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An Other's Mind
An Other's Mind
An Other's Mind
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An Other's Mind

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An Others Mind is a landmark and brilliant piece of research on Social Policy and its relationship with covert and overt institutional racism. Professor Quiros addresses everyday racism in corporate America, not-for-profit agencies and academic settings. It is written with a combination of depth and clarity of the haves and have nots. He gives clear examples of discrimination, oppression and poorly integrated aspects of self and proposes ways we can arrive at a more clear-eyed vision of a truly democratic nation. His building blocks are historical theories and live case studies of various situations that demonstrate both the tragedies of omission and neglect perpetuated by the elites in our society. Quiros passionate and intra-psychic experience in conjunction with his detailed research, evident in our everyday lives as he presents it, is a real eye-opener for the United States and its myriad of cultures and people.


Maria Muoz Kantha, PhD, LCSW is an activist, educator and Mental Health Consultant in NYC
LanguageEnglish
PublisherAuthorHouse
Release dateJan 14, 2011
ISBN9781452075419
An Other's Mind
Author

Luis Quiros

Born of Puerto Rican blood, raised on the streets of Harlem, author Luis Quiros has striven throughout his life--as a scholar, activist, community organizer, social commentator and educator--against the pro forma marginalization of himself and others. Yet he has never forgotten his humble roots, has never strayed from those who are struggling and at risk; ever remaining a friend and tireless advocate for every person's right to his own dignity, humanity and hope for the future. An award-winning professor of sociology, Vice Chair of the Lower Hudson Valley Civil Liberties Union, four-term Board Chair of the Westchester Community Opportunity Program, Quiros holds Masters degrees in both Social Work and Public Administration as well as a Bachelor's in Business Administration, all of which when combined give him a multifaceted perspective on social justice issues and the efficacy of public policy.

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    An Other's Mind - Luis Quiros

    AN OTHER’S MIND

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    LUIS QUIROS, MPA, MSW

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    AuthorHouse™

    1663 Liberty Drive

    Bloomington, IN 47403

    www.authorhouse.com

    Phone: 1 (800) 839-8640

    © 2011 Luis Quiros, MPA, MSW. All rights reserved.

    No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

    Published by AuthorHouse 09/05/2017

    ISBN: 978-1-4520-7540-2 (sc)

    ISBN: 978-1-4520-7539-6 (hc)

    ISBN: 978-1-4520-7541-9 (e)

    Library of Congress Control Number: 2010913617

    Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

    TABLE OF CONTENTS

    Introduction

    Foreword

    Reactions

    Acknowledgements

    Chapter 1   Twists of Fate

    Chapter 2   Reality Challenges Perceptions

    Chapter 3   Mount Turns Nostalgic

    Chapter 4   Where Was This Nation?

    Chapter 5   Century Framed For Civil Disobedience

    Chapter 6   Antidote

    Chapter 7   Horrific Consequences and Decisions

    Chapter 8   Commitment to An Other’s Mind

    Chapter 9   Globalization’s Conscience

    Chapter 10 History Written in the Present Tense

    Chapter 11 Delivering Social Justice

    Epilogue

    INTRODUCTION

    Among all the human and societal challenges evident over the ages and even to this day, our struggle with difference and intolerance must rank among the most complex and impenetrable. Difference adds luster to our lives. Difference also haunts us in the form of stereotypical and antisocial assumptions about race, ethnicity, religion, gender, age, class, culture, politics,… In the midst of our struggle is the temptation to conclude that no one is freed from the risk of discrimination on the basis of difference. As Luis Quiros laments in this thoughtful and passionate literary journey chronicling a life filled with vestigial and present day discrimination, his quest to both understand and mitigate discrimination, especially racial and ethnic discrimination, has always been met with moral rationalization in the form of We all suffer from discrimination, so move on.

    It is true. Our propensity for choice and preference and discrimination is a fundamental human behavior. We choose friends and lifelong partners and in doing so we may reject others—all part of the Darwinian dance we seem programmed to pursue. But, for some, the consequence of choice and outright discrimination is more burdensome and inescapable. For those facing racial and ethnic discrimination (especially among non-English speakers), such circumstance is dramatically different from discrimination based on other differences. One cannot disguise the color of one’s skin nor the form of one’s language. And, that is at the heart of Luis Quiros’ inquiry: can we ever get beyond hateful, unquestioned discrimination especially that based on race and ethnicity?

