The Education of a WASP

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen During the twenty-four months we had lived in Philadelphia , our worry about Ben's job gradually diminished. Perhaps we were so busy living that our initial concern faded into the background. And, of course, it was still possible that Ben's job with the corporation would continue. As it turned out, it was lucky Ben did not grab at some of the advertising-merchandising jobs offered him. He rejected an offer from one company when he found out that they had a reputation for unethical practices and from another when the president of the firm talked balefully of their "Jew-boy competitors." Ben also turned down out-of-town offers. Our children were blossoming in their happily mixed school. Sarah was in kindergarten now, Noah in first grade and Spike in third. Their unself-conscious, open friendliness with the potpourri of children was delightful and, we felt, important. We loved our neighborhood and hoped to stay. Early in June 1964 Ben showed me a clipping from the Wall Street Journal that moved us back toward reality. Two executives, one in Dallas and one in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania , had "lost their jobs recently ... because [of] contra- - 185 - versial community actiVItIes during their spare time." The marketing vice-president in Dallas had written an article after President Kennedy's assassination on "the climate of hate" in Dallas, but the man in Bethlehem was fired when a volunteer race-relations group he had been active in published a study of limited job opportunities for Negroes in Bethlehem. If this man's employers felt the study was an indirect criticism of their company hiring policies, Ben pointed out, firing the man only publicized the whole issue. I agreed, but there were times when I almost wished Ben had been clearly fired. It might have been better than a false security. I was critical of Ben for what I felt was his unrequited loyalty to a corporation that had demoted and transferred him; he would not take as much time as other men would take from their work to hunt a new job. Ben stubbornly insisted that he had to do his best, both for his own conscience and because the job might be permanent after all. Meanwhile Ben tried to use some of what we had learned about the black community in his job with the corporation. Dolph Priest, our cynical black friend and journalist, pointed out, "There's more of us than people like to think." Dolph's attitudes toward discrimination were as hard as the finish on his Brooks Brothers' suits. To him, "racism is too profitable to white business for them to end it." But) Dolph said, wryly, "Someday they're going to find out that in Philadelphia alone black purchasing power is nearly three·quarter of a billion dollars!" Dolph brushed an imaginary speck from his well-cut jacket and said blandly, "Maybe then white business will learn to love us!" Soon after Dolph's remarks, Ben checked the corporation's milk and ice cream sales in Negro neighborhoods and found they were meager. A Negro market study, Ben felt, could show the sales potential and stir the corporation's interest in ghetto problems. Dar Lewis, the cautiously neutral manager of the Phila- - 186 - delphia branch, okayed the study after Ben mentioned the purchasing power of the black community. Ben helped the company's advertising agency organize the research. He suggested integrated ads be evaluated. Pepsi-Cola had used them successfully. When the study was completed in January 1964, Dar Lewis called Ben into his office. Forget the whole thing, he said. The survey showed that 10 per cent of the white customers objected to integrated ads. Ben told me he had argued that this meant 90 per cent of the white customers didn't object. "Drop the subject," Dar Lewis said. "The decision is final." Four weeks after the Negro market study, Ben was moved to a smaller office. A month later, the desks of two office girls were crowded in with him. On June 29, 1964, he was told that his department was being dissolved and his job was over. Although Ben had been given this news in the afternoon, he didn't tell me about it until after I finished making a report at our school's parents' meeting that night. He didn't want me to be upset. I can remember Ben...