On this day of unity, inclusion, and freedom—I am so honored to celebrate our oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the end of slavery in the USA. On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, to announce the slaves were now free! On that day, Union Major-General Gordon Granger read this General Order No. 3 to the people of Galveston:
The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.
As a Texan, I grew up celebrating Juneteenth and I am so dang proud of my home state for being the first to make Juneteenth an official state holiday on January 1, 1980. As a medical student I lived and studied a few blocks away from where this Order was read in Galveston.
I’m also proud of my med school. In 1902, UTMB/Galveston opened the first state-funded hospital for African-Americans in Texas. In 1949, my school graduated the first African-American in Texas, Dr. Herman A. Bernett. My medical school has been celebrated as the most diverse medical school in the country.
I’ve lived more than half a century as a healer on this planet and so on this day of freedom I want to share my reflections on race, unity, and love (originally posted on Facebook on June 4th amid the protests against police brutality).
I’ve loved and dated men & women of many colors, races, religions. I live with a black man now. We’ve been together 7 years. I raised a teen foster son—a black man. For a year, I had a homeless black man living with me. Here I am in 1985 with my high school boyfriend, Demetric.
Pamela and Demetric as young teens at the mall in Dallas.
We were both relatively innocent, and certainly young and hopeful. What I experienced with him opened my eyes to what I’d never ever experienced dating white guys. I was 16. He was 14. I was a senior. He was a freshman. We went to high school together in North Dallas near my house. He lived in South Dallas. Neither of us had a car so we walked everywhere and rode the bus to see each other. I recall these incidents as if they were yesterday:
1) Walking through North Dallas, we were often stopped by police (and other random people). They’d ask me, “Are you okay? Do you need a ride home?” Happened over and over again.
2) In stores like Neiman Marcus and even Woolworths security guards followed us around. Only happened with him. Never when I was alone or with anyone else.
3) My friend’s dad pulled me into a room and gave me an anti-miscegenation lecture (his diatribe against racial interbreeding). He recited quotes from the Bible to support his agenda. I thought he was nuts. I’d never belong to a religion that opposed loving someone. Turns out miscegenation was a felony in the US. When I was born (1967), exactly one-third of all states (17) had anti-miscegenation laws —all Southern states (former slave states plus Oklahoma) still enforced these laws. The anti-miscegenation law in Texas was overturned when I was two. it took Mississippi until 1987, South Carolina until 1998 and Alabama until 2000 to amend their states’ constitutions to remove language prohibiting miscegenation.
4) The thing that really stood out to me about my boyfriend’s behavior was that he held his head down in my neighborhood. He always said, “yes sir” and “yes ma’am” and he spoke really really softly. In his neighborhood he was so lively and expressive and free. I felt more comfortable in his neighborhood than mine. I had more fun there and I adored his family—especially his mom who adopted me as her Goddaughter. My neighborhood seemed stuffy and uptight. Demetric was clearly on high alert and scared. The police only stopped us in my neighborhood.
Now, 35 years later I’m with a man who lost his unarmed friend murdered by a cop at his home. My sweet partner below was pulled over by a cop and thrown to the ground with police dogs on him.
My partner around the time he was attacked by police
Why was he pulled over and attacked? He was making a left turn when the light suddenly turned yellow. So in broad daylight two police made him undress down to his underwear with dogs on him, calling him the N word. My friendly, loving, and sweetheart of a man now has PTSD. He tells me, “That’s why I don’t like to go outside.” We’ve only been out to a restaurant a few times in all these years. He feels safer at home.
My sweet partner with his daughter—a product of “miscegenation.”
So how are we going to address this as a nation? I don’t favor lashing out at others. I favor looking in the mirror at our own prejudice. Here’s what I mean . . .
Both my parents were upset that I was dating Demetric. Furious actually. Both disowned me during my first year of college. How could my own parents be racist? My mom said it wasn’t about race. It was about class. I’ve never cared how much money anyone I dated had in their bank account. Irrelevant to me.
How could me loving someone be SO disturbing to SO many people?
My maternal great grandfather was in the KKK and according to my relatives “hunted black men for sport.” I had a family member tell my current partner this to his face a few years ago. Racism is taught inside families and passed down from generation to generation. From there it seeps into police departments and every other profession.
