In Seattle in the early 1950s, our church sponsored the Moorbeeck family from the Netherlands. Members provided housing, food, and clothing, and one of the congregation found Mr. Moorbeeck who was, I think, a draftsman (or draughtsman, if you prefer) a job.
Displaced persons, they were called. As a seven-year-old limited to linear thinking, I understood that there was some place for the family to be that they were not. I think—I hope—I felt as sad about that as a seven-year-old could be before moving on to the challenges of second grade and Little League.
In his “Country Music” film, Ken Burns used displacement to describe much of what that genre of music has been about. I hadn’t thought about that term much in the past 65 years. But, the narrative thread of the program supported the point on two levels. Country songs are often about loss or not fitting in or aspirations for what cannot be, like the love of some person who does not even notice the hopeful one.
Further, country music comes from the hearts and souls of people whom the dominant American culture has discounted as “hick” or “hillbilly,” made to feel like second-class citizens in their own land.
The program chronicled American history from 1920 on though its focus was not the history but the music called “country.” One point came through loudly and clearly: the current social climate is not nearly as fractious, as threatening to our way of life as have been other times.
Thirty percent of the people out of work in the 1930s caused massive shifts of population—displacements—within the U.S. Fighting two powerful enemies in two different hemispheres obviously altered hundreds of thousands of lives in our country as well as overseas (creating displaced persons like the Moorbeecks). In the 1960s, helmeted police and National Guard stood in ranks several deep all with loaded rifles pointed at groups aggrieved about racial injustice and Vietnam.
Through those tumultuous times, country singers continued to lament, pine for, and regret past sins that fractured their lives. Displacement seemed the norm.
Displacement persists around us if we dare to listen to despondent cries we dare not hear. Dare not because there are so many, at home and abroad, whose lives are a daily manifestation of being somewhere they are not supposed to be, either physically or metaphorically.
In just one example, a recent Atlantic article chronicled the like of Aung San Su Chi of Myanmar(Burma). Once a political prisoner and symbol of the desire for freedom, she is now part of the government. That government has systematically displaced its Muslim population, the Rohinga, killing thousands and forcibly evicting others from their lands.
What would that feel like, to be evicted from your long-term home?
Driving to the Kapolei post office one steamy morning, Judy and I watched while a man wearing a long black overcoat and slippers, gray hair matted and dirty-looking, cross the street. We assumed he was headed for his spot in the park, home to several homeless. He looked much older than we are but we know it was possible we were his elders.
This man represented a persistent displacement in our own community, whatever the reasons might be for living in a park.
World history of the last decade chronicles displacement: Syrians, North Africans, Central Americans. Where do you go when it is no longer safe for you to be where you are?
A few years ago, I wrote about a “sense of place.” What is it like to not have a sense of a place to belong?
People of a Certain Age, you might recall a TV ad years ago featuring a man who looked Native American shedding a tear over the thoughtless littering plaguing the landscape. (That Iron Eyes Cody was actually Espera Osker de Corti, a fact my friend told me, is typical Madison Avenue magic.) Do you suppose Iron Eyes might shed another tear these days over the pervasive sadness of displacement, here and abroad?
We cannot explain why some populations, which are comprised of people like you and me, have suffered displacement due to war, famine, dangerous environs or deliberate evictions and others have not. We tune out the cries of desperation in self-defense, knowing that some problems are beyond individual capacities to help. We cannot take on every ill in the world. We do contribute to organizations that try; churches, Rotary, World Vision, etc. That helps.
“Country Music” suggested something closer to home. To the extent that groups in our society feel like they are second-class citizens, we can draw our circles “wider to include them in.” We can offer more handshakes than cold-shoulders. We can create a place where, political opinions and religious differences notwithstanding, none of us feel like we are in a place where we are not supposed to be, wherever we are.
Actually, I think those places are here among us now but the din of disaster sells more newspapers.
Daniel E. White
November 25, 2019