TheBanyanTree: The Brothers: a Reflection on the Kennedy Legacy

[LaLinda]

Just set the DVR to record The Kennedy Brothers on MSNBC tomorrow 
night.  Taped the late one so it doesn't conflict with anything my 
husband wants to see, since he is an official Kennedy anti-fan.  I've 
never asked why, since as a very conservative guy, it's a given we 
aren't going to agree on lots of things, although, by his own admission, 
he has come back the other way and says it's my influence, not by what I 
say, but how I am.  A high compliment, and one I treasure.  The fact 
remains that he will never understand what it has meant to an 
Irish-Catholic family to have the Kennedys achieve so much.

When Jack Kennedy was assassinated, my grandmother mourned as though he 
were a family member.  My mother hung his portrait on the wall at the 
end of the hall, a portrait I recently found tucked away in the cedar 
chest I inherited holding 4 generations of treasured things. 

I awakened on morning to reports of Bobby's assassination and was the 
one to tell my mom, who jumped up in bed, wailing, "Oh, no!"

Harsh realities, with Martin Luther King, Jr. also among the leaders of 
our generation, gunned down.  Some wondered why our generation lost 
trust in the status quo.   The status quo was deadly, exhibit B being 
Viet Nam.

I'm not saying the Kennedys were perfect and worthy of worship.  
Perfection is impossible, except in the person of Jesus Christ, who had 
the advantage of divinity.  I'm saying that the Kennedys showed us what 
was possible for the oppressed, and the Irish had been oppressed in 
their own land.  The culture was attacked and musical instruments piled 
high into bonfires, people tortured for speaking their own language, 
schools and churches shut down to suffocate the faith which resulted in 
secret "penal" rosaries made out of stone and "hedge schools" conducted 
behind bushes.  When the Great Hunger came, the Irish were assisted in a 
variety of ways to meet their decimation. Millions died, many fled flung 
over the Atlantic by their families in an effort to survive, some 
stepping from one ship, enlisting in the Union Army with the promise of 
a meal and redirected onto another ship headed for war, leaving their 
families on the docks.

Everyone knows how the Irish were treated once they arrived in port.  
Accused of being a different race, signs posted said, "Irish Need Not 
Apply."  Tensions continued into the 20th century, when my 
great-grandmother, Annie Murphy, told my mother and my aunt not to play 
with the Protestant kids.  As late as the 90's. Irish Catholics in 
Northern Ireland were trapped in their homes by the cars of Protestants 
parked up against their doors.

Fear escalates into anger and aggression, one reason why hostile 
communicators lose my ear.  I'm not interested in entertaining emotional 
blow-outs or insults to others. It incites.  It does not cultivate 
peace.  It makes those of us who want peace look like hypocrites, or at 
the very least, schizophrenic.  I just won't have it and if it comes, I 
turn off.

My mother was angry at Teddy over Chappaquiddick and I don't think she 
ever forgave him.  I think she thought he ruined everything, whatever 
that means, maybe she was embarrassed for our "race."  I don't remember 
much, now, but I do remember the anger and the disgust.  She spoke 
little of it and only once.

Chappaquiddick may have made him a glaring anti-hero but he did seem to 
settle down and try to redeem himself.  Some people never do.  They mess 
up and quit trying, committed to a lifetime of being a failure, but 
Teddy must have been determined to push through and be a asset in his 
work as a Senator and a central figure in his family. Say what you want, 
but that takes something and though I don't currently have a name for 
it, I admire it.

Teddy never could sing, but he could inspire. Rest in peace, Ted.  The 
dream shall never die.


LL