Pamela and brother playing with kids at a fountain in downtown Philadelphia
I’ll close with a photo of me and my brother playing at a Philadelphia fountain with other kids on a hot summer day and a piece of my artwork with words I wrote as a child: “I love everyone.” All children start out this way—until they learn from their parents or society to hate and fear others.
One of my all-time favorite pictures I took for my high school photography class later featured in an exhibit at my medical school in Galveston entitled, “All God’s Children.”
Demetric’s youngest sister and her cousins
Pamela, you are amazing. The more I learn about your life the more I adore you. I want to live in a world where your partner can skip and dance his way to a restaurant without worry of terrorism. I was going to write ‘harm’, but no. We must call it what it is. Thank you for sharing your reflections, and giving me hope for a better future.
Peace & love, girlfriend. Wishing you and your family all best,
Deb
Dear Patricia,
I have been moved by your columns.I am touched by your empathy and courage.Predudice is so dangerous.Even the best of us is influenced by their peers.My parents were both Holocaust survivors so I always searched for understanding of how so many cultured German people could do such evil things.The influences were sometimes gradual.We must all Listen to our holy higher self.Guarding against the negative and lovingour brothers and sisters will protect our G-D like souls.
Some random additional comments from two men I just received by email I want to save particularly the first one:
1) “What a bunch of bullshit.” (I wrote him back curious about what triggered that comment)
2) Wow Pamela I did not know this about you. You just elevated yourself again. You are brave live your life on your terms. I so admire this about you. With deep respect and admiration
The first comment intrigues me to no end. Oh how I wish I could sit down with this man. What a fascinating conversation we could have. If you are reading this Joe B. I’ll take you out to dinner and let’s discuss. . .
Happy Juneteenth!
Please take a moment to read my sister’s reflection on race, unity, and love. I know this might sound weird, but Pamela Wible was one of the first white people that I was exposed to as a young kid growing up in the projects in South Dallas. She was my oldest brother’s high school girlfriend and like a best friend to mom. To be honest, she is one ☝️ of the main reasons why I’ve always been so open to different people and races—people have always just been people to me. Pam, thank you for always loving my family hard. I thank God for people like you. ? Real Love ❤️
BTW- I’m the little dark skinned girl in the picture on the end, sitting with my cousins in the projects, lol ?.
Oh this really means a lot to me considering a man named Joe B. just emailed me “What a bunch of bullshit.”
A few other memories of Beulah McDonald (and Beulah can you tag me on the above so I can add to my page what you wrote). So when I first met Beulah she was a slightly smaller version of the sweet littel girl on the left. I was in your house (I think I ran away from home and your mom lol thought I was a drug dealer and that I would somehow get your brother killed so she stayed up all night to keep track of me). 1) The very first time I met you I saw you sinking into the big couch in a dark room and I literally couldn’t even see you – kind a like you popped out of the sofa like a surprise. Well I’m sure I surprised you bc you said after a while “your nose like this!” and pointed to how the shape of my nose was off. funny! 2) This other time me and DD took you to North Dallas on the bus and you cried the whole time bc you wanted to go back to your neighborhood. Must of been a really weird vibe compared to what you were used to . . . and a few other memories involving some of your younger cousins I think . . . 3) I would end up at family gatherings and all these young kids (infant-toddler range) would put their hands on my face over and over again just feeling all over my face bc yep I;m pretty sure they never saw a white person before. Oh and with #2 and 3 your brother just kept laughing at me cause of how everyone kept staring at me, touching my face, touching my nose, and oh yea Byron McDonald just called me the “pale girl.” And then your dad wow! he always called me “Here comes Pam. She’s an educated girl.”
As I had replied to your email directly , I will say the same here.
The article was extremely moving and I admire your ability to put yourself out there. As we confront new deadly diseases to add to the baseline stress of too much work for too little time, this additional weight of facing racism w/in our personal and working lives is happening whether we want it or not. The first best thing I ever did was go to DC for college and medical school and it shook the white suburban bubble right out of me. The only way out of this institutionalized racism is by living and working and making friendships.
I think Ralph Ellison would be elated of what’s happening.
Exposure to others generally ends the xenophobia. So true.
