White and male? You don't qualify.

This country needs different leadership. So does this much of this planet.

And if you’re a white male, you don’t qualify.

About four years ago I published a piece about the summer of 1992, when I was wrongfully arrested, and nearly went to prison, for something I didn’t do. I managed to escape the cogs of our malfunctioning American Justice System - but only because I was able to buy my innocence.

And also, because I am white.

Go ahead, read it. I’ll wait.

The justice system very nearly crushed me. And had I been Black, it certainly would have crushed me, that I do not doubt. As you’ve just read, I had moments where is was in such disarray that I questioned my own sanity; my own ability to remember events. The town I was arrested in I’d never been to; the person who identified me in court I’d never met.

However - even in my most hopeless moments, when many of my personal freedoms and liberties had been curtailed, there is one thing I never lost. My privilege… to disappear into a sea of whiteness.

A friend of mine told me once that everyone gets nervous when a cop car pulls up behind them during a traffic stop. White folks are nervous because they don’t want a ticket. And Black Indigenous People Of Color are nervous because the don’t want to DIE.

You see, in my experience, I could still walk out of my railroaded funk into a world in which I had complete anonymity; no one looked at me and assumed I was an accused felon, out on bail and circling the drain of a trial and a prison sentence. No one shied away from me on the street. I could walk freely, drive while white, and no one was the wiser of my situation, and my pending criminal record. I was still free.

I was an accused felon being railroaded by the justice system, but out on the street? The world gave me a pass.

Did our country give a pass to a black man out for a jog? Not so much. An EMT asleep in her bed? Nope. A man allegedly passing a counterfeit bill? No, no, NO.

But I got a pass. And then, I got off.

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The world that white leadership has built is broken for everyone except white males. I am living proof.

The system we live in here in America is geared TOWARDS white men, for a very simple reason: Because we built it that way. And if this system is going to change, really change, new leadership is needed, and white men cannot be invited.

Top-down change must be made by Black Indigenous People Of Color, based on what they go through every day, every minute. The new system must be built by people who fear for their lives in a simple traffic stop. A Person of Color can't walk into the world and have anonymity and safety; I can, and so can every single one of my white male brethren, no matter WHAT they have done. I can disappear into a world of whiteness and no one will assume anything of me. But a BIPOC cannot change the amount of melanin that they carry. They cannot disappear. Driving while black? Pull over please. Officer, what did I do? Just hand me your license and registration. And get out of the car.

Going forward, decisions now need to be made by the people who have LIVED this kind of oppression, and not simply by those who think they know what it means. If I’m lucky, I might assist by the virtue of having even a shard, even a modicum of empathy for what they are going through because of my experience. Or maybe I should just sit on the sidelines because white males have done ENOUGH.

Will this be easy? Absolutely not. There’s nothing more evil, sneaky, or dangerous than an angry white man. We are at the top of the devious pyramid. The proof is in the very system that we’ve built.

But I’ll be the first to put up the sign:

Leadership wanted: White Males Need Not Apply.

Dad walked the front line...before Roe vs. Wade.

My Dad is a Doctor. Yeah, he's 'retired'. But in my experience, Docs never stop being Docs.

Ted Ludwig, Young Medical Student. This was taken around 1963 0r '64.

He's 77 years old (at this writing), and he never stops; truly he will still be dispensing medical advice in Valhalla someday (hopefully a while from now), and if you get there as well, you'll be lucky to know him.

Dad's also a retired military man, and a student of history. And while he loves to pore over his books, he's been a participant in plenty of history as it occurred, from Southeast Asia to the Persian Gulf. 

But history happens everywhere; certainly in loud crashes of the great theatres of war, but also in the quiet hallways of home.

Here's one history that Dad experienced firsthand... that has always haunted me.

Judge it however you will; it's a highly controversial topic. But regardless of your standing on this matter, no matter who you are or how you feel... this is a history we cannot afford to forget.

What follows is a lightly edited transcript from a conversation I recorded with Dad at LudHaven, on August 5th, 2016.

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"I took a rotation, an extra rotation, in OB/GYN at Wayne County General Hospital.

Where is Wayne County General in relation to Detroit? Is it downtown, or -

WCG in the late 50s.

No. It’s out in Eloise Michigan, which is about 25 miles from downtown Detroit. And Wayne County General Hospital was the place where indigent young women who had septic abortions were sent. They’d put them in ambulances and send them to us.

So there was there is a center or something established for that, or... someone just made that decision?

No, it was because that hospital was equipped to take care of it, and these were indigent young kids, anywhere from about 12 to 18…

What year was this?

Um… 1965. 

’65.

They would have abortions done by anybody they could get to do it, and there were a number ways that they did it…some of them used potassium permanganate which was put in the cervical os, the opening of the uterus, and that would induce the…abortion. Some of them had abortions done by black market doctors, well not doctors usually, by black market people who were really not qualified to do it… and a fair number them ended up with severe life threatening pelvic infections… so bad that many of them that I saw come in to Wayne County General…did not leave. They died there.

