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Are you beyond Influence?

1980s

Dr. David Walton stood in front of his class at Flemington University trying to illuminate the relative difference between free will and determinism. Looking around the audience, he noticed Jason Wynn seemed to be deep in thought and might be a reasonable candidate to engage.

“Jason,” he asked, “Do you think the decisions you make are free from outside influence?”

“Yes, I do!” Jason answered emphatically.

“Well, in that case,” retorted Dr. Walton, “could you give us an example of a choice or decision you’ve made in the last week that was made independently of anything else in your experience?”

With some hesitation, Jason answered, “I decided to get up this morning and come to this eight o’clock class, even though I was tired and hungry and still am. That is an example of exercising my free will.”

“You might have been tired and hungry, Jason, but your history with this class significantly influenced your coming here today. Yes, you might have willed yourself to overcome your being tired and hungry, but coming here was controlled, if you will, by your experience. So your choice to come to class was not entirely free,” answered Dr. Walton.

With that, the small class burst into an animated analysis of the issue that ended with Dr. Walton working out an argument using a biblical analysis.

“Thou shall not kill, steal, commit adultery, or covet thy neighbor’s stuff, etcetera. These commandments are the bedrock of every civilized code, and if each of us violated them, anarchy would ensue. Under these conditions, civilization could not persist. So we live with the commandments, internalize them, and when we do, they become our conscience. We live with them and they become our moral law. We live with them and they become our civil law, and we even hire men and women with guns to make sure we follow them. We must have a regulating force or…”

“Do we have free will?” he tentatively concluded. “Heavens no!”

And with that, the class ended and filed out in lively conversation. Gathering his papers and with briefcase in hand, Dr. Walton left the building and headed toward the student center, where he briefly chatted with students and bought his morning coffee and The New York Times. Back in his book-lined office, he organized his day, which included some time spent in his laboratory and some time to peruse the travel section of the newspaper. This day, the spotlight story, “Paris in the Spring,” was just what he needed to break up the humdrum of a relatively successful life that had emerged from an unlikely beginning.

The Professor’s Story

Early 50s

As a child, David Walton was not so different from other black boys his age. His circumstances would not surprise anyone in his community. Almost all of them carried the same weight and had the same narrow future. There were dreams about the future, but those dreams were muffled by the long insidious shadow of slavery and the lingering oppression of reconstruction that pervaded almost every aspect of the African American experience. In general, black people were invisible throughout America and were persona non grata outside their communities. For most young people coming of age, the future was limited. What did pervade the community was the knowledge that their blackness was hated and reviled.

Generational hardship and pain were ever present and came in many forms. Never getting the value or products of their labor, as if both were a gift to humanity, offered as a thank-you for manumission. Stay where you are, where you belong, among other souls as black as yours. Don’t ask for more, else your memory of the lash will be made a reality. The reality of racism, of forced segregation and ownership of almost nothing, poisoned aspects of everyone’s life. A psychology of worthlessness was deeply ingrained and hidden from view but invaded every corpuscle of black private lives. Frustration and anger often exploded into aggression, and its pervasiveness offered a model of behavior for the impressionable. These things were so pervasive that proclamations, political action, and economic growth could only chip away at the hard crust of oppression. It would take time. It would take generations to outgrow. In the meantime, widespread impotence caused by social and economic injustices formed the cognitive maps that delineated and limited physical and aspirational boundaries beyond which one simply did not go.

Yet all around them was a world of plenty. No one had to look far to find it. Those with radios or televisions had it streamed into their understanding of what the world was really like outside of their narrow slice of reality. There were the laws that stopped blacks from participating in the so-called American dream. There were the false beliefs held by whites, insisting that blacks did not have the brain power or work ethic to do the jobs necessary to transform their lives. People felt trapped but continued to work hard to provide for their families. Many looked for help from above and found relief in the church, even though a worldly change in circumstances was not offered by the church. Some in the throes of this degrading reality vented the constantly accumulating frustration by not wanting to be black. Mimicking the poison that whites had injected into their veins by treating other blacks as the white man treated them was pervasive. It made them feel better calling another black a nigger or by copying the white man’s assessment of blacks by parroting that attitude in sayings like, “If you’re black, stay back; if you’re brown, stick around; if you’re light, you’re all right.”

