David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

My love of ‘fur friends’ stems from the callousness I saw in my father

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Boots was the only dog I had as a child. He was mostly black, but he had white around his feet — hence the name — and on his chest.

Boots lived with us for only about a year when I was 9 or 10 years old. I loved him dearly and spent a lot of time outside with him, but when we moved — only about 10 miles — Boots didn’t make the trip with us. I will never know why. I will never know what happened to him.

When we were about to move, I asked my father where Boots would stay at the new house. The yard wasn’t fenced and it was in a subdivision, not like the house in the country where we had been living. My father didn’t answer my question — and I knew better than to ever again ask a question which my father ignored.

I never saw Boots again, which hurts me and angers me to this day. Years later — when I was safely into my adult years — I asked my father why Boots didn’t move with us and what happened to him. He claimed not to even remember. He seemed unconcerned that the child in me still needed to know what happened.

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Want to really understand someone? Visit the places that shaped his past

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If you want to understand me, let me take you to some of the places where I’ve been. Let me explain the things that happened there. When I can tell you my stories — in the places where they took place — that’s when you’ll start to understand who I really am.

That’s true for anyone. There is a strong sense of place about our experiences. If I listen to your story and try to understand it, I won’t see it as clearly if I just understand the details of the plot. Understanding the places where those stories took place helps me find meaning in the stories.

And if you can take a person to where he or she experienced something, you’ll put the person back into a frame of mind from the past. It strips the person emotionally naked.

Old feelings come out. Old hurts, old joys, old pains and old triumphs. They all become more clear when you’re in the places where they happened.

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Biases teach us what to expect, but we often turn out to be wrong

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Do you ever judge people by their outward appearance? Of course you do. You’re human. That’s the way we’re wired. Despite our best efforts, we do it every day.

Black writer and actor Quancy Clayborne told a story on Twitter about an experience he had Friday at a coffee shop near his house in Seattle that illustrates how this works.

“I’m in line behind a guy who looked like a skinhead this morning,” Clayborne wrote. “He turned around and looked at me, so I’m thinking, ‘This isn’t going to end well.’ Then he says, ‘Hey brother, I will never understand what it’s like to be you, but I appreciate who you are.’ Then he shakes my hand.”

Clayborne was honest enough to admit that he assumed this skinhead type would be a racist and might even cause trouble for a black man. But there’s a lesson here for all of us. People aren’t always what we assume they are.

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