    Quiros’ query is not a simple one. Writing about discrimination typically assumes one of two rhetorical styles. One often emerges as an abstract and sometimes pedantic exercise devoid of the very real, emotional, and visceral nature of everyday discriminatory experiences. Another is the often painful and even vitriolic cry for understanding conveyed by the portrayal of very personal experiences absent the capability to pause, reflect, examine, and allow for objective assessment. Luis Quiros has managed to navigate this dichotomous stylistic dilemma as he weaves a narrative which strives to bring meaning to his sometimes painful personal experience as a Latino through introspective connections with the scholarly work of others. In doing so he succeeds in marrying emotional and moral outrage with reason, with the result that the reader is offered a literary experience steeped in feeling and studied reflection.

    —Joseph M. Pastore, Jr., is currently Professor Emeritus in Residence at Pace University, having spent more than four decades in higher education at St. Bonaventure University, Saint Louis University, Boston College, and Pace. He also served for two decades as the U.S. District Court Special Master and Monitor in U.S. v. Yonkers overseeing the Order to Desegregate the Yonkers (NY) Public Schools.

    FOREWORD

    In his book Breach of Faith, Theodore White observed that if you take away the myths of, say, France or Germany, you still end up with Frenchmen and Germans. Which is to say, beneath whatever pretensions the nations of the world may harbor there lies the centuries of common culture, history, and often race that make the people of those nations distinctively who they are.

    The United States, on the other hand, is alone in not having been founded upon any of these commonalities but, rather, upon an idea. And an idea that debunks the primacy of common culture, history and, particularly, race, as a requisite for full and equal citizenship. To put it bluntly, there is no such thing as an American in the same sense that there are Frenchmen or Germans and such. It will probably take another thousand years of history before there is. So we tend to cling to our myths—even in the face of all evidence to the contrary—because without them we are simply a vast heterogeneous assemblage occupying the same piece of terra firma.

    This goes a great way toward explaining the persistent duality that thrums through the United States of America’s peculiar national psyche; one side of the brain demanding that we actually live up to the myths we purport to be about and the other side flatly declaring that we have and do. It is under the rattling of these two swords that one swatch of citizens or another, for some more consistently, find themselves dashed to the margins; rendered little more than fodder for the argument the United States is having with itself. And it is in the trenches of this ever-evolving internal conflagration that Luis Quiros, professor, activist, community organizer, plies his sharp insights and foremost passions as he lays into the sad and special pain that is a United States citizen trying desperately to be that as yet unformed thing that is actually, in spirit and soul a true American.

    —Lee Stringer, award-winning author of Grand Central Winter: Stories From the Street; Like shaking Hands With God, and Sleepaway School, Stories From a Boy’s Life.

    REACTIONS

    Dr. Franklin admired Luis’ determination and tenacity. He once told me that if there were five of me, I’d definitely have one of me spend more time with Luis. There was a common thread woven through their character of humility, grace, justice, and human kindness that made their friendship particularly unforgettable.

    Sincerely,

    Charity V. Greene

    (prev) Executive Assistant

    John Hope Franklin

    An Other’s Mind is a landmark and brilliant piece of research on Social Policy and its relationship with covert and overt institutional racism. Professor Quiros addresses everyday racism in corporate America, not-for-profit agencies and academic settings. It is written with a combination of depth and clarity of the haves and have not’s. He gives clear examples of discrimination, oppression and poorly integrated aspects of self and proposes ways we can arrive at a more clear-eyed vision of a truly democratic nation. His building blocks are historical theories and live case studies of various situations that demonstrate both the tragedies of omission and neglect perpetuated by the elites in our society. Quiros’ passionate and intra-psychic experience in conjunction with his detailed research, evident in our everyday lives as he presents it, is a real eye-opener for the United States and its myriad of cultures and people.