David’s father, John Walton, was a man born of this history. A man who dragged it into his understanding of the world, and even though time might have given him a multitude of possible destinies, he died with a single identity carved from a past that, from his understanding, had not and would not change. The unconscious need to hide from life was his everyday reality. The mundane habits of a subsistence life melded into a long junk heap of days indistinguishable from one another. It did not have to be that way. He was aware of paths other than the one he was forced to take. But given his personal experience, he was not among the few who could avail themselves of opportunities that would make him slightly acceptable beyond the boundaries of blackness. Those doors were never open to him. The path he took required little, only a bit of luck. Unfortunately, he was not gifted with the kind of knowledge that would transform him into a person who might change the outcome of his life. After his move from the south, he tried. As a young man, he tried. For a few years, he was a fix-it man for a bus company. At his wife’s behest, whenever he was paid, he would always stop by a used bookstore, but he only bought picture books so he might see how the world looked. Unfortunately, the job only lasted a few years before the company went out of business. After that, his only hope was standing on the corner with other men, praying that someone needing a day laborer or semiskilled person would give them work. A person who couldn’t or wouldn’t pay the rates being charged by white tradesmen could get the same work done for less than half the cost. Since blacks were not allowed in any of the trade unions, men with real skills could be hired as a helper by a plumber or carpenter. The tradesmen would pay his helper much less than the boss was paid but the help would never be allowed into the union or get union wages. The helper could make enough to pay rent and feed and clothe a few mouths. Both women and men had people they worked for on a regular basis. Cleaning house, cooking, taking care of kids, or handling the physical upkeep of the house and garden were some of the jobs that kept the black community going. In any household, you might hear, “I got Miss Jane on Tuesday and Miss Talbert on Thursday,” or “On Monday and Wednesday, I got to oil the floor and clean the shelves at Mr. Mac’s grocery store,” and most of it was paid under the table. These hardworking men and women became grateful to Miss Ann or Mr. Charley for allowing them the opportunity to help feed their families. These attachments became so strong they often felt familial.

For David’s father, John Walton, luck did not come easily. For him, like others, it was a day-to-day effort. Getting up and searching for a job that might never come, and when it came, it was always something like sweeping the streets or sweeping out stores or digging ditches or doing a multitude of menial jobs that he knew were far below his mental ability. As time passed, nothing much changed. He had to grovel and often demean himself for the same menial jobs. When his wife died in childbirth and he decided to raise his only son, he tried, but nothing changed. Through all of his unsuccessful trials, he had become helpless. He believed nothing he could do would make a difference. In a word, John Walton became pathologically and chronically depressed. For him, the future was fixed by the past, and his behavior would not make any appreciable difference in his tomorrow. So he chose a behavioral repertoire that set him on the road to smallness and perdition, one that constricted life and made it anything but bearable. The darkness of his myopic character was set early, and it never changed. All that he could depend on was a monthly check from the welfare department, periodic visits from a social worker, and despite everything he wasn’t, a son who loved him.

It was a social worker who first suggested to John Walton that he might need a medical and psychological evaluation. If it was determined that he was a candidate for medication, he might be eligible for a free monthly supply. Trusting in the education and knowledge base of his caseworker, he agreed to the evaluation. Given his gloomy outlook and dispirited behavior, it was not surprising he was diagnosed and labeled with high blood pressure and clinical depression. He was told that taking the pills would make him do better, or at least feel better. So through state approved channels, the caseworker was able to get a pharmaceutical manufacturer to supply John Walton and others in need with medication for hypertension and depression.

For the first few months, John Walton felt better. There was a noticeable change in the atmosphere of the household. However, before long, he slipped back into a quiet lethargy that seemed to get worse.

In time, his son, David Walton, came to think that maybe his father’s medication might be doing more harm than good. Serendipitously, while reading a magazine in the school library, he read a brief article on the drug Lopresid and its efficacy. It said that the drug may work in the short term, but over time, it might do more harm than good. Upon checking what his father was taking, his worst fears were confirmed: his father was taking Lopresid. When checking with the social worker and with his father’s doctor, neither showed much concern and reassured David the drug was what his father needed. When he sent a letter to the manufacturer, he got nothing back but boilerplate touting the effectiveness of the drug. When he tried to get his father to stop taking the drug, he was unsuccessful. His father believed those in authority were much better able to know what was best for him. After all, the pharmaceutical company had smart people making medicine. His doctor was a smart man who knew about medicine and how it helped people feel better, and the social worker had his best interest in mind. There was no reason not to trust their judgment. However, this did not sit well with David, and his anger was ignited. But in short order, he realized that there was nothing he could do. Eventually the anger subsided, and David came to think maybe his own concern was exaggerated and all he was doing was making a bad situation worse. But even though his concern waned over time, he was nagged by a lingering suspicion.

David understood his father’s psychology but did not accept it as his own. He knew he would not allow himself to be seduced by the demons of the past. Even without assets or support, he had an inchoate optimism driven largely by his sports-oriented community that allowed a way out of the dreary box-like existence that offered little more than a driving need to escape. He had known only the hot, dank, heavy musk of a tiny apartment filled with the smells of fried pork and chicken parts and reused bacon grease that permeated almost everything but made him simpatico with his equally poor friends and playmates. Because of school, he saw the look of neatly frocked, well-groomed classmates and smelled the sweetness of their presentation, so he knew something of another path and wanted it for himself. To discharge himself from the legacy foisted on him by a history of societal sin, few doors were left open except those that led to sports or entertainment. He was aware these were the only gold rings he could grab. Luckily, David was the proverbial jock. He played every sport with grace and high intensity. Football, baseball, and basketball were the sports in which he excelled, and even though he was considered a gifted athlete, his aspirations were unknown, to himself or to his boosters. Years later, he confessed to a friend that he often played sports so he would not have to face going home to his father and the legacy of the oppression that had spawned him. Nonetheless, it was clear to all that his physical gifts were considerable and could take him far.

