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Show Victor Gordon: Tm a gentle person-a poet' filled up with their pride," Victor says. "I started relcarning a language that I had almost "forgotten." "for-gotten." And his poetry evolved "t of the tidy tempos characteristic of Pound and Eliot into the unbound rhythms of tribal drums, southern gospel chants and the blues. Victor joined with 'the movement' in California for several years, graduated from Cal State and' headed for home. Back in Salt Lake City, Victor found himself in a tension that still plagues him-straddling the ethics and lifestyles of two cultures. cul-tures. Continued on Page 8 . A ,'; -4 . " ' x v i ; say 'sir' with impressive frequency, fre-quency, perhaps someday he would grow up and have white neighbors. He could, if he strove earnestly, become almost white-he was almost perfectible. Fourteen-year-old Victor Gordon was buoyant with the thrill of such a possibility. "I proceeded to straighten my hair and purge myself of 'Negro' speech patterns," he says. Those King Kong Konks bunted the scalp and turned the hair orange, but "when it was all over you could comb your hair with Wild-root." Wild-root." Victor worked diligently cleaning restrooms at the YMCA and then, for over 6 years, as a redcap for the Union Pacific Railroad, Rail-road, "that damnable racist institution," insti-tution," "But all of tli at was a put-on job, man," he adds. "Even when we were young, we could sense the sickness of the while community. com-munity. We didn't want to be like them; we just wanted to be able to play their game for survival purposes. We grew up as split BY SYLVIA KRONSTADT Senior Editor A picture of violent fierceness and outrage is generally conjured up by the expression 'black activist.' When Victor Marshall Gordon ambles into the room, one doesn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved. Of slight build, slow-moving and soft-spoken, soft-spoken, he exudes the mellow intensity of a wise and gentle old witch doctor. "People seem to think I live and breathe revolution," Victor says. "I'm a gentle person, man. I am a poet." Squinting through wire-rimmed glasses and stroking his beard, Victor leans against the wall of his Central City office reviewing a typewritten Community Action Program report. He appears tough, jnassuming and exhausted. Draped in a wide-sleeved, embroidered em-broidered tunic, Victor is surrounded sur-rounded by the paraphernalia of black awareness: A 'god is black' poster, pictures of Huey, Malcolm and Martin, a collage of beautiful black brothers and sisters, a Victor Gordon, university instructor, says that warmth and trust can be suicidal to the black man, "because white society seduces and rejects you at the same time." Gordon is poet, playwright, lactor. trees, but we often bad to submerge sub-merge what was black in us." In 1957 Victor enrolled at the University and became active in writing and drama, where, according to a professor of theater, he was "one of the most talented students I've ever had." At age 22 he headed for Los Angcles-"a 'liicky' provincial middle-class Ncgro"-awcd, cautious, decked out in yellow pants and a purple polished-cotton polished-cotton shirt. "I hit L.A. and finally began to uncover what was black in me," he recalls. "Forly-Sevcnlh Street was alive with splibs, man-muslims passing out literature, crowds of color and activity, the kids strutting and jiving and the old folks rapping on the porches. The whole place was jumping-a whole new rhythm. "To see, for the first lime in my life, black people who dug being black-I never knew how much I'd missed it, until 1 got carved ebony voodoo head. "The revolution is over in the sense that the machinery is in motion and can't be stopped," Victor comments. "But the focus is bigger than any one race or ideology-it's a change from one consciousness to another-a move lovvard man-centered tribalism." A great deal of progress has been made, Victor admits, but "the white man is still in the house and the black man is still Knocking on the door." . "The black man can march iround the house, he can petition the house, or he can try to burn it down," he says. "But he's getting 10 the point where he's saying 'I don't need that structure-I don't :ven want it. If you'll leave me toe, I'll leave you alone'. Maybe omeday we'll come back together M realize we have some tiling to ffer each other." Victor's desk is cluttered with nemos, drama and literature 'ooks and a letter from Jerry from his teaching position by President James C. Fletcher "for personal reasons," but the Institutional Institu-tional Council accepted a recommendation re-commendation of the Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee that he be reinstated. Hired on a