Many of them were in septic shock which was from the horrible infections that they would get in the pelvic organs, the female organs, the - uterus, tubes and ovaries - 

And how many days past the procedure do you think most of these women were?

Well, depending on what what bacteria was involved, very often it was a strep bacteria, and that would actually get them into serious trouble within 24 hours.

Wow.

Some of them would come in later than that, and about half of them, uh… about half of them that survived, these young women ended up having their entire pelvic organs removed in order to save their life, because they were so full of infection.

So that was the only choice you had?

Well, it was one of the only choices they had to try and keep them alive. So many of these kids came in with intact pelvic organs, and left with no uterus, tubes or ovaries. Bottom line was that… there was a high mortality. Probably in the range of 25 percent, of all of the septic abortions that came into that hospital. And these are kids that were as young as eleven, twelve years old, and up to eighteen.

How long were you on this rotation?

I think I spent six weeks out there. It was a terrific rotation because we saw a lot of indigent people that had needs for obstetric care. And so I really got a broad experience, I’m very happy with the experience I had, but… it was just terrible, it was awful to see what these kids were going through. All really because they would have these illicit abortions done.

I think you told me a story once of one girl who came in with a blood pressure of zero over zero?

Oh yeah, well, most of them were in septic shock which meant that their blood pressure was lower than normal; most of them with that ended up in the intensive care unit, and quite a few of them died in the intensive care unit. A fair number of them were taken to surgery to do salvage surgery as I mentioned, and that basically would mean cleaning out the pelvis, the pelvic organs.

The thing about the pregnant female, particularly if they’re between the first and second trimesters of pregnancy, they’re more prone to infections than the non-pregnant woman in that state.

I didn’t know that.

And so inducing an abortion in non-sterile conditions, which is the way that illicit abortions were done, would put them at great risk to have bacteria introduced into their pelvic organs during the process. In those days, abortions were not done the way they are today, with a ‘suction curettage' as they call it - that had yet to be designed. What they did was, it was a surgical procedure - they actually went in and scraped the inside of the uterus out, and if this was done in an unsterile manner, the risks were a good deal greater than if it were done in a sterile manner.

Could you guess in that six week period how many you saw…

Oh, there were probably half a dozen that I saw die, or were so critically ill that they weren't expected to survive. And I remember going to the operating room and watching the surgeons do operations on these kids to clean out this foul smelling mess in their pelvis; you’d open the abdomen and it just smelled terrible and… it was, uh, what we today call a flesh-eating infection. 

Now these illicit abortions were more common in Detroit, but there was even a guy across the street from my father, in Port Huron… who did them in his garage. 

The bottom line was that abortion was available; and these kids were desperate. It was a little different then, because if you got pregnant it was… a stain on you. You didn’t want to be seen as pregnant because it sort of ruined everything for you in High School in those years, so… mores were different than they are today.

But the last thing I want to see today is for a woman to have that option taken away from her. Because I fear that we’ll go back to some of the same problems that we had before. From my standpoint, I - you’ve heard me say this a number of times - the last thing in the world that I want to see is that woman’s right to choose go away. On the other hand, did I do abortions in my practice? I did a lot of OB/GYN in my practice… but I never thought, nor did I want to do, an abortion, under any circumstances. But neither did I have any issue with the doctors that were doing them. Because they were safe, and they were being done appropriately.

At Wayne County General - you were 26 when you saw this.

26 years old, yes.

I mean… you were a medical student, so you’d seen some things, but to see a 12 or 13 year old girl in septic shock and that… messed up must have been hard to… I mean, was it hard to watch?

Oh, sure. A lot of them were little Black kids, there were quite a few Whites… you know, it was such a tragic situation. I remember watching one little girl who was, probably, 12, 13, something like that. She was on the ventilator… she was just barely alive in the intensive care unit, and… she just looked like a little kid. She was just a little kid. 

I think one of my duties as a doctor is make sure that I can pass this on to some of the younger people who had no idea what was happening before 1965. I think a lot of these anti-abortion activists have no idea…what it was like back then. 

I… I was profoundly affected by that experience. I never forgot it. Having been there, having done a huge amount of gynecologic surgery in a rural setting for many years after that, there is no question in my mind that we can't go back that way. And I don’t think we will. But if I were to say anything I would repeat that this is not a political issue.

It seems to me that if the choice went away, that this would come back. Do you believe that?

Well, it might. I don’t know. I can’t really tell you that. But I can say this; Abortion is not, as far as I’m concerned, a political issue, and I think the fact that the religious right, AND the left, make it an issue is totally inappropriate; this is a purely personal decision that should have nothing to do with an election. And the people that are so strongly for or against this need to go away and stop trying to change elections. There’s plenty of other problems in our world, and we shouldn’t be spending our time on it.

