One day, Vietnam came up. It was around 1964 and the movement against the war had not yet blown up in full force. Someone asked me what i thought. I didn't have the faintest idea. Back then, the only thing i read in the papers was the headlines, crime stories, comics, or the horoscope. I said, "It's all right, I guess." All of a sudden there was complete silence. "Would you mind explaining, sister, what you mean by 'it's all right, I guess'?" The brother's voice was mocking. I said something like "You know, the war we're fighting over there, you know, for democracy." It was clear, from the expressions around me, that i had said the wrong thing. The brother i had come with looked like he wanted to crawl under the floor. "Who's fighting for democracy?" somebody asked. "We are. The United States." And then, as an afterthought, i added, "You know, they're over there fighting communism. Fighting for democracy." The brother held his head in his hands as if he had a headache. I knew i had said something wrong, but i couldn't figure out what. Thinking i had failed to state my case strongly enough, i continued repeating everything i had heard on television. Babbling. Which only made matters worse.
When i finished, the brother asked me if i knew anything about the history of Vietnam. I didn't. He told me. He explained French colonization, exploitation, brutalization, the starvation and illiteracy; the long fight waged and won in the North and the u.s. involvement in propping up a phony government after the French got their butts kicked.
The brother was talking about names, places, and events just like he was from Vietnam or something. I sat there with my mouth hanging open. He knew all this stuff and he wasn't even studying history. I couldn't believe that this African, who didn't even live in the u.s. or in Asia, could know more than me who had friends and neighbors who were fighting over there.
Then he defined the u.s. government's role, that it was fighting for money, to defend the interests of the u.s. corporations and to establish military bases. I didn't know whether to believe him or not. I had never heard of such a thing. "What about democracy?" i asked him. "Don't you believe in democracy?" Yes, he said, but the government the u.s. was supporting was not a democracy but a bloodthirsty dictatorship. He started running all kinds of names and dates on me and there was no way i could respond. There he was, talking about the u.s. government just like somebody would talk about a criminal. I just couldn't relate to it. But my mind was blown.
Despite that, i continued saying the first thing that came into my head: the the u.s. was fighting communists because they wanted to take over everything. When someone asked me what communism was, i opened my mouth to answer, then realized i didn't have the faintest idea. My image of a communist came from a cartoon. it was a spy with a black trench coat and a black hat pulled down over his face, slinking around corners. In school, we were taught that communists worked in salt mines, that they weren't free, that everybody wore the same clothes, and that no one owned anything. The Africans rolled with laughter.
I felt like a bona fide clown. One of them explained that communist was a political-economic system, but i wasn't listening. I was just digging on myself. I had been hooping and hollering about something that i didn't even understand. I knew i didn't know what the hell communism was, and yet i'd been dead set against it. Just like when you're a little kid and they get you to believe in the bogeyman. You don't know what the hell the bogeyman is, but you hate him and you're scared of him.
I never forgot that day. We're taught at such an early age to be against the communists, yet most of us don't have the faintest idea what communism is. Only a fool lets somebody tell them who his enemy is. I started remembering all the stupid stuff people told me when i was little. "Don't trust West Indians because they'll stab you in the back." "Don't trust Africans because they think they are better than we are." "Don't have out with Puerto Ricans because they all stick together and will gang up on you."
I have learned, through experience, that they were all lies told by stupid people, but i never thought i could be so easily tricked into being against something i didn't understand. It's got to be one of the most basic principles of living: always decide who your enemies are for yourself, and never let your enemies choose your enemies for you.
