So, I’ve heard some comments on my wonderful journey that have been hard to respond to as well as I would like. I’m just not used to hearing racist comments in my regular life, but it’s come up a few times over the last month. It has always been in a context where the person making the comment is “just telling me how it is” or seems to be looking for agreement. First, an older woman in Ontario, is selling peaches from her farm that had been damaged by a recent hail storm from when a man who could be Pakistani fills his bag to the brim (the peaches are sold per bag) and asks for another bag and spilts the peaches between the