    Maria Muñoz Kantha, PhD, LCSW is an activist, educator and Mental Health Consultant in New York City

    ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

    I am often asked why I decided to write this book. My most honest answer, after dedicating more than a decade to this endeavor is: because in searching for my freedom I had to find yours. In fact, the realization that my voice had to be heard for the good of all Others required me to write this book.

    Among the first people to acknowledge would be my dear friend and mentor Dr. John Hope Franklin who has been the main character in the process of my becoming. His suggested leave outs or put ins, made a huge difference not only in what I wrote, but more importantly, they reaffirmed my feelings and my journey. Dr. Franklin’s words, advice, brilliance and memory give this final product the signature of our friendship. For the time I was able to spend with Dr. Franklin, I must thank Charity Greene, who contributed to making every visit possible as well as keeping the memory of our friendship alive.

    I am indebted to my students who took their own journey in reading the early stages of the book. Without their responses and dialogue I doubt I ever would have completed it. Among the hundreds of students throughout the many years I devoted to writing and editing, there was Alec, Leyden, Janaya, Ana, Amelia, Matt, Danielle, and Jessi. What students taught me was that the book, for the most part, created a shared experience, though we are different in our own right; we prove that this nation’s survivorship depends on our journey away from sameness.

    To Guisela and all Others who have shared their stories with me about their lives and struggles as immigrants raised in the United States, I thank you for exemplifying and confirming the need for our words. You have shown me how crucial it is for young people to take over and make this nation a better place.

    For the many that have come into my life looking for help, just a way to escape the darkness of silence, this book is your sounding board and your testament. Among them the Latinas who participated in Project Madres in Mamaroneck, NY, your journeys provided me with an additional incentive for the completion of this book. There were also those individuals at WestCOP who move the corporate engine every single day, Vivian and the rest of the rank and file employees, your support kept me strong when all that seemed logical was throwing in the towel.

    I thank the NYCLU, and in particular Don, Colin and Li Yun for access to scholarship and taxing questions. Together, and as informal editors, they consistently reminded and inspired me to evaluate the power of each word.

    To Lee, the visionary whose friendship always turned a social visit into finding more wisdom.

    Laura, who I often thought: "what would she think?" before writing any further.

    Jeffrey for making sure I covered all the bases in getting this book out.

    Julian for discussing every page with me. Thanks for your insight.

    Martha for not spending a second telling me that things won’t change, but instead that I should pursue that change.

    Carla, for showing me the freedom in which you negotiate this world.

    CHAPTER 1

    TWISTS OF FATE

    On July 2, 1997, when I was fired from a job I did well—and at which many failed—I became driven to find out why my lifelong process of becoming seemed to be filled with punishing consequences. I guess what I had not learned was the degree of difficulty in understanding and preventing a European mindset from defining and viewing me as Other and treated as excess population, without surrendering who I was.

    So I retraced my life to find new knowledge that could help me predict when and where negative-based experiences might recur so I could avoid venting my frustration the wrong way. Without a different approach in dealing with my anger I was aware that I might find myself out on the street, alone, without resources and unable to defend Others also experiencing similar frustrations.

    Strategies included reading and rereading English literature, history, philosophy, religious studies, sociology, law, and the work of community organizers, social workers, and mental health workers. Most important was speaking to Others from distant places and college students about commonalities. As Others we often concluded that the start to our punishing consequences couldn’t have been what we did, didn’t do, should, or could have done. We also agreed that our struggles caused by the barriers to equality must have some reciprocal effects upon the oppressors. Where there had been hidden culprits and false perceptions, we personally wanted to expose and hold people accountable whom had prevented us from giving tomorrow its appropriate attention and often kept us thirsty before building our wells.

    However, before I could expose and hold people accountable I had to learn to recognize and understand power language, whose clever application upon Others distorts the truth. Without that, my aim—to expose the nation’s passion for horrific social and historical myths, i.e., Western civilization is superior and Americans are European in origin—supported by billions of dollars of research on teaching methods only to arrive at suggestions that are malicious or so obvious, some even silly, attempts to compromise the fundamental right of Others’ scholarship and empowerment. The lesson that became evident to me was that: "The purpose of education in class society is not to educate. It is to give ‘the educated’ a stake in thinking they are going to be different than [O]ther people who work all their lives."¹

    Among those myths, the ones I despised the most were those that protected a one-size-fits-all mindset—a product of the melting-pot syndrome. The simplification of this complex modi operandi, modo de operar, or assumption that they were already aware of the many social issues being confronted by us had had its tenure with me. Though it took many years, concepts that you can produce equality while combating Otherism and propagandizing sameness² became easily detectable to me as racist, stress-inducing, and traumatizing. No longer was I going to allow people to tell Others different from them to participate in a process that would reshape them to be as civilized and moral as they are.

