planted on the victim.  The young man’s family received some monetary compensation from the city.  We continue to suffer similar tragedies as the movement of history is not guaranteed to be progressive.

A MOVABLE LITURGY

   A group of 40 parishioners attended the play presented by First Stage Theater – Welcome to Bronzeville.  After the play we went to a central city restaurant for dinner. The venue for the play was the Todd Wehr Theater provided by the Wehr Foundation from surplus profits from the blood, sweat and tears of blacks at the Wehr Foundry.

   Reaction to the play was positive.  Bronzeville was depicted as a loving hard working family community gifted with a taste for music and camaraderie. 

  Survival in a racist city was and is heroic, but the play emphasized family – and kids growing up.  The lovable child actors were superb.  Famous jazz singer Billie Holiday was shown to have been required to live in a private home because of the segregation at Milwaukee hotels. The play depicts the positive influence of police sergeant Felmers Chaney.  A St. Benedict the Moor parishioner agrees.  He was black and was trusted by the community as were other black policemen.  The white policemen were not trusted. Chaney later became an official of the NAACP and a civil rights leader.

DINNER AT THE TANDEM (1848 W. Fond du Lac, Milwaukee)

After the play we went to dinner and discussed our experience.

As in the Bronzeville of the past, we connected with each other, blacks and whites, over good food and music.  We remembered Bronzeville, the tragedies and the joy, parishioners who have passed – Club owner Bonnie and Pedro her husband, the Alumni of St. Benedict the Moor.  We gave thanks for the memories of Bronzeville; the spark of the divine in a racist city.  We gave thanks for the jazz, the good food and camaraderie hosted by Kokomos, Thelma’s Backdoor, Moon Glo, and the Flame.  Bronzeville wasn’t the Harlem Renaissance, but that’s OK.  Bronzeville’s Hank Aaron batted 393, and hit three home runs in leading Milwaukee to victory over the New York Bronx Bombers in the 1957 World Series.   

     *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *        *

This article is the view of a longtime St. Benedict the Moor parishioner based on interviews with other parishioners, on published material and on parish members attending the play – Welcome to Bronzeville – performed by First Stage Milwaukee.

Black, Ivory Abena, Bronzeville A Miwaukee Lifestyle, Publishers Group, Milwaukee, 2005

Bryant, Howard, The Last Hero – A Life of Henry Aaron, Pantheon Books, N.Y. 2010

Gurda, John, The Making of Milwaukee, Milwaukee Historical Society, 1999

Ozanne, Robert W. The Labor Movement in Wisconsin, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1984

Trotter, Jr. Joe William, Black Milwaukee, University of Illinois, 1988

January 2017 - LA CULTURA CURA

Resistance to Official Government Bigotry

January 14  Marches for Immigrant, Refugee & Worker Rights  

Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Voces de la Frontera 

  Cesar Chavez Park, San Jose, California

SEIU workers at the  march in San Jose, California

January 16th - Martin Luther King Day in San Francisco, California

Street art for children expressing their dreams:  Hillary Clinton for President





January 20, 2017  -  Inauguration Day - San Francisco, California

Inauguration Day rally, United Nations Plaza.  F.D.R saw the U.N. as a means to peace as opposed to nationalistic fascism that Trump advocates.

“We are more united than ever; this is the first day of resistance.” San Francisco Labor Council leader.

January 21 -  Women's March in San Francisco

“All over the Bay Area on Saturday massive crowds overflowed sidewalks, streets and parks … (declaring) they would oppose the new administration’s agenda whenever they see It opposing them.”  

San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday January 22, 2017   

‘GENERATION TO GENERATION’

Questions from Monique – our 7 year old grand-daughter:  

Why are we doing this?  

Will anyone notice? 

Will it do any good?  

Satisfied with Mama and Grandma’s responses, she went with them to protest. 

Simone Weil, notable French philosopher of the 1930’s and 40’s, quoted by Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of the United States, p. 412.

Whether the mask is labeled Fascism, Democracy, or Dictatorship of the Proletariat, our great adversary remains the APARATUS – the bureaucracy, the police, the military.  Not the one facing us across the frontier or the battle-lines, … but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us slaves.  No matter what the circumstances the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this APARATUS and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and others.