I applaud your courage through all of these years, but it is hard for me to understand. Black culture is so entirely different, that it is hard for me to see inter-racial relationships working. The violence against Blacks is unforgivable unless one has the heart of Christ. But George Taylor was not a saint. He had Fentanyl and amphetamines in his bloodstream, and he was committing a crime. In other words, he was not setting an example for Black youth. Still, no crime could have justified his murder. But Black Lives Matter has to do more than make George Taylor a martyr. They need to raise up the Black community. How? Like Asian minorities have done, they need to make education a priority, and with that cultivation of respectful careers. Black men have to be fathers, not just sperm donors. There are too many black children who don’t have fathers to guide them, who don’t stay in school, and end up like George Taylor, in prison and using drugs. Asian minorities including the Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese, have been persecuted in this country, but they rose up despite the hatred and violence directed against them. The Black community has to raise itself up as well.
George Floyd? I think when you have intergenrational loss of families and absent fathers (due to economic and political oppression and more) you get some less-than-ideal behavior bc of vicarious trauma and untreated mental health issues that yes, transmit from generation to generation. My sweet foster son (who had some serious family of origin neglect and abuse) has ended up with multiple children from multiple women. He is a sweet person and he is an injured person and he is recreating what he witnessed in his childhood and all my helicopter parenting, love, prayers, and therapy I got him could not turn his life around. This happens in Native American culture (slaughtered by oppressive forces) and many other groups that lose hope. Hopelessness leads to despair and to addiction and mental health issues and some are resilient enough to recover. Others pass the tragedy of their lives on to the next generation. Takes a village to heal. I certainly don’t have all the answers. I do think healing requires love and not so much punishment.
god bless you
i am right with you
all the same color inside
our differences are for identification not separation
all the same color inside
different on the outside for identification and not separation
i was the police surgeon in new haven
phone call from a big black cop saying dr. siegel i am going to commit suicide
i knew i had to do and say something different to make a difference so i said
Jimmy if you kill yourself i’ll never talk to you again
15 minutes later he came screaming into my office telling me what an idiot i was he had a gun in his mouth
and i said such a stupid thing i thought he was going to throw me out my office window
i said Jimmy did you notice something
what?
you’re not dead
then he suddenly woke up and laughed and we became lifetime friends
he was into music also and on of our kids was a drummer and had some interesting visits to Harlem with Jimmy
bernie
Pamela, this was so moving! I marched in protests for justice today again in NYC. And again, l left amazed that we are in the year 2020.
I share your essay worldwide.
One day we will meet!
Hi Pamela,
So Beautiful!! Thank you for sharing your story and helping us celebrate Juneteenth. I’m glad to learn about your experience in loving the beauty and Humanity of Black people and giving testimony to witnessing the senseless hate and injustice many Black people. God bless you for bearing witness.
As a dark skin Black woman I know first hand the desire to want to just stay home sometimes for safety from potential emotional harassment or mistreatment. I hate being followed in stores and emotionally harassed because of my skin color. Now, the Constant police violence has taken it all to a different level of life and death.
I had a light skinned Black female partner who lived a very different Black experience from mine due to her light skin privilege. A whole other story. She never understood my trauma When we were together for four years. I hated going out to stores and always wanted to “stay home” She hated that about me and told me once that I “Just needed to get out in the world and take up space in it and stop being so timid” .im surprises we lasted four years. But years earlier O have fond memories of an white friend, coworker and college classmate spoke out when we were followed in a deportment store in Palm Springs. her Boyfriend dropped us off at the store and the minute we walked it we were followed. I’ll never forget the look on her face. She was livid. I was so uses to it. She started cursing them out and I had to try and calm her down — it was truly upsetting for her and she said I can’t believe you have gone through that all the time! Later, she went on a fell in love with and married a Black man ?. I was so proud of her for speak out about how dehumanizing that harassment was.
I never experienced a White friend validating my humanity like that so thank you for doing the same for the Black men you loved!
’m praying we will truly end racial hate and end the ignored practice of “the sport of it”. that attitude is deep. I wish more people could read your story of the intergenerational aspect of it getting passed down in families – still today.
Thank you again for sharing your story and celebrating Juneteenth. God bless to!
