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Another Brother Looks At "Another Brother"By Horace ColemanClarence Fitch was just a name to me. As in "the Clarence Fitch VVAW chapter." Subject of a documentary called "Another Brother." "Coming soon to a PBS station near you," e-mail promised. "Another Brother" shows the man, the circumstances and environment that shaped him and the forces that drove him. Before the documentary ended I said to myself "Yeah, I know that guy!" I "know" Clarence Fitch - as a person like and unlike many other black men with similar life circumstances. People who went through 'Nam and the Sixties (local and personal variations optional) and emerged as distinct individuals with some common characteristics. American expectations, fears and hopes. "Another Brother" introduces you to a real man with real character flaws and gem-like qualities, living a real, often gritty, life. Fitch's story is more than a black man's life story - or even a black vet's. It's a variation of "every vet" - of many men and women who went through a peculiarity that caressed and scarred them and America. He - and you and I - spent a crucial time in a place and atmosphere where the "it don't mean nothing" outlook was a major way of temporarily "explaining" forces, actions and interactions that gripped too tightly. Removed from the front burner of military experience in-country (where you boiled), we were put on a back burner where our memories simmered (or boiled over again). We found ourselves - and our outlooks on, expectations of and knowledge about America - drastically changed.
His childhood, and the family life he had, or didn't have, in a major metropolitan area (New Jersey) shaped him. He got another "upbringing" in the 'Nam. Another when he came back home. And still another as his awareness of himself and politics changed. This happened to many of all colors, castes and conditions. Fitch's life was a work in progress. When I say politics, I mean interactions among people and institutions as they really are - not as usually seen on TV, taught in schools and pretended or assumed to be. "Another Brother" shows Fitch evolving and self-combusting. The eyes of a daughter, the eyes of a wife, friends and the man himself on trips south of the border meeting people struggling to live their definition of freedom and justice show different aspects of him. People who are much like the ones he once fought. People who are, in essence, like himself. I easily remember things I found contradictory and confusing while I was in 'Nam. The irony of being 10,000 miles from home and supposedly helping people I'd never seen before and knew little about to preserve their freedom when I knew quite well black folks - and many others - didn't have a full stake or first-class citizenship in America. 'Nam happened while the Clarences in the boonies remembered how things were during their first military training and at the first (or last) duty station they had before 'Nam. My reaction to America from 'Nam when ghettos across the country went up in flames fueled by the social napalm our country dropped on itself was "Damn! I'm over here and the war is back there!" I doubt if Clarence's feelings were far from that or much different where he was then. Not that he, I, or anyone else really knew the exact cause of any particular riot ("rebellion") in a strange city or had a practical way of making things better. But there was a vague and deep "understanding" of what happened and why. And an overcooked resentment. Those "urban disturbances" hurt the people who participated in them, lived close to them or were passers-by, much more than they hurt "the establishment." In 1968 Martin Luther King was killed, Bobby Kennedy was killed, and in Chicago the police rioted during the Democratic party's national convention. What did Clarence think and feel about that? Rage? Frustration? Incentive? To do what? How? "Another Brother" shows his efforts to get involved in things, to be fully engaged and fully alive. Again. Or maybe for the first time. Like the character Nick Romano in Willard Motley's novel, Knock on Any Door, Clarence Fitch lived fast, died young, and left a good-looking corpse. Well, mostly. "Another Brother" shows a man blazing, burning and yearning, trying to do a little good to counterbalance . . . what? I think you know. Being "used and abused" and having had a hand in doing that to others. And being in a hurry about making up for it. Clarence Fitch's life is something to be seen and understood, not judged. "Another Brother" is full of real people being themselves. And Fitch himself, full of demons and redemption and development and hope. It's well worth watching. It makes you go "hmmm" when it ends. This documentary, on PBS TV or wherever and however you might watch it, is valuable and full of hard-won knowledge. See it if you can; it's heartfelt and well made. As real as fear and as joyful as laughter. When the documentary ends, it makes you remember what you always knew: it does make a difference what you do. Things might not always be crystal-clear or come out like you want them to, but you have to try anyway.
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Clarence Fitch, like many of us, found himself out of step with places and people who knew little of his too-real recent history. Far too often there was little understanding of it or respect for it or him. Fitch was the kind of urban lumpen proletariat that Marxists used to talk about and Huey Newton recruited: non-middle class in origin, non-college educated but neither stupid or ignorant. Fitch was full of what folks call "mother wit." He both differed from and somewhat matched the stereotype of a "typical" black man.