`Hard Times Will Make A Monkey Eat Red Peppers'

IT was one of my grandfather's favorite sayings. He explained that monkeys don't like hot food and would have to be awfully hungry to make a meal of hot peppers. By the same token, he figured difficult circumstances also would make people act out of character.

He used the phrase for a multitude of situations. If was someone down and out and stole something, it got the monkey-and-red-pepper treatment. He made the same comment once when someone torched their business for the insurance money.

But he also applied it to people who change their actions or attitudes in order to get ahead, keep a job or gain favor. He'd be quick to point the monkey finger if it seemed someone was selling out or compromising their principles.

His monkey line is one of those childhood memories that has stuck with me. Several years ago, I even used it in a column that explained my grandfather's rationale and gave birth to the term "peppersucker."

Peppersucker has become a short-hand version of grandfather's story about hard times and pepper-eating monkeys. It's also a not-so-complimentary, but sometimes appropriate, way of describing folks who have chosen or been forced into that category.

It seemed an appropriate choice of words the other day when The Times reported that volunteers answering phones at the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) telethon fielded an inordinate amount of hate and harassment calls in Seattle and Portland.

Entertainer Lou Rawls serves as master of ceremonies for the annual event that is taped and then distributed for airing in various cities where volunteers ask donors to call in.

The telethon aired in Seattle on Saturday, Dec. 28 and half of the calls were from peppersuckers, according to UNCF area development director Adrienne Caver. It aired the next day in Portland and Caver said there were even more insults and hangups.

There were 1,400 donor forms filled out in Seattle and more than 1,000 in Portland. That means that an undetermined number of people took the time and energy to place more than 2,400 calls within a 24-hour period with the sole intent of intimidation and harassment.

Caver said it happened last year, but in lesser numbers. She chalks it up to ignorance and people who don't realize that students of all races and ethnic and religious backgrounds attend UNCF-member schools.

"It's like Notre Dame, which is a Catholic school, but anyone of any persuasion can attend," she said. "I think some people just don't understand that about UNCF-member schools."

What people also may not understand is why these schools exist in the first place. It's pretty simple. At one time, African Americans were not allowed to attend most U.S. colleges and universities. If higher education was to be obtained, it had to be at what are now called HBCs (Historically Black Colleges).

Remember that it was only 30 years ago this fall that James Meredith, an African American, had to have a cadre of federal marshals and federal troops to get him enrolled in the University of Mississippi.

UNCF-member schools have a long, proud tradition, even though some have fallen on hard times both academically and financially. With dramatic tuition increases at larger institutions and the rise of racial incidents on predominately white campuses, there has been a resurgence of enrollment at HBCs.

But's it doubtful that even that bit of history would have stopped callers who picked up the phone and let their fingers do the hating. Given number of calls and their seemingly spontaneous nature, it's fair to assume the peppersucker theory was hard at work.

The recession, growing unemployment, business failures and cutbacks, the lack of national leadership, census projections that show dramatic increases in the number of people of color in this country and mounting pessimism about the future are creating bumper crops of peppersuckers.

It's hard times financially and emotionally. People need something to blame and somewhere to vent their anger. They vent it on civil-rights bills and affirmative action and scholarships for students of color and trade imbalances with Japan and telethons for UNCF schools that have some of the most liberal admission policies in the nation.

Caver understands that living with peppersuckers comes with the territory. Her major concern was the effect on the scores of telethon volunteers - people who she told to "keep trying to smile" for the cameras in spite of the racial slurs.

She even noted that something good came out of all this. There has been a flood of calls from area residents who read about what happened and were outraged by the behavior of some their neighbors. These callers offered kind words, promises to volunteer for the next telethon and pledges of additional support.

It's almost enough to make you believe that the good side of folks eventually does win out. If nothing else, it's enough to make me think about changing my grandfather's saying to something like: "Hard times may make a monkeys eat red peppers, but the presence of peppersuckers has a way of making good people rise to the occasion." We'll talk more later.

Don Williamson's column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday on The Times' editorial pages.