I think we have come far enough. I think it’s time for the Religious Right and the, Vocal Left, I guess you’d call it - I think it’s time for them to bury the hatchet and forget about making this a political issue. All it’s doing is wasting our time.

I’m proud of you Dad. This is one of the stories that makes me very proud to be your son.

Well… I’m not sure you’re very well founded in that, but… this situation is one that needs to be addressed, done right, and then gotten off the radar."

So: I didn't win.

I was in a committee meeting when I got the results. Tabulation Day, and there were a bunch of candidates who are members of the LORT (League of Regional Theatres) committee; and we just happened to be on the room together as the results came in. As the meeting dragged on, one by one each of our phones rang we politely excused ourselves, went out into the anteroom, took the call and heard the news.

I didn't get re-elected to Actors' Equity Council - and in the most excruciating way. I was beaten by a nose. Six slots available in the Eastern Region, twenty two (!!) people running - and I was seventh by a mere 81 votes.

Some context: My service as a Councillor is one of the things I am most proud of in my entire adult life. Over the last decade (2 straight terms) I've changed things for the better for people I love and believe in; fought well, fought hard, fought smart.

So as I was standing there with the phone to my ear, and the news hit my brain, my first reaction was?

RELIEF.

I can hear you saying it -"Wait, What The What? Relief? He was RELIEVED???"

Yeah - label me surprised. Of course, the crushing sadness came later; I was gutted. But first, I breathed a deep sigh and felt my shoulders drop an inch. And I'm still trying to figure this out. Thus, this blog; let's figure it out together, shall we?

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In ten years of service as a Councillor, I've learned that possibly the only key attribute of an effective politician is... ENDURANCE. You need endurance to make it through meetings that go hours over their allotted time; endurance to keep your mouth shut when a colleague is saying something that you know to be PATENTLY AND INCREDIBLY STUPID; endurance to make it through negotiating sessions with Producers that go weeks over the allotted schedule; and endurance to find the time to actually make money, and make up for the time you spent busting your ass pro bono.

And then there's emotional endurance. Councillors attempt to move forward change that Members may or may not agree with, and they do all this because they care for the National body of the Union, as a whole. Perks? Trust me, the Tony tickets are very nice, but they don't even begin to salve the feeling of wanting to stick a fork in your eye during meetings in which someone at the podium is making a point that has already been made five times. Stop me, I'm reaching for utensils just thinking about it.

But it goes deeper than that. Jennifer Swiderski, a Councillor (and now former colleague) who I will paraphrase badly here, recently wrote on FB: "Man - Sometimes giving a damn really hurts."

Yeah, yeah, I can hear you all the way up here in Inwood: "Aw, boo frickin hoo, Jimmy doesn't like it when people say bad things about him or the policies that he stands for. Well, you signed up for it, baby. Pucker up."

I hear you. When you're a leader, you stand out front, and you accept that there's a target on your back. And your front. And your side. And your...well, pick a body part. We know this intimately. And we take those hits. But - I think that in most Unions, the blows usually only come from one direction: Make Us More Money. And hey, that's what Unions are for, right? Better Wages and Working Conditions. Well - not at Equity. Not recently.

Three years ago several beloved Broadway shows went out on tour on lower level contracts, and much of the Membership didn't like it; and I and my fellow Councillors were suddenly in a bare knuckle fight with a group of people who were incensed that they weren't being paid enough. We learned a great deal from that; we got energized, we got ideas...and we got beat up. 

And then, just as the dust from that little party was beginning to settle, we found ourselves in another bare knuckle fight... with a group of Members who want to work at greatly reduced rates, or in some cases, for free. And Council is still getting beat on by this group. Are you understanding that? In consecutive years, a room full of people who are giving everything they can for the Membership, for free, got torched by them... for exactly opposite reasons. Yeah. Basically, our Membership is bipolar.

Lesson? We have a large and diverse Membership, with incredibly divergent needs. Result? The leadership of our Union is regularly beat to shit. 

All that said, I may never go back, and also I would also go back instantly. I would heal these bruises, walk back into a meeting and offer myself up to body blows. Again. Wait a minute. Maybe I'm the one who is crazy here.

And do I still think I'm the best person for the job? Absolutely. Do I think the electorate did the right thing? Once again: ABSOLUTELY. At the end of the day, the full, National Membership decides, because WE are the Union. Do I agree with what the Membership decided here? Well, in this case, obviously not. Damn - Leadership IS Bipolar.

And in that, a gift: I get to ask myself: "Do you believe in a Representative Democracy or not? Will you make use of time away from the Council Room, or is this the Big Goodbye?"

I don't know. What I do know is that even though leadership beats the hell out of you, I love it. I'm good at it. And now I know - one of the most important parts of leadership in  a Democracy? Believing in the system enough to step away when the vote doesn't go in your direction. 

I wish the new Councillors all the best. Get your shields ready, sharpen your wits. You're gonna need 'em. And I'll see you all soon. Because maybe I'm just crazy enough to come back.

Or maybe not.