The Working Catholic: Family Stability, Part III By Bill Droel and John Erb

In this and previous installments on this blog site we attempt to put a small frame around the expansive topic of family stability. We now come to a controversial juncture.

The Lifestyle Variable

Income parallels family stability. Family stability parallels lifestyle. That is, some lifestyles are more conducive to family stability than others. It is important to repeat that the relationship among these three factors (money, lifestyle and stability) plus other factors is not an easy cause-and-effect. That is, we cannot say that because there is a strong association between a specific lifestyle and stability, a change in lifestyle automatically causes more stability or less stability.

Further, we recognize that people do not wake up each morning and choose a lifestyle. It is like one’s spirituality. Despite what the self-help gurus imply, one’s spirituality is to a significant degree conditioned by one’s heritage, by the surrounding culture and by many experiences. A lifestyle too is in part an imitation or rejection of one’s parental example, an imitation or rejection of one’s cultural environment and a continuation of or break with one’s many experiences.

And finally—because this is controversial—this essay does not measure love; as if anyone can do so. All types of families cherish their members and love their children. Just as sadly, all types and income levels of families are capable of callousness; a parent in any income bracket can be distant from his or her children.

Family living arrangements or lifestyles can include a two-parent married family, two-parent non-married family, one-parent family with one partner for that parent, one-parent family with multiple partners for the parent and more. Upper economic class families, for the most part, are of the two-parent married type and, as this essay shows, those families are relatively stable over the years. The median income for one of these married-couple families, presuming each parent is employed at least part-time, is $104,000. Many families in the lower economic categories are likely to be two-parent non-married families or one-parent families. These families have greater degree and duration of instability.

Interestingly, the education gap is a mirror image of this family stability index. In excess of 90% of college graduates use the institution of marriage and those families tend to be relatively stable. Those who lack a degree do not always marry. These families have higher instability.

The non-married type of lifestyle has been increasing. In fact, last year the majority of living arrangements in the United States were between unmarried couples. Interestingly too, there is no longer a race gap when it comes to marriage. That is, white families now have a percentage of non-married or single heads of the household that approximates the percentage among black families.

And as our chart to follow will show, a clear majority of Americans are economically stressed.

A Political Variable; Maybe Not

Pundits incessantly speak and write about a polarized citizenry. Our chart provides strong basis for a proposition that the polarization is not so much driven by cultural philosophies, as it is by economic insecurity. The number of Americans who are economically stressed continues to grow. Outsider political candidates will continue to appeal to the economically stressed. Yet, so-called Beltway insiders and many pundits dismiss these outsider challengers. That is because they are not really in touch with the financial realities facing a majority of Americans.

To repeat once more: Our chart (in the next installment of this series) shows that economic stress visits the majority of families—sometimes almost constantly.

Stay in touch through INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a print newsletter on faith and work.

The Working Catholic: Family Stability By Bill Droel and John Erb

Part II

  

In a series of essays on this blog site we examine the factors that determine family stability or instability, which as we previously wrote, are namely income and a few socio-cultural trends. We stress that these factors do not form a neat equation nor does one of the factors necessarily cause another; simply that a few stability factors parallel one another.

The Geography Variable

First, wages and cost of living vary from state-to-state, from region-to-region. New York City is, for example, higher income and higher cost; Mississippi or Alabama is lower income and lower cost. To have a top 1% income in the New York City region requires nearly $1.4million annual (much higher for the top 1/10^th%). Meanwhile, an annual income of about $100,000 equals top 1% in parts of Mississippi and Alabama.

Second, higher income families are concentrated within specific metropolitan areas and specific areas of a state. So too, lower income families are concentrated within certain city neighborhoods, certain rural areas or certain state regions. In the mythological Lake Wobegon Chatterbox Café, an unemployed farmhand can sit at a table with the town banker. That is unlikely anywhere else. Higher income people do not share the same space as middle income or lower income people—not even at the football stadium, or the airport, or at church.

Third, some commentators refer to cultural/political geography. They mean our country can be divided (or color-coded) into, on one hand, East Coast and West Coast and, on the other hand, Middle America. This essay and its accompanying income chart imply that such geographical politics is metaphorical at best. Our important concern is stability for the majority of families—East Coast, West Coast and Middle America.