one-quarter contract, he will complete com-plete his teaching duties Friday. Victor's classroom style is as unpredictable as his whole personality. per-sonality. He can be academic or earthy, cold or compassionate, dedicated or complacent. "Vic comes in struttin' one day-real soft the next," a black student in his class observes. Class periods often evolve into 'sensitivity sessions' where powerful personal feelings erupt and spontaneous role-playing dialogues occur. Black thought is explored in everything from textbook essays to Black Panther Party press releases. It took many years for Victor Gordon's 'black consciousness' to burst from die crusted layers of superimposed whiteness. Born in Salt Lake City, he was lite first child of a Union Pacific train waiter, who was gone most of the time, and a freelance lyricist-brought lyricist-brought up in a time when black was "sin and death and dirt." "1 was bombarded with white middle-class ethics and values from die very beginning," he recalls. re-calls. "White was right, and if I wanted to succeed, I'd have to imitate it convincingly." As a child Victor was bright, industrious and respectful, "and oh, how those white folks dug me," he remembers. Victor was reminded constantly that he had a white grandmother ("lots of good white genes") and that if he would smile and slick his hair down and unghorn, his lawyer for the con-roversial con-roversial obscenity case. Charges -iat Victor violated Utah's ob-:enity ob-:enity statute at an anti-war "illy last spring were dropped xently by City Court, but the 'ate is appealing. In the corner of Victor's desk is neatly graded stack of papers by ver 30 students in his University !ack literature course. Earlier in -ie year, Victor was suspended For me, the course has been a lesson in pain," Victor comments. "The students wound me with their ignorance. Always, always the white language, the white ethic-incredible that one culture could ignore sc much." "But for me, the class has been a tremendous self-learning experience. ex-perience. I read an African passage aloud, and suddenly I know it, feel it, flow into it," Victor says. 1 Gentle person Continued from Page 7 "I'm so much a part of this society-but I've come to believe in ideals that are antithetical to it," he explains. "My consciousness has been programmed with the same white values that have enslaved en-slaved and exploited my own people." In 1968 Victor obtained a j, in Central City, where html' became a major spokesman k the black community. He is f artful communicator, jiving with the brothers down , Porters and Waiters-or discussin the NAACPwith the shiny black businessmen eating j- CtDhelin's-nr nhilrwrml,:..:.. .. an eggheaded old professor. Sometimes Victor is botisl Sometimes he is ancient. Htcr be tauntingly brash or quiet! wise. Victor embodies both gnawing tiptightness and asmife heavy-lidded cool-like a pai,f; drugged into a patchy euplim. And when the hurl bursts throne the da.e. "you get the crai from the pain." he says. "Yt lash out in any way you cm." And Victor Gordon is a p sensitive, romantic, tcmperame:-tally tcmperame:-tally apolitical. But the sr. hypersensitivity to life that mou him to write, prevents him to-being to-being a writer. "I see aninjusli;. and I say shall I write a poo about this, or shall 1 light it?"!., says. For several years in Si Lake City, he has been light; it-embroiled in conflict, prapelle; by his conscience and by if. clamoring of both the black and white communities for his el- " quence. Thus, activism h.-become h.-become a creative outlet, and li. j( acts out his story in a kind 1: "insane epic poem." Victor lives in a tumult ei y committees, ringing telephone speaking engagements, meetings-: ;ij life filled with biatant threats mJ 1 subtle pressures-a steady ploddir; ij that has no time for clocks c fj food or sleep. :;c Victor Gordon is ph sicaJl; :( sick, and exhausted. "I think rn;- m chest is caving in-becoming ate emaciated.... I come from y pygmy tribe, but tin's is ndo- a lous" he says. "Could it be ;it. self-destructive urge which altt j so many artistic personalities. ;m Victor Gordon slaps his knee at- lauglis in pained and war- m spasms. ::3S "Always fighting the inv trying to blast away the endls-bullshit. endls-bullshit. What an ou trageous a to spend my life. I'm going i away and write-to a W' monastery somewhere-. ; there is no one to fiiM" . nothing but trees and flows-Victor flows-Victor has been going f away for years. "No, man this time I n Til come back and 11' causes-bu. only after 1 g back together. R. , I -full, and too empty, V -headshaking, sadly cnicfe' "'-31 years of. , rate I'm gomg 1 around for the next 0 miss myself. My P'P ahr , me a lot to think a ou IV writer-lel me have my I"! V |