I’ve been trying to reply to you for 10 minutes… I’m speechless… I want to send you a thousand hugs. Thank you for sharing your words and experiences.
These are tough times. I am so hopeful though, that this time… this time, maybe we’ll see some actual change (fingers crossed).
Love and peace to you guys.
Ahhh LOVE you tooo!!!!
wonderful article, Pamela!
that happened to your sweet partner in Eugene???
wow! i lost my trust in the police when i lived in
Eugene. I discovered they were not there to protect…
not at all. so sorry that happened to him. please
confirm it was Eugene… i’d like to share your
article on ThoughtCrimeRadio.net… would that be
ok with you?
love, patricia
In LA – LAPD.
Thank you dear! I played in that fountain as a three year old. You know it was not to be used as a pool but everyone did it. I am 73 now. My mom moved from Hegerman St. in 1960 because the Real Estate mogals were pushing idea that Blacks were moving into the area. I rode my bike all over the neighborhoods and did not see any Black people. Like my son a generation later I wanted to see a “black” person. As he said, they are different shades of brown. But we moved to Browns Mills and you know the rest of that story.LOL The schools were full of all races, we had moved next to Ft.Dix, N.J. And my little sister fell in love with a Puerto Rican boy. He was Catholic, just like my mom wanted, except he was a little black. LOL.
Oh what was the name of that fountain? Where is it in Philly?
Wow! What a powerful blog! I love it! And Beulah is SO CUTE! ? She was my best friend freshman year in college, and I still remember sitting on the steps at Crumley dorm, talking DEEPLY about life! We had a lot of deep conversations about life, actually. =) Reading about more of her family just felt so warm! ? I really appreciate the history, & the other stories you told. It’s really breathtaking in a heartbroken type of way. I think everyone needs to read this for context, history, truth, & perspective. Oh yeah, and I’m also a product of “miscegenation.” Lol. Thank you for sharing this. Peace & Love. ✊?✊?
Ahhh so glad I could bring back some history and heartfelt moments for you and Beulah. Seems like some of this should be made into a movie! The spiritual connection I STILL feel from Albertha is amazing! She feels like she lives in my house with me. I could go on and on . . . but some of this might be too freaky to share online.
Thank you for sharing.
Dear Pamela,
thank you so much for this article. It was a great summery of historic events. For someone like me who is an immigrant from east, I never experienced or knew much about racism, before moving to US. It’s all new to me and makes absolutely no sense why people should be treated differently. I have a hard time teaching my young daughter about this concept. Your article was a nice summary. Thank you for sharing!
Love and hugs
I think there is a great benefit (for me and others) when sharing a personal historical narrative.
I love this story Pamela. I hope you don’t mind I reposted on my own page so others could enjoy.
Share everywhere! We all need healing now more than ever . . .
A beautiful story, Pamela!
I don’t understand the hate and the ongoing racism.
We all bleed the same color. We all cry the same color. We all pee the same color. There is beauty in everyone and everything. Every tree, plant, insect, animal. Why can people not find the beauty in each other?
I have a tattoo that says, “The divine in me greets the divine in you”
Rather than judge externally, seek the divine in others! That’s the message that needs to be taught and the action that needs to be lived.
Pamela-fascinating story and experiences and demonstrate typical human folly and cruelty in opposition of difference, something that is bad and must be denigrated minimized destroyed, rather than what it is in reality, an opportunity to learn, and to teach, and that is good. white people lack the experience and awareness of daily opposition to innate being wherein appearance alone is vilified for no other reason despite appearance having no effect on anyone else’s life. a black face is a semaphore, a flashing sign of a preconceived notion of virulent hate. very good you are sentient and aware and, just like a child, you unlearned hate. hate is not normal in children; it is taught by about 8y of age. a child sees inside where the person resides, ‘can we play?’ and not the wrapping. be well. cheers-Donald
Hi, Pamela,
Thanks for your recollections of growing up as they relate to race in America. Here are a couple of mine:
When we lived in Akron Ohio, my aunt and her husband were murdered by a black 18 year old who carjacked them and made them drive to a wooded area where he let them take out a rosary and a prayer book and shot them execution style. The kid had recently been released to a half-way house after doing time for a previous murder. He told police when caught that he wanted their car, ironic because they had borrowed one of their funeral home’s Cadillacs since their ratty station wagon was in the shop. My mother reacted to her sister and brother-in-law’s deaths by adopting their six children while maintaining them in their own home. Her hair fell out and she exhibited what would now be called PTSD. I sympathize with you and your guy, btw. PTSD is hard to have and hard to live worth, particularly for an extrovert. Soon after the murders, my mother and I were driving to the school she taught in and I attended, which involved cutting through a rough, all-black area, and she started shaking and shrieked at me to close my car window. As I rolled it up I looked out and saw a teenage black girl I knew from school who started to wave but looked hurt instead. Right then I decided not to let my life be ruled by fear. I haven’t always been able to manage this but it is a core value of mine and I try to get back to it when I fall down.
