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Elizabeth
MacKenzie Hebron, Michigan
Dear Jessie,
I'm writing this
letter so you will understand why I am against the war in Iraq.
Like so many other Americans, I think, we should have
negotiated, nor should we continue to keep our soldiers there. Power,
oil, and greed are not good enough reasons for so many people to be
killed. It's not only our soldiers who are dying; innocent Iraqi families
– mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons – are being killed
there every day, too.
I know the idea that
our country could do something bad is hard to understand. But in this
case, I believe that we are continuing to do bad things every day we keep
our young men and women in Iraq. This is why everyone,
even ordinary people like your Granny, must try to stop our country from
doing things we will be ashamed of one day.
Some people will tell
you that we are fighting terrorism with this war in Iraq. The
truth is, this country is no safer from
terrorist attacks than we were before we invaded Iraq.
So, ask these people
how they think this war is making our country a safer place to live. Some
people will tell you it is unpatriotic to criticize your own country. If
those same people tell you that two plus two equals four, and that a red
light means stop, you can believe them. Anything more complicated than
that, you should ask questions until you are sure you understand all of
the answers. If everyone keeps asking questions, we might avoid having
our country continue to do bad things, and we could succeed in doing so
many good things together.
When I was a
teenager, this country was involved in another unjust war – the war
in Viet Nam.
A lot of the boys I went to school with were drafted against their will
and sent to Viet Nam
to fight. Many of them never came back – they died fighting in a
war our country had no right to enter into in the first place. Of those
who did come back, too many were never the same – they were crippled
physically and emotionally for the rest of their lives. Some of them,
called draft dodgers, believed so strongly that the war was wrong that
they left our country and went to live in Canada.
In real life, right
and wrong are not always as clear as in the fairy tales I loved to read
when I was a little girl. It was easy to tell the good guys from the bad
guys. In real life, good people can do bad things, and bad people can do
good things. Nothing in the world is ever black and white, but many, many
shades of gray. Sometimes, it can be very hard to understand the reasons
why things happen, like this war in Iraq. That's why I will
continue to oppose the war in Iraq, and to ask questions,
and keep asking them until I am satisfied with the answers. I want to leave
the world you inherit from my generation to be a better place.
Love and hugs,
Granny
************************************************
Peg
MacIntire, Florida
Dear little one,
I do not know you. I do not even know your name. But I love you because
you are my son-in-law's daughter. My daughter, Jil, passed away,
childless. Your Dad went on to marry your Mom. So although you are not
legally mine, you hold a very special place in my heart.
I am American, you Italian. I am Jewish, you Catholic. I live in the USA, you in Italy.
Way back in l937, my 27-year old brother, Jo Dallet, died in Spain, in
a desperate losing battle against fascism. Mussolini and Gen. Franco were
friends. You will learn this from your history books, when you are old
enough to go to school.
Later, in l952, when my husband, Gordon McIntire, was offered a job in Rome with the Food
& Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, my first reaction
was very negative. I was afraid we would be met with both religious and
political prejudice, but it turned out very differently. (We had trouble
with our own government, but not with yours.) We found friendship,
beauty, good food, good wine, good skiing...I
have wonderful memories of more than 20 years in your beautiful country.
So my advice to you is: GIVE LIFE A CHANCE!
Take risks. Live passionately. Do your best at all times, seek and give
cooperation, think for yourself, study hard, play hard, work hard, and
love whatever you are doing. There will be peaks and depths. That's life.
But in the long haul, if you make the right choices and obey your own
instincts, I pray you will become an active young woman, doing your very
best in every way to make a safer, happier and healthier world.
Granny Peg (96 years old on October 2, 2006)
PS October 2 is also Gandhi's birthday.
****************************************************
Lauretta Brandes Freeman, New Jersey
Dear Brandis,
I’m so glad
that you said that you’d like to see some of my life story.
I’m sending you a chapter from the middle part of my life.
I was essentially a
shy person. So this story is very important to me. I was really pretty
scared going to talk to all my neighbors. But I had friends who supported
what I was doing. And I just knew that it was right for people to live
together in a friendly way.
Life does present
many challenges. It feels so good to be part of something that has the
possibility of working out well for so many people.
Love
Grandma Lauretta
A Chapter from the Life Story of Lauretta Brandes Freeman
It was 1963. I was
living in the first house owned by anyone in our family. It was on an
ordinary street in the suburbs. Babies were walked in their carriages in
the morning; bridge games occupied couples in the evening.
Then we started receiving
the telephone calls. Neighbors asked each other “Did you get a
call?” “Yes”. “Did you get a call?
“Yes”. “What did they say?” We each had gotten
the same call. It was from the realtor named Howell from the next town.
The message was always the same. “I’ve just sold a house up
the block to colored people. Don’t you want to put your house on
the market, too?”
