Graduate School and Denise
I went back to school at West Chester University in 1993. It took me five years to finish school because I could only take one course each term.
Cultural Sensitivity was my favorite class. This came years after the period of the downtown men and Joe and Ellen’s world. I was ready to get the most out of it. I took Cultural Sensitivity during one of the summer terms. This happens often–because class material is squeezed into a short period of time, the class sees each other every night, Monday through Thursday. Kind of like boot camp. Barriers come down and members form tight bonds that usually don’t last long. But the process of bonding is stimulating and I liked it a lot. This was particularly strong in Cultural Sensitivity because of the material we were studying.
We talked a lot about immigration and minorities. One thing that was pointed out fascinated me; why were Black people struggling so horribly while other groups who came from Europe and Asia excelled, i.e., Jews and Japanese immigrants? This was readily answered after doing a minimum of thought. Blacks were dragged here in chains, families severed, and men lost their identities as husbands and fathers, sold like animals in market places. Yes, this may have been “fascinating” but it filled me with horror. I knew these facts in an intellectual way but it became real at that time.
This made me want to cry; it hurt to think about it. But this particular course had a positive effect on me in the long run.
Denise was in my class and I can’t remember her last name. She was a light-skinned African woman who was ill with a disease of the liver. I can’t remember if it was cancer or something else. She was here to hopefully get a liver transplant.
We immediately loved each other…just one of those delightful connections that come into a person’s life like miracles. We sat together every night and talked and she told me wonderful stories about the life she had left behind. Full of dignity and very well-dressed, she told me that African women “wear” their dowry to let men know that they would come as a blessing to a marriage. Denise wore tons of jewelry on her arms, around her neck,in her ears, and in her hair. I couldn’t take my eyes away from her.
The professor who taught this class called me at a later time to inform me that Denise died because she couldn’t get a liver transplant. I probably would never have seen Denise again under any circumstances but this hurt. She had become a part of me. By befriending me she gave me the strength I needed after graduation to deal with Robert Martin and his family, in my job at the Devereux Foundation.
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