I heard this question several months ago, and yet, until now, it's stuck in my head, unanswered:
"These people need to be heard, too, don't they?"
So said a guest to the Forward Maryland podcast, off air, last fall. The "these people" referred to a group of citizens who were opposed to the local School Board's school redistricting plan.
These particular folks don't exactly appear to look or sound like the typical person without access to people in power, nor people who have much of a problem being heard. These are largely white, middle class to upper middle class (by Howard County standards) residents with families, in the Columbia villages of River Hill, Hickory Ridge, as well as areas with the postal town names of Maple Lawn and Clarksville, with a few Fultons, Laurels, and Scaggsvilles thrown in for good measure. This is a well to do area, the model of suburbia which has attracted many a family to Howard County.
And yet, here they were, upset and complaining about their lack of involvement in the local school redistricting process. The process, by my understanding, was largely done by a consultant in the local School System's employ, and the result consisted of the county being broken down into hundreds of "polygons", which represented a cluster of homes, a portion of a neighborhood, with so many kids and which would be assigned to an elementary, middle, or high school. These particular parents, therefore, were upset that their students from their polygons would be attending different schools, most notably, high schools. And so they were having their voices heard. And heard through every means possible-- appearance at School Board meetings, emailing testimony, personal phone calls to School Board members-- literally, every possible means one could have of, as AT&T used to say, reaching out and touching someone.
Such the facility in communication is not a hallmark of a powerless people.
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Over the next several weeks, I'm using this blog to share my experiences within Howard County in terms of social justice and community justice. By no means do I consider this to be an exhaustive recollection. However, having lived the vast majority of my 53 years here, and with my family approaching 70 years of residency in Howard County, and with my own 30 years of community involvement here, I feel I have a pretty holistic, exhaustive view.
Some may make conclusions different than I, or have different recollections and/or perspectives. That's fine. Suffice it to say that I find pretty much every single "ism" present within and throughout my time in Howard County. But within the next several posts, I will focus upon two in particular: racism and classism. Two societal ills that, as someone I know says, is as American as apple pie. And, which have been present in Howard County ever since, and even before, I can remember.
PART I: The 50s
Meadowridge Cemetery in Elkridge used to have a "whites only" section. I know this because that's what the deed said when my grandparents bought their four plots not long after my family-- paternal grandparents, great grandmother, and father-- moved from Baltimore City to Howard County in 1952.
Howard County was their country home-- their reward for lives hard worked. My grandfather worked construction for BGE and my grandmother worked in a glass factory, running machines that made cartons for different types of bottles and making sure the bottles got into their cartons. They were very salt of the earth, working class people. Very patriotic, very much a pro labor household. Very hateful of Hoover and Dewey and Nixon and loving of FDR, Truman and JFK.
And did I ever grow up in a racist household.
My grandfather died before I was born, but suffice it to say that in my house growing up, the N-Word was said about as frequently as the word "the". And even though I wasn't born until 1967, I'm guessing the behavior didn't onset due to the move to Howard County. And they were also terrific anti-Semites as well, which, in turn, they used to justify their racism because "Jews are white."
But, as racism is, it is illogical. Two babysitters of mine as a child was a Jewish co-worker of my grandmother's, as well as the African-American night watchman at the glass factory. And, when I was old enough to reason such things and be bold enough to ask, and I would ask my grandmother as to why she doesn't use those words about Jewish people and black people to "grandma Irma" or "Mr. Emmett", I was told that it's because there are "good ones and bad ones everywhere", and that she used those words towards the latter.
I thank you for the digression. But again, these were the mores with which my family moved to Howard County. Which was, at that time, largely a way station between Baltimore and Washington, with a 1950 population of about 23,000 and a 1960 population of about 36,000. At the time, that was a big deal, and my family was part of that growth.
As such, my family was looked at as "newcomers" to Howard County. And also, they didn't quite fit very well. My grandfather wasn't a veteran so he didn't fit in there. Nor was he a farmer, and Howard County was still vastly agricultural. Nor did my grandmother and great-grandmother fit the role of the ideal 50s wife. My grandparents' household was a two income household throughout the 50s while my great grandmother took care of my father. And two income households were not a thing in that day.
So the Woodcocks of Elkridge were looked at as outsiders. Not farmers, not part of the VFW, not Episcopalian or Methodist or even Baptist (we are Lutherans), living in their little home in "Upper Elkridge", about three miles west of Montgomery Road's intersection with US1. And as my family had moved out to Howard County for peace and quiet, they were perfectly happy with that. They had what they wanted.
Of course, the world around them had other ideas.
In Part 2, a New City forms!
