It’s good to know that such a radical is a reporter. I trust her to give us the news straight and without bias.
Pamela Constable writes in the Washington Post:
I grew up in Hamilton’s world, on a winding road in Connecticut near a country store and a rambling clapboard house that was the home of Sen. Prescott Bush. All the adults I knew were old-school WASP Republicans like the Bushes. I had a great-uncle who was an admiral and a godmother who was an Astor. They were gracious to everyone, self-reliant and discreet, and secure in their pedigree. There was no need to raise one’s voice or belittle those less fortunate. If one’s forebears had built empires in such grubbier pursuits as fur-trapping or rum-shipping, the taint had been washed away by generations of Ivy League respectability, good taste and noblesse oblige.
Priscilla and Cheston Constable seemed to fit the stereotype perfectly. My father, a communications executive at IBM, took the train to Manhattan every morning and mowed the lawn on weekends. My mother, a former fashion designer, volunteered at the library, arranged flowers and hosted lively dinner parties. Her philosophy of life was, “If you can’t find something nice to say about someone, don’t say anything.” I never once heard them argue….
The most convenient target I could afflict was my parents, who seemed more worried about their daughter turning into a hippie than about a world full of rampant wrongs. I wrote them earnest letters railing against capitalism, country clubs and colonial exploitation. I accused them of being snobs and racists and scoffed at their preoccupation with appearance. If they were hurt or offended, they never let it show, in part because I kept getting A’s and dutifully stood through numerous fittings for my debutante dress.
Still, it was only after witnessing the desperation and cruelty of life in much of the world that I began to reexamine my prejudices against the cloister I had fled. In some countries, I saw how powerful forces could keep people trapped in poverty for life; in others, how neighbors could slaughter each other in spasms of hate. I met child brides and torture victims, religious fanatics and armed rebels. I explored societies shattered by civil war, upended by revolution, and strangled by taboo and tradition.
Visiting home between assignments, I found myself noticing and appreciating things I had always taken for granted — the tamed greenery and smooth streets, the absence of fear and abundance of choice, the code of good manners and civilized discussion. I also began to learn things about my parents I had never known and to realize that I had judged them unfairly. I had confused their social discomfort with condescension and their conservatism with callousness.
Eventually, I saw how loss and sacrifice had shaped both my parents, creating lifelong habits of thrift, loyalty, perseverance and empathy for those who suffered, despite an unconscious unease with other races and classes that I’d always found hard to forgive.
After years of joking that we cancelled out each other’s votes, I realized that the values that mattered the most to me, especially a fundamental respect for the dignity of all people, were those I had learned from them…
In March 2013, Dad passed away at 96; my mother followed him at 97. I was relieved that they had not lived to see their party’s new standard-bearer hurling vulgar taunts and whipping up xenophobic crowds, or to witness the rout of the rational, civilized conservative norms that had defined their lives and guided public policy for a century.
Pamela Constable is a member of the Post’s foreign news staff. A former foreign correspondent based in New Delhi and Kabul, she reports periodically from Afghanistan and other trouble spots overseas.