I was not allowed to play with another black girl who I thought was interesting, not because she was a grade ahead of me but because it wouldn’t be appropriate. The girl was Rita Dove, aka poet laureate of the USA (I forget the year, fairly recently). I haven’t seen or talked with her since, but she has motivated me from afar. If she could be a poet, why not me?
Last one is Practice Skin, below, which is a couple of years old. It was published in Silver Needle Press. I think the situation is the same, but maybe it’s improved. I did change “grand nephew” to “nephew,” fewer syllables. The Halloween story was real and I worried all that day and night, since they lived in Richmond Virginia and there had been ugly protests nearby recently. I’ve heard a rumor that there is now black practice skin, but that it is 3 or 4 times the price of the pink kind, but I haven’t been able to track it down. I can testify it’s hard to find. At the time I wrote it, 2017, I could only find one kind of black skinned sillicone thingie, a quite large penis, to be used for demonstrating how to put on a condom, in a health education aids catalogue. It was black like licorice, which I thought was strange, but its Caucasian twin was pink like cotton candy, so, oh well. Later, a subletter with a sense of humor gave me his Caucasian one, which he did not use for educational purposes, as a moving out present when he went to graduate school out of state. I keep it in my cello case to raise the neck up a little from a badly shaped neck pad in the case. Works great! and quite realistic except for startlingly large. Of course, I’ve only ever slept with academics…
I live in a pretty conservative neighborhood in a conservative city in a conservative state, and one of our conservative old men and I were talking about Juneteenth. After a little confusion, it became clear that he thought it was June 13th, because…well, I’m not sure why. When I corrected him he insisted on googling and was quite embarrassed.
I can definitely see why black people are exhausted.
Practice Skin
Surgical residents only practice stitching on bananas on TV shows.
Real surgical residents practice stitching on practice skin, an expensive rectangle of imitation skin, fat, flesh the size of a phone but thicker.
Some chunks of practice skin have embedded blood vessels or small tumors; some varieties re-seal themselves after being incised and clumsily sewn up. It happens overnight.
Practice skin comes in one color, a cross between skim milk, Barbie flesh, and Pepto Bismol. No other tints.
So here’s what could happen, hand to God.
My black four-year-old nephew could persuade his mother to let him dress up as a cop for Halloween.
He or any of his four-year-old friends who have also persuaded their mothers to let them be cops could get creative and find a plastic toy gun somewhere and spray paint it black.
My nephew is tall for his age.
Walking home on Devil’s Night, he could pull out the toy gun to show Officer Unfriendly and get himself gut shot.
At the hospital he could have to be operated on by a resident because it’s a busy night
and the on-call attending is bi-locating or maybe tri-locating, running two or three operating rooms at the same time.
And the resident might not have had a lot of practice on real patients after all October 31 isn’t that much later than July 1.
And the resident might have only practiced on light practice skin, since there are no alternatives,
aka Caucasian flesh tone and the bullet could have clipped my nephew’s appendix and the resident has to do his first purse string stitch ever, which spooks him.
But it’s ok and the resident harvests the bullet and backs out of the hole but gets confused up top
because my nephew’s skin is nothing like what he practiced on
and the resident is slow and he might not notice that my nephew is not perfusing
but the resident can’t see it because my nephew’s skin is not pink like practice skin
and the new anesthesiology resident might not notice either and neither of them are tuned to see the subtle blue under the dark top tone
and my nephew may leave the OR an organ donor,
valued at last for his identity.