While taking the bus to the next town in search of a cobbler to repair his worn shoes, David happened upon a window sign advertising something he could not pronounce and knew nothing of. The sign read “Aikido,” a strange word that he could not place. He looked in the window with both hands cupped around his face to block glare, and a man wearing odd white clothes saw him at the window and waved him into the space with mats on the floor. Except for some black and red calligraphy that lined the walls and looked to be painted with a broad brush, all there was to see was a small Asian man and three others not much older than him throwing each other around on heavy mats with an ease and smoothness of motion that David had never seen—bodies thrown and hands pressed in prayer-like formations followed by a respectful bow. David did not know what to make of it. He could see, however, that whatever it was required skill. He was immediately drawn to it and wanted to learn to do what he saw them doing.

“Please come in,” said the man cloaked in white with an accent David guessed was Asian in origin. “I’m Sensei Kim.”

“What does Sensei mean?” asked David, a little unsure about whether or not he was welcome. Feeling uncomfortable being in a strange place was not a foreign feeling for a black kid away from home. There was always the likelihood that he would not be treated well. But even with that potential threat, David was not able to withdraw himself.

The man smiled, extended a welcoming hand, and said, “Sensei means teacher.”

“From the way things look, you teach wrestling.”

“No,” the man said softly. “I do not teach wrestling. I teach aikido,” he said with a sense of pride. “It is a Japanese form of self-defense and martial art that uses locks, holds, throws, and the opponent’s own movements to subdue him. Would you like to try?”

“Sure. What do I have to do?”

“Nothing,” said the man, who held out a hand to meet David’s in friendship, but in a blink, David was on his knees in pain, begging to be let go. It happened so fast that he found himself in disbelief, wondering how such a little man could so quickly subdue a six-foot-tall athlete in prime condition. When Sensei Kim released him, he stepped back and bowed. In the time it took to recover his lost sense of pride and appreciate his sense of amazement, David thought of a hundred questions.

“How did you do that? Will you teach me how to do that?”

“What you have just seen was a tiny demonstration of the science of aikido. It takes time, patience, concentration, and self-control. If you have respect for others and aikido as your friend, you will be able to walk through the world unafraid and unmolested. If you are willing to join the dojo and take the practice of aikido seriously, be here next Tuesday at three o’clock and we will discuss fees and appropriate dress and begin your instruction. So goodbye until then.”

David said goodbye to Sensei Kim. He waved to the students and turned and walked toward the street, so excited he could hardly contain himself. Except for baseball, some small jobs and the light demands of school, he would spend most of his time studying and practicing with Sensei Kim. Through it all, he never told anyone of his involvement.

In a high school counseling class designed to help students think strategically about their futures, students were asked what professions they would like to pursue. As in all his classes, David found himself one of the very few black students. Students would have to present their aspirations in a report before the class. Influenced by their professional parents, other students wanted to be doctors, lawyers, engineers, or other professions they thought would be interesting or exciting. One by one, they stood up to share their hopes and dreams. Then David was asked to stand.

“David, what would you like to be?” the teacher asked. David stood, nervous, not knowing what to say but knowing that a few things were true. He had not done his homework and he was willing to admit it. That was not the question before him. Also, he knew what he did not want to be. He did not want to be a day laborer; he did not want to be invisible or treated with disrespect. He finally answered.

“I don’t know what I want to be.”

“You must have some idea. Everybody wants to be something. Everybody has a dream.”

He tried to think, but nothing came. Time seemed to move slowly as he was caught up in a vortex of embarrassed confusion and the expectations of the class waiting for him to speak. The warm day and the closed windows heated the room, and David pulled at his collar.

“I don’t know what I want to be. I just don’t know.”

He could feel the unsympathetic eyes judging his irresponsibility in not having done the homework or his stupidity for not having an aspiration. Or the sometimes spoken accusation that he was just another shiftless “coon” from the projects going nowhere. Either way, as the room got hotter, he was frozen with feelings of inadequacy, and the only way out was hostility toward the teacher.

“You must participate like everybody else, David,” she said insistently. “So say something, even if you have to make it up. I want you to stand there until you do.”

“I don’t know what I want to be. Please stop asking me.” All David had left was anger. All he wanted to do was fight.

Uncharacteristically, David gathered his nerve and defied her.

“I won’t stand here and be embarrassed and belittled by your insistence. Leave me alone.” He walked out of the classroom and out of the school. The students and the teacher were surprised. Some were dumbfounded, others laughed, and still others said they would have expected nothing more given who he was and where he came from. The next day, upon returning to school, he was suspended for a week for leaving school without permission.

David’s experience in the counseling class cut him so deeply that he never spoke of it. To be put on display and humiliated was beyond anything he would ever allow again. His remaining time in high school was affected because of it. He did little and spent no time doing the things that would put him in good standing for graduation. He seldom carried books, he played hooky often, and he depended on friends to tell him when tests were scheduled. He always perused his books just before an exam but always did well enough to get a passing grade. He also wrote a term paper for a history class but did little more.