We didn’t want
to move, but we had heard that property values go down when
“colored people” moved onto a block. Then, I remembered
reading a local magazine article about another community in New Jersey. They
too, were being pressured by realtors to sell their houses. They had put
signs in their windows reading “This House is Not For Sale.”
I obviously needed to know more. I found the magazine and called the
person mentioned in the article for information.
He told me that
property values only go down when a lot of people moved out in a short
length of time. In fact we discovered that property values went higher
when blocks became racially desegregated because housing for minorities
is scarce and they are often willing to pay higher prices for their
homes.Several neighbors and I got together and took on the job of sharing
our information with the others. We felt it was important to keep people
from selling in a panic to enrich the realtor.
I remember going out
on a rainy day. I had a new red umbrella from Paris , which I had just gotten as a present. I rang the
doorbell of each of the neighbors up and down the block. We talked about
how much we loved our homes. We agreed that our homes were not changing.
We decided not to be forced out. Many did put up signs, “This House
is Not for Sale.”
Some did not. A few families even moved out in a panic.
I called the
president of the NAACP and asked her to speak to local realtors. She did
and they agreed not to rush in with prospects.
There are 40 houses
on the block. We invited all the residents to a meeting to discuss the
situation and to get to know each other. The first year we met monthly.
Each person was asked to bring something important to their family.
I remember that my
neighbor on my right brought one of her prizewinning roses. I brought a
tomato. Having lived all my life in New
York City the fact that I could grow an edible
tomato was very special to me.
Two of our new
neighbors came, too. She and her husband were African Americans. She
worked as a model; he was an attorney in town. They brought a picture of
the Eiffel Tower which they had just visited
on their summer vacation.
After the first year of
monthly meetings, the group decided to choose a president family each
year, done in alphabetical order.It was also decided to have a block
party each year, the first weekend after Labor Day.
It’s been more
than 40 years. All the residents look forward to the party. Each
president family takes the responsibility. The whole block is closed off.
The young children love to ride their trikes in the street. Each family
brings food. It is wonderful. This past year we had plantains from Jamaica, dumplings from Korea, sticky rice from Iran and
many other generous multiethnic delights.
Many new white
families have bought homes as African Americans needed to leave. They
feel that living in an integrated neighborhood is a plus for their whole
family. Children growing up on our block are truly free and comfortable
among all kinds of people.
Being part of making Stephen
Street the “friendliest block in
town” has been a highlight of my life.
*************************************
Dorothy Bryant, California
Dear Willie,
In 1942, when I was just a little older than you are, Yoshio
disappeared from my seventh-grade class. At recess that day about six of
us stood in the schoolyard talking about him. Donny, one of the slow
learners in our class, said he didn't understand what our teacher had
told us. "I don't get it," he said. "Why did Yoshio have
to go away?"
I was at the top of our class. I could recite everything that our
teachers, our parents, and the newspapers said. I explained that, since Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor, San Francisco might be next; Japan was
not a democracy like ours, it was ruled by an emperor who was worshipped
as a god; this religious worship made Japanese believe they should do
anything for the emperor. My classmates nodded, a little bored at hearing
it all again.
All except Donny, who wrinkled up his forehead, shook his head
slowly in confusion, and asked, "What has all that stuff got to do
with Yoshio?"
Then someone yelled, "I found the ball," and everyone
ran off to start a game.
I just stood there alone for a minute, turning hot with rage. Then
I turned cold with shame. My stomach turned over with disgust-for myself.
I, the smart one, had swallowed everything I was told, and then had given
it back, word for word, like passing a test. Donny, the dumb one, had
asked a simple question that blew my little speech apart, showed me that
our government, our teachers, our neighbors, our
parents-none of them bad people-were lying to us and, worse, to
themselves.
I wish I could tell you that I went around asking Donny's question
everywhere, but I was afraid to. I knew that I would just make the adults
very angry at me, because, deep down, they knew they should be asking the
same question: why were Americans like Yoshio and his family being put
behind barbed wire in desert camps? That unasked question sank into a
great silence that lasted years and years-until it was broken,
leaving a terrible shame that became part of our history, yours and mine.
I never forgot Donny, and I try not to forget the lessons he
taught me: that being smart is harder and deeper than filling in the
blanks on a test; that smart people in the highest positions can be
wrong; that asking a simple, "stupid" question takes courage,
because people get angry if you catch them lying or showing their
ignorance. Above all, I try to remember that there are no stupid
questions; what's stupid is swallowing whatever you're told and repeating
it without making sure you understand it.
If people tell you that two plus two equals four, and that a red
light means STOP, you can believe them. Anything more complicated than
that-ask questions until you're very sure you understand. Just asking
might stir up some hidden truth, and that truth might start other people asking
more questions. And if everyone keeps asking questions, we might avoid
doing some bad things. We might even manage to stop someone else from
doing bad things, and, best of all, succeed in doing some good things
together.
Love, Grandma
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