    For combating this one-size-fits-all myth I often retraced the power structure’s profiling strategies. For example, by putting myself at risk (and knowingly committing an irresponsible and ignorant act), I equated White-collar crimes during the mid to late 1990s as a cultural problem inherent to the race that dominated its apparent successes—crimes by the men wearing suits. As men scammed millions—and billions—I waited for branding, stereotype, and authorship of the economic collapse of this nation as being White; and equal to the same military force used when they landed on the shores of this nation; and with the same social intensity that defined Black and Brown as unsophisticated, lazy, prone to crime, and welfare dependant.

    This nation’s strategy of ethnic profiling became one tool of many employing the new racism—not a color-conscience racism that relied on strict racial segregation such as White only signs—but the racism with moral arguments that promoted equal opportunity while undermining the use of racial and ethnic categories. Being colorblind is an example; lasting avenues for advancement are not provided, and in fact, use logic to avoid addressing the need for affirmative action, reparations, and even empathy.³

    The power behind this new racism carried its force by preserving some of the universally accepted and clever economic justification of the old racism. As, for example, "all things being equal"(condiciones estando igual) though the things (aunque las cosas) referred to, (de que estan hablando), had unequal access and harder for poor people to obtain, (nunca se puede conseguir en las misma condiciones que ellos tuvieron). The more recent and extremely complex dialogue to extract its racial component included the imagery or choreography of leveled playing fields, (el lugar del juego de competicion esta igual). Here, we often learned after years of frustration and disappointments that the pursuit of happiness for people in the middle- and lower-class meant learning to be satisfied stuck playing in vulnerable fields—clever use of a word associated with leisure time. Worse yet, the fields—such as places of work and classrooms—were applied strategies to sustain difficult access to opportunities that would lead to more of life’s choices and our autonomy.

    I also spent time practicing how to exist in a more alert and intellectual state. I was figuring out that street smarts required partnering with scholarship, and scholarship required street smarts. Once I solidified scholarship and street smarts as partners, I understood why community organizing required a commitment to civil disobedient strategies. Fifty-eight years of age, thirty years after the violence that defined 1968, and two graduate degrees were not nearly enough to have learned to defend myself against the effects of power language and to make better choices. Race and class were so deeply rooted definitions of this nation that a different focus was necessary in order to distinguish between forms of racism that are intentional and conscious and yet justified by nonracial arguments, and those that are unintentional using racially-based myths. The hardest to debate were the intentional racial comments hiding under nonracial logic—the racist component was easily deniable. Unsurprisingly, racial events and language were more troubling to me when directed at Other people and communities. Therefore, while in search of the right questions to defend those with less power, the people I associated with or from whom I sought advice from consisted of scholars, the well read and the poorest.

    In time I learned how social and welfare policy, the law, and the reasoning behind the absence of policy made it easy to miss the detours I should have made to avoid the social traps and retardants built on myths.

    The Retrace

    My mother, a dark skinned and attractive woman, was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico; my White father was born in Caracas, Venezuela. I was born in 1945 at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. Though I was the middle child of the first set of three, I was delegated enormous responsibility and taught to be my siblings’ protector because I was the oldest boy. We lived in a three-bedroom apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, near the Juilliard School and the City College of New York.

    My mother was aware before the creation of Puerto Rico as a Commonwealth, 1950–52, how this nation’s focus on the accumulation of wealth created a country that demanded patriotism, exalted capitalism, but too often could not accommodate morality. She believed in God more than the US government. And in spite of the negativity toward Latinos, my parents quickly learned to navigate New York.

    Contrary to the trend, it was my parents’ decision to live among a community that looked and spoke like them. As children and young adults we were never told to dance around the raindrops to avoid the discrimination. If we did not succeed, it was our fault. Whether this was a form of denial or a strategy, we were not allowed to feel victimized. Ironically, my desire to be viewed differently from the Latino stereotype translated into showing support for White television family programming at my expense as well as all other communities of color. Not until my early twenties did I start recognizing that by avoiding all commonalties—including the biological blood relationships—between our community and the Black community I was contributing to this nation’s legacy of racism.

    In 1951, pre–Brown v. Board of Education era, my parents pulled me out of first grade in a public school because if I arrived late I would be asked to leave the building. Unable to catch up to my parents’ departing car I would walk around Harlem for the day.

    In parochial schools I learned God loved me; I had a lot to be thankful for and I shouldn’t expect more. White kids were privy to the expectation they would make great doctors or lawyers some day.

    A passion for preserving our culture was a constant in our home. Romantic Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Cuban boleros played continually on our record player. My mother hardly ever missed The Liberace Show, which was famous during the 1950s for offering a range of popular and classical standards, and for its tributes to composers and musicians of various genres of music. No doubt, the most loving moments I experienced were just sitting next to her as she duplicated Liberace’s show on her piano, adding her own medley of romantic boleros; our native culture flourishing side by side with that of our chosen country of residency. She collected 78-rpm records, played the piano, never smoked or consumed alcohol, and worked tirelessly to disguise the reality of our stress-filled social and economic condition. Among my most long lasting childhood memories were visiting El Barrio and La Marqueta with my mother in East Harlem’s Park Avenue to buy only the freshest of produce items. There she taught me how to select fruits, vegetables, provisions, and the best meats and live poultry.

    Corpus Christi was a Dominican Order nun-run parochial school on 121st Street, just east of Broadway, in a middle-income neighborhood characterized by blocks of low-rise brick apartment buildings and small, privately owned grocery, candy, and drug stores. At Corpus Christi, now six years of age, I met the White bully Otto, who for years would send me home with bruises and a prepared speech to my parents explaining how I kept bumping into things. There were times, when speaking to God, I asked for permission to shoot Otto—and others like him—and be blessed for it. And some of us did shoot people like Otto.

    My residence in a Latino neighborhood⁴ while attending Corpus Christi meant a physically demanding walk against strong winds hitting my small and skinny body. Occasionally, my brother, Carlos, and I shared a monthly bus pass tucked in a heavy plastic case. Carlos would get on the bus first and throw the pass out the window for me to take the next bus home. When it got too cold I would walk through the Julliard School of Music, get warm, and ask myself why no one looked like my musically gifted mother. When the weather was sunny and I did not feel like going home, I would walk a few blocks south on Broadway and watch the students play tennis at Barnard College, across the street from historically White Columbia. I wondered why they all looked like the students at Julliard.

    In contrast to the public school teachers, who tended to ignore my presence, the nuns were constantly in my face. My parents viewed nuns and priests as the highest authorities. Knowing this prevented me from telling them that I was often asked to sit in the back, forced to write with my right hand though I was left handed, and, worst of all, constantly reminded that the holidays were for the White and Irish Catholic communities. I eventually gave up writing with my right hand and compromised by imitating the manner in which the right-handed students angled the paper.

    During my years in elementary school, doctoral students of the historically White Columbia University and Teachers College would often ask my mother if my brother and I would submit to timed psychological tests. These tests utilized, among other things, blocks, puzzles, different shapes of paper, number sequence computations, and multiple choice questions. My mother always complied. I never understood how they knew about me, but it did not matter. I worked my hardest to succeed. I was more curious than they were about my intellect, aptitude, and motivation. I often attempted to interpret the examiner’s face. If I read an expression of disappointment or saw any sign of negativity, I asked if I could take the test over. My determination did not improve the test scores. I was defined by the evaluators as tenacious and unusually serious. I never knew what they meant by unusually serious, but a lot of people said that about me. I was also defined as a disturbance in second grade and often sent to the principal’s office to sit for long periods of time. I possibly should not have been surprised when I was required to repeat second grade. It was then when I built an intimate friendship with Tommy Mulligan, known simply as Mulligan—an Irish Catholic who lived with his grandmother.

    It was not until the third grade that I felt any sort of educational support. A Maryknoll nun stepped into my life. Sister Bernadette, having recently arrived after serving many years in Africa, would put her arm around my shoulders, and I could feel that she liked me. My achievement soared, and I was never late for class. I lost contact with my Maryknoll relationship in the fourth grade, which may account for the decline in my academic performance. However, two notable experiences occurred. My walk to Corpus Christi was shortened as we moved closer to my grandmother on West 125th Street, and I was now living within a community of White Catholics and Orthodox Jews. This move allowed me to hang out with Mulligan. Together, and through most of elementary school, we enjoyed the ease of earning money by carrying packages for the elderly from local supermarkets and packing the food away for them, or collecting bottles from Harlem construction sites for the five cent deposit. This economic and service mindset would serve us well for years to come.

    By fifth grade, Otto’s younger brother, a fourth grader, started bullying me. It did not work out as well for him, because I kicked his ass from one end of the block to the other, not stopping until I saw blood. Unwilling to see his younger brother humiliated by a spic, Otto stopped the fight and continued to beat him.

    In seventh grade, my friends signed up as altar boys or joined the choir. I too decided to enroll. Because my Latin was deemed inadequate, I was assigned to help the priest celebrate benediction—a ceremony where the host, the symbol of the body and blood of Jesus, was not present. Benediction was only on Friday nights—an assignment the other boys did not desire. I later wondered about my unworthiness to transact with the body and blood of Jesus in the eyes of the community in which I lived.

    Not knowing exactly what my parents were in search of that could improve my brother’s and my academic performance, we were transferred in the eighth grade to a catholic school in Washington Heights. The neighborhood was shared between the Irish Catholic and Jewish communities. The Good Shepherd Academy, operated by Christian Brothers, was a short walk from the subway stop on Nagle Avenue. I recalled how when the classroom windows were open I could hear beggars call and ring out, Alms for the poor! or knife sharpeners calling for customers.

    It was around this time that I started thinking about how skin color defined class. The cowboy movies that fueled the goodness of White reinforced attaching darkness to a class. I finally took notice that the crayon color called flesh did not match mine. It was a good thing that I developed some street smarts as I entered this new neighborhood. Noticing that the Christian Brothers would hit harder and with more frequency than nuns, I quickly buckled down, studied, and learned what that missing piece was that my parents were in search of. I became one of the top academic achievers.

    Yet even as I was doing well, the racial slurs from West 125th Street continued. As the only Latinos—at least in the higher grades of Good Shepherd—it was stunning how students would ask, Is it true you are Puerto Rican? I was not as intimidated as I was in my own neighborhood by the handful of students who openly called me spic as I passed them in the hall, stairs, or outside during lunch hour. At times, they would first call out spic, wait a while, and then call out my name, Lou.

    The abuse got to be too much. A student spat on me as he passed while I was standing on line during a fire drill. Releasing a poorly timed outburst, I stepped out of line and grabbed him while his friends laughed from the bottom of the staircase. Students on the upper floors leaned over to watch what was happening as I began to pound him with my fists. Again and again I struck him, feeling the sudden surge of power that came with avenging the long pent-up feelings of resentment. His friends did not intervene as I continued to pummel him until several brothers stepped in and pulled us apart. I was brought into the principal’s office with Brother Louis, my teacher. At first they threatened to expel me. I sat in a position my parents taught me when confronted with disciplinary action, my head bowed, but I did not apologize. After a long and silent period of time I was told to return to the classroom. I would have preferred to have my hands and ass hit with the ruler as was customary. Instead, I imagined the worst. The principal did not contact my parents, expel me, or discipline me. The incident faded away. I felt no need to report the racial taunts that had enraged me. I simply wanted everyone to know I would fight my own battles. The brothers were perfectly aware that I had been the target of spitballs and racial slurs for weeks.

    Fortunately, at Good Shepherd there was Brian. Brian occasionally visited my apartment on West 125th Street, and we would go play pool and hang out. With Mulligan and Brian as examples—racial friction must only come from stupid people. Mulligan attended Stuyvesant High School and Brian attended Regis, schools considered among the best in the nation. Brian went on to

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