Oh this is so poignant, Anne. Thanks for sharing this powerful piece.
This piece made me tear up reading it. Thank you for all that you do. You are such an inspiration. I am a family physician at a FQHC in Philadelphia. We spread the same message of equality and social justice attending to the underserved and marginalized in our community.
All the best,
Phil
That’s the fountain in Phila, I grew up around 4th and Cherry st, which was a Lutheran Church. It could have been one of several, there were pictures of me in a diaper, or even older with bathing suit in lots of the city fountains, until my mom remarried when I was 4. One was the Logan Square which is across from Science Museums and main Free Library of Phila but I don’t think that is the one in your picture. One was on the grounds of the Art Museum, among others downtown. Kids still play in them, mine did when we went to the main library which had all sorts of free programs during the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Art Museum one is off the first level of steps up which “Rocky” ran.
Philly had enclosed bathies, pools that charged a quarter in 1950’s that I remember and they had fountains.
PS, I always redirect your articles to others on my e-mail list, as I do not do social media like Twitter or Facebook. My first husband was a ex con and committed suicide. I can only tell people that even after 53 years there are moments that a survivor remembers out of the blue. I was only married about a year so long ago so I really can not imagine how parents, siblings and surviving spouses of medical people deal with the emotional loss.
I also want limited hours for the interns and residents. Sleep and treatment for the trauma they deal with is a must at least weekly. It is something a Shippensburg Univ. financial aid director said was needed in 1988 for EMT’s, police and firemen as he was a volunteer with the local fire company.
That is something that could save a lot of Black and other lives if cops and other frontline workers had a national labor law requiring it in every Podunk municipality. Rural hospitals have no union protection likewise police in rural areas. Emotional unbalance leads to over emphasis on the “Us versus Them” outlook that causes violence in policing. Curbside justice used to be the usual, but police are just to arrest not act as judge and jury. I was a Criminal Justice Major at Shippensburg Univ so our top professor pushed that as he was the first black state trooper in West Virginia. Roosevelt Shepard, also expected tough courses not easy ones that included Sociology, Psychology, even computer use as he knew that soon the graduates would be using computers even in their police vehicles back in 1986.
and thank you for your e-mail reports. six of the people who get your redirects are my federal and state elected officials. Also sent it to John Fetterman who I hope will be next governor of Penna
Wow! That’s AMAZING Helen!!!
You are such an incredible person Pamela keep up the good work
When I finished my I.M. residency in the UCLA system I was lured out to Dallas in early 1997 for my first job out of residency. I used to live off of Montfort Drive near The Galleria, and the clinic where I worked was near the 635/75 interchange, near Richardson. Coming from California, I had the impression that race relations and attitudes towards African-Americans were somewhat different in Texas that what I had been used to in California, so I can relate to what you describe. With my middle-eastern ethnic background, an olive complexion, and a Euro-sounding name I don’t experience what the African-American community does, but I myself had some interesting experiences in Texas in the late 90s. In those days I had at least a few unnecessary close encounters with the police (I was often questioned and patted down – nothing very bad, just annoying) and on at least a few occasions, within the context of a job interview, I had potential employers directly ask me to disclose my ethnic background, and to disclose which church I attend! They said they needed this information to determine whether their patients would feel comfortable with me as their physician. Shocking, huh? On the other hand, I believe that Dallas-Fort Worth (and probably Texas in general) has become more cosmopolitan and progressive over the past 20 years, and I suspect there has been some real progress there. I will say that I always liked the style of living and economic advantages in Texas, so to this day, although I am working in central Calif, I maintain an apartment in north Dallas as as permanent home.
Thank you for sharing these photos….I think that Demetric is pretty handsome (just speaking objectively, mind you), but I am very jealous of him because he got the gorgeous gal in high school (that’s you, of course), whereas I did not…..I had to wait until I met my lovely, bi-racial, former girlfriend in residency.
Thank you for telling and sharing your truth. Your writing is the way we will become educated and stop turning a blind eye to systemic racism.
I love the pix of your artwork! It is so pure. I hope you still have it.
We start out with so much love and inclusion in our hearts. May our country and world get back to that feeling state.