A response to hate - Democratic Underground

ejbr

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Mon Jan-19-09 01:39 PM
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A response to hate

The day before we make history by inaugurating the nation’s first African American, or biracial, president, I am compelled to reflect on the America in which I was raised. Born in upstate New York in 1965, I felt fortunate to have missed most of the blatant racism that my sharecropper parents withstood during Jim Crow Mississippi just a few decades earlier. They believed their dream of creating a better life for their offspring stood a better chance in the north, so they migrated as soon as they had the resources to do so. However, my experience as an African American during this time was not without tribulations.

The first time I was called a “nigger” was when I was 12 years old. Walking to the drugstore with a white friend one afternoon, I remember feeling serene until the offender, a white boy my age, decided to yell the insult from a few hundred yards in front of us. He then ran toward the safety of the store. Instinctually, I ran after him, but my friend asked me to slow down since he “could not keep up”. Of course, he wanted to avoid a scene and in my naiveté I obliged him. When we reached the store, I overheard the young bigot telling the kind old white man behind the counter that he was out of breath because someone was chasing him. My dramatic entrance answered who was chasing him, but my friend’s obvious ploy to avoid trouble prevented me from explaining why. So, I looked like the bad guy.

The second time was when I was 15. I was walking a rural road near my prep school when a person yelled the word at me as he (she?) sped by in a car. I remember the frustration I felt for not only being targeted, but also in not being able to respond. Another tranquil walk ruined by another bigot. As I entered the town store, I wondered, “Is this cashier a racist too? Who else harbors these feelings toward me? Didn’t we all just want to improve our lot in life? How could my innocuous existence generate such hate?”

The third time was in a deli in Boston on the first floor of the building in which I worked. It was 1988 and though I knew that there were many, many (…many, many) racists in Boston at that time, I was surprised to see the elderly woman in front of me turn around and begin a rant about being “Stuck in line in front of a nigger!” and so on and so forth. No one said anything to the woman, not even me. She got her food and went about her day, “none the wiser”. Meanwhile, humiliated and hurt, I ordered my sandwich and went on my way as every eye in the place looked at my reaction.

Today, all these years later, I know how I would respond to each of these attacks on my person. I cannot say what exactly I would say or do, but I do know that I would stand up for not only myself, but also for the next African American person these Neanderthals might encounter.

I wish I could say that these were the only racist incidents I have had in my life, but they are the ones that stand out because of that word and my lack of response. However, tomorrow, January 20, 2009, my fellow Americans will join me in a response to those slights, albeit decades after the fact. I can now smile when I reflect on the young man I was and think, “Can you believe it? Those small minds did not have the last word after all.”

:dem: