"Every century a few individuals are born who are destined to lead the weak, to hold unpopular beliefs and, most important, who are willing to die for their cause. My father's whole life was given to the fight for 'the people,' as he used to say." - Marco Acosta writing about his father, Oscar Zeta Acosta
What beliefs, when circulated among enough people, are not "unpopular"? Is there any such thing as a "popular" belief? Depends upon the crowd, the people, the area of the world in which one finds himself or herself.
Yet, we keep going. We fight for the people, even though everyone has a different opinion of who "the people" really are. It is a tough life for a bleeding heart. The more people you care about, the more people you find who don't care about "the people" because they look, think, and/or believe different(ly) than their own particular brand of "people."
Well, I happen not to buy that brand any more.
I used to. I thought at one time that the right "people" were those who looked like me, thought like me, ate like me. At one point in my pre-school childhood I thought everyone drove pickup trucks, listened to country music, and ate baloney sandwiches.
But when I went to elementary school in South Texas and heard the other kids speaking Spanish, it was like falling out of the sky and landing in Oz. I had no categories for this new world with a different language.
In that strange new world, my best friend, Manuel Garcia, lived in a house with no running water. My house had water, even though we did not have heating or air conditioning. Those were the days of box fans. But in the innocence of childhood, neither one of us knew we were poor. I just thought Manuel was cool. He was the only kid in fifth grade with a mustache. Manuel was the one who taught me that friendship has no racial barriers. We had a football and endless summer days. Nothing else in the world mattered.
Today, I am landing in Oz all over again.
The neighborhood in which I live in Houston is a mixture of Latino, Indian, and Chinese, along with some Anglos. Last night I went into a local take-out Mexican place that makes incredible tamales. The lady behind the counter recognizes me now, probably because not many white guys over six feet tall come in regularly to buy grande containers of Spanish Rice. Still, in spite of my racial handicap, we have evolved to friendly terms, especially when I noticed last year that on a chalkboard above the refrigerator she has Acts 2:38 written in yellow chalk. To some of you out there in bloggerland that may not mean much. But my CoC peeps understand. (Speaking of a world with its own language.)
And then there is my other new Oz.
I now ride with the Gypsy Motorcycle Club. Not officially, mind you. Not yet. In MC speak I am simply a "hangaround." But they have already helped me open my eyes to a notion of "brotherhood" I have thought of previously in far too insular a way. My favorite thing about these guys is that they just plain do not care about differences of opinion. Do you ride? Yes. Okay.
My new Gypsy friend Eran and I could not come from any more different backgrounds if we tried. But when he and I rode to Aardvark a couple of months ago, nothing else in the world mattered for those few hours. He was on his Street Bob, I was on my Fat Boy. We burned up the road cage free, watching out for each other, simply glad to be on the road.
All of us, for that matter, go down the road meeting people along the way. Sometimes we are "the people," sometimes others are "the people." If you stay on the road long enough, someone is going to consider your ways "unpopular." But if those beliefs have at their core the tenets of friendship and brotherhood, let them be unpopular. If those beliefs take care of one another, let there be no fear.