The Education Variable

Prior to 1980 young adults in our country were adequately educated to meet the needs of the marketplace. That is, a sufficient number had sufficient education in the trades, accounting, secretarial skills, engineering and more. Since 1980 the needs of employers have steadily outpaced educational attainment. Thus, as is often said today, a college degree is a necessity. The word degree is crucial.

With individual exceptions, income strongly parallels a college degree: Those who have a degree also have some family security and a modicum of upward mobility. Those without a degree more likely experience instability and remain stuck at their family’s income level. 

There are two related points to make about a college degree and income.

First, those young adults whose parents hold a degree are more likely to attend college than other young adults and they are much more likely to complete college. A young adult whose parents did not complete college is not as likely to enroll in college or once enrolled is more likely to drop out. Mentioning this college degree gap feels un-American because education is thought to be an economic leveler. A young adult who studies and works hard can, the theory says, do better economically than the previous generation. According to the American promise, no one is condemned to their parents’ income level. Unfortunately, this promising theory has not been the reality. Those born between 1960 and 1980 have, on average, a 60% chance of exceeding their parents’ income. Those born after 1980 have, on average, a 50% chance of ever exceeding their parents.

The second related point tells us that not all college degrees are equal. About 8% of those billionaires who hold a U.S. passport also have a Harvard University degree. Other Ivy League schools account for a similar percentage of billionaires. The remaining top 10% in income also hold degrees from Ivy League or major state colleges or in fewer cases from one of the well-known Catholic colleges. On the next step down, that of an aspiring upper-middle class family, the student’s degree comes from a Catholic college or a less prestigious state school; followed by other schools, public and private.

A quick digression about dropping out of college: In a public, four-year college about 60% obtain a degree within six years; about 40% have dropped out. In a private, four-year college the graduation rate is about 65% within six years; about 35% never finish.

A community college can be a start, but the full bachelor’s degree is the factor that parallels a better income. In Illinois, to take one example, only about 21% of community college students complete a program there within three years. Of those who begin at a community college only about 15% go on to a bachelor’s degree within six to eight years.

Why do students drop out? Tuition becomes too expensive; the tension between studies and a job becomes unmanageable; someone in the family is ill; the student or spouse loses a job; a baby is born. As significantly, though not as frequently discussed, is a student’s lack of confidence in study habits like perseverance, curiosity, concentration, resourcefulness, creativity and more. They are unprepared to take apart a textbook, to know what is important in class and what is not so important, to write paragraphs that flow one from the other, to stick with a problem, to manage time knowing when to take overtime on the job and when to concentrate on school. Rather than confidently finding help with their studies, too many students drift away.

To be continued…

Patty Crowley - Lay Pioneer (1913–2005) by William Droel

Comment by Bill Lange

This forty-two page booklet is an excellent tool for discussion and for discerning the role for the laity in these dark times.  Patty Crowley, a Roman Catholic, was the co-founder of the Christian Family Movement (CFM) with her husband Pat. This is an account of the 'run-up' to Vatican II in Chicago and the post Vatican II 'burn out'. 

This short story of Patty's life has something in it for all faith groups doing organizing for social justice action.

Some quotes from the booklet:

“The birth control issue has ‘escalated into a position far beyond its importance.  War, peace, poverty and social justice seem more urgent … to Christ in the world.’”  Patty Crowley p. 24

“Patty likewise anticipated Vatican II’s emphasis on autonomous lay leadership as she considered relationship to the Chancery.” p. 29

 CFM analysis was inspired by the Cardijn movement in Europe; the mantra was experience based – observe, judge, and act. p. 6.

The Communion hymn for Patty’s funeral intoned – “CFM – emerges. Amen.”  “To spread a simple notion. Amen.”  “Observe, Judge and Act. Amen.” P.4

“In keeping with Vatican II theology, Christians who tackle social problems should ordinarily cooperate ecumenically.” “The Crowley’s understood this kind of practical ecumenism.”  p. 30

“In the summer of 1960 she (Patty Crowley) started a Democratic Women’s Club in Wilmette to promote the presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy.” p. 33.

This booklet can be ordered from the National Center for the Laity, P.O. Box 291102, Chicago, IL  60629 for a nominal donation.