2020.08.08 07:50
2020.08.08 08:04
2020.08.08 09:34
I am NOT a golfer so that I didn't have to care about the golf club membership but when I came up to the town in late '70, I heard a lot about the segregation dispute on the golf club membership. Indeed, one of the prestigious golf clubs located at Bethesda, Maryland/Washington suburb refused to accept the colored people as a member while paying the price by giving up a certain tax exemption. I don't think they still do keep the old rule to keep the blacks out here but down south, I am sure they still do have a certain invisible restriction.
But my issue is why the hell they should beg for the membership, throwing away the self-respect or integrity/pride? I simply cannot swallow such self-humiliating behavior.
As I mentioned once, soon after I got a job at Georgetown Univ in late '70, I was invited to Clinical Club to give a talk, which had such a notorious reputation of white surgeons only- no jews, no blacks at the beginning-. Over the dinner, one young surgeon belonging to GWU (George Washington Univ) approached me complementing the privilege at WHC (Washington Hospital Center) I also had, saying you must be really exceptionally good despite you are an 'FMG'. I loudly answered to him bluntly, 'yes, buddy, we, Koreans share much better genes than Caucasians so that we could do a thousand times better than you guys, you'd be better to remember that'. Subsequently, when the president of the Club invited me to become a member, I spat out ' I don't want to identify myself as one of you only with shit heads' and refused to join them. They never invited me back but they admired(?) my gut they told me later.
BB Lee
2020.08.08 09:53
Yes! The spirit of Joe Louise... I respect and try to follow.
The blacks had a hard time to join the country clubs in the nation.
But the Asians (especially Koreans) did not have as many problems as the blacks had.
Believe it or not, the whites got confused at our color.
We are neither black nor white but somewhere in between.
A funny thing was that even Koreans got confused about their skin color as well.
Retrospectively, now, I would say "Ha, ha, ha..."
For joining the country clubs, as the medical doctors of the town, we were lucky.
However, as just being Koreans, we were lucky too even if they did not know we were doctors.
Sometime in the middle of the 1960s, I was in New Orleans and was about to ride a city tram.
Then, there were two doors in the streetcars, one for white and the other for blacks.
All alone by myself, I didn't know which section I should ride.
I just went up the white section and no one there said anything but I was sweating.
In the early 1970s, when I located my private practice in Henderson,
a small southern city of the rednecks in Kentucky,
I was invited to the brand-new local country club as one of the founding members.
I was already a golfer then. I was honored but afraid to join them.
I did diplomatically and respectively declined their favor and hospitality.
More than 10 years later, the invitation was still standing and they wanted us.
As an only thoracic surgeon in that vicinity of northwestern Kentucky,
I had enough courage to join them in 1985 as the first and the only Korean (also Asian) couple.
After us, the Philippine and Indian doctors joined the club.
We remained there happily until I retired.
I guess Koreans, as doctors and/or also as laypersons, were luckier than the blacks.
PS: Regarding Dr. Lee's refusal of the invitation: As our being the pioneers in American society,
we have a duty to penetrate into the whites' privileged cocoons and claim/establish our seats there.
In a way, we are like Indiana Jones who treaded into a place where no men had ever gone.
I like to say that it's a good thing for other non-white immigrants and our own off-springs.
2020.08.08 12:52
Agree with you, Steve! Not only penetrate but demolish the cocoon to shine with new lights!
Indeed, the whole world has been changed over the last half-century since I came to this country.
But through one incident at Louisiana State University in Shreveport, I was involved as a referee
for the promotion of one brilliant Chinese American surgeon a few years ago,
I once again confirmed it seems to be a long way to go deep down in south.
Indeed, Steve, I was always curious to your such successful practice as a thoracic surgeon at Kentucky which has a notorious reputation with infamous(?) segregation to the outsiders like Yankees and of course the foreigners as well. As they say, "you must be an exceptionally excellent 'damn' foreigner", Steve.
After all, no one could deny your achievement to go up all the way to become a cardio-thoracic surgeon!
Honestly, I must have been ignorant of this racial discrimination issue when I came to the States despite Richmond, Virginia was the capital of Southern Confederate.
Perhaps I was too occupied to survive through the competition during the residency but I recall when one old lady/patient who came to the clinic/hospital wondered whether I am the son of the Chinese laundryman, the owner of a laundry shop in uptown, I felt a bit offended though I have nothing against Chinese.
But when another woman, one patient’s wife, cursed on me calling me ‘yellow fink’ to blame on the poor result of the surgery on her husband, I was really angry so that I forced to a security guard to drag her out in public to humiliate her who screamed and yelled.
Nevertheless, I really didn’t care much about the discrimination while in Richmond, considering as a natural response of same feathers flock together like an old saying: “Birds of a feather flock together".
However, soon after I moved to Columbia, S.C. from Richmond after the residency to join the new medical school of Univ South Carolina, I started to learn how serious this racial issue is in down south.
And soon after I gave up the plan to come back to Seoul to resume the work at SNU Hospital after the negotiation fell apart, I decided to come back to Yankeeland to return to the civilized world, Washington DC, as they- a few genuine South Carolinian friends I made - advised to me, saying ‘BB, you don’t belong here.
Because, you have three worst combinations, that is, damn foreigner, Catholic, and man from Yankeeland’.
Their honesty to give a correct timely advise gave me the momentum to come up to the north to settle at Georgetown Univ, leaving hard-earned 3 million dollars pledge/fund by the VA System to organize my own independent transplant/vascular program at USC from the scratch as I dreamed of.
So I didn’t suffer from such blatant discrimination by myself during my career but I remained vigilant whenever I was dragged in to become a referee for the promotion of young colleagues of Asian origin by all means and helped them properly.
BB Lee
2020.08.08 16:21
Doc, as we look back, under a flickering candlelight,
we could talk all night about those damn days.
I guess you were "spoiled and lucky" and I was "just lucky".
Anyway, somehow, I am glad those days are over and behind us.
The struggle in a foreign country was tough but, looking back, it was fun!
No regrets... I am able to forgive all those nasty things now.
Both of us deserved what was due to us.
It was each of us who had taken "the fork in the road of destiny" long time ago.
ㅎ, ㅎ, ㅎ. 다 팔자 아니겠읍니까?
2020.08.08 18:53
You are darn right, my friend!
We were lucky, yes!
Enjoy the life though restricted under the house arrest.
BB
This article is an eye opener for me.
While I was a member at Detroit Golf Club for 25 years
from 1989 to 2014, I used to look at the large portrait of Horton Smith
on the wall on the stairs to upstairs men's locker room who was the first head pro
at DGC after winning Augusta Masters Championship.
I felt somewhat ashamed at first by reading this article, then was relieved to know
he repented later to help abolish the ridiculous rule, "Caucasians only" rule by PGA.
What a story! and what a fighter Joe Louise!