Skip to header Skip to main content Skip to footer
Helpful Village logo
Add me to your mailing list
Youtube channel Instagram page Facebook page
Header image for Pasadena Village showing nearby mountains and the logo of the Pasadena Village
Villager Log-in
Donate

Blog archive

September 2026

August 2026

Triumph Over Tragedy
08/31/2026

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained/Lost
08/30/2026

A Gallery of Neighbors: The Village Art Group’s Group Show
08/28/2026

A New and Improved Way to Stay Safer Online
08/28/2026

A Trip to The Geffen Galleries
08/28/2026

Barrier Free Living - A Path to Living a More Independent Lifestyle
08/28/2026

Conversations with Art
08/28/2026

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
08/28/2026

Member Connections with Music Conductor Bill Bing
08/28/2026

Pasadena Heritage Walking Tour
08/28/2026

In Their Hands
08/23/2026

Ease of Being: Managing the stuff of everyday life
08/20/2026

A Tribute to Fire Debris Remediators and Their Super-Sized Dump Trucks
08/18/2026

Really Irene?
08/15/2026

There Is A Risk
08/09/2026

2026 Year in Review
08/03/2026

A Message From Your Newly Elected President
08/03/2026

Neighborhoods Within the Village
08/03/2026

Reflection from PUSD Intern Isabella "Izzy" Roberts
08/03/2026

Reflection on Service & Joy from 2025/26 President Dick Myers
08/03/2026

The Villager Engagement Team Welcomed 54 New Villagers
08/03/2026

Treasurer’s Report
08/03/2026

What Activity! The Cultural Activities Team Report
08/03/2026

An Even Exchange
08/01/2026

July 2026

June 2026

May 2026

April 2026

March 2026

February 2026

January 2026

Some thoughts on 8 minutes, 46 seconds

By Margo Halsted
Posted: 02/01/2021
Tags:

I can’t breathe.  Eight minutes, forty-six seconds. I can’t breathe.

George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery . . .

Videos (thank God for them), TV, newspapers, protesters . . .

I’ve not fully understood how a Black person feels.

I am learning. 

I never capitalized Black before.

I had some Black friends at junior and senior high school.  They had to walk a long way to school, literally “from across the tracks”. 

My mother-in-law many years ago said she understood that I had been friends with Black students in school.  “But you never would dance with one, would you?” she asked.  I responded that I had.  She didn’t believe me or didn’t want to believe me.

My Black hairdresser would tell me how her son was pulled over by a cop almost every day on his way to work. She had other very scary stories about her other son and the police.

I always knew that I was white and also one-quarter brown, but wasn’t able to understand how a Black or Brown person felt. I never really understood what their lives were like.

While teaching at UC, Riverside in the '70s all the faculty were asked to identify if they had any minority background because it would help the school with their records. I listed “Hispanic” because my grandmother was born in Mexico. (My mother was born in Arizona before it became a state and didn’t have a birth certificate for many decades until she applied for one.) My main teaching position was at the University of Michigan from 1987-2003. I learned from papers given to me upon my retirement that my position there had been assisted by that earlier “Hispanic” listing: the Music Department had received initial funding for part of my salary. 

I’ve been wary of police at times but was never afraid for my life. I’m beginning to understand so much more. I attended a Pasadena rally on Juneteenth with a “Black Lives Matter” sign to show my solidarity. 

So far, the only other ways I’ve actually made a difference have been to make a donation to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LFD) and to the Los Angeles Chapter of BLM.  

I am learning.

Blogs Topics Posts about this Topic