Who children choose as their childhood heroes reveals much of their character and their upbringing. Harriet Tubman, the brave woman who led many to safety along the Underground Railroad, was one of mine.
Considering that I am a white woman who grew up in the Upper Perkiomen Valley, a mostly rural area about 45 minutes away from Philadelphia, this choice may seem an odd one. However, to me she was one of the most logical people to emulate, for I saw her as key in the struggle to bring about equality for minorities in America.
You see, I grew up a rather naíve child who believed in the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.
I believed that when slavery was abolished and the right to vote was given to all citizens of the United States of America; that all black people in America were equal to whites. I believed racism died in the '60s with the triumphs of two more heroes, Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks.
I grew up listening to the music of Charley Pride and Ray Charles as well as Kenny Rogers and Bobby Vinton and I watched "Fat Albert" on Saturday morning avidly, so I thought it was accepted that all people were created equal.
Maybe "na�ve" is an understatement, with "ignorant" being a better term to describe my innocence.
I'm sad to say that during my freshman year at IUP, the horse blinders I was apparently wearing the first 17 years of my life were pulled off the day I saw something along the lines of "Die Whitey!" and "Black Power!" spray-painted on the stairwell walls in Elkin Hall.
I can still feel myself standing there, soaking this in and crying on the inside, "What did I ever do to deserve this?" That day I started to understand that the pleasant world I believed in, where we all are truly equal, was a sham.
Since then, I learned more of the continuing problem of racism in America and around the world -- tales of others, who also didn't deserve this treatment, who were persecuted because of their race, gender or religion.
I now see this world as it truly is: a hotbed of strife that is waiting to explode along with Mount St. Helens.
Yes, I did create an idyllic world, a world that is as much a fantasy as that of Middle Earth, but weren't you hoping, just for a minute, that my fantasy world was real?
I wish I could write a blueprint for how to make this world come true!
All I can do is dream, try to love the people around me, regardless of any differences, and continue to teach my son that despite what he sees and hears in school or on TV, all people really were created equal.
And, if others share my dream and implement it in their lives, maybe my son will someday live in Mommy's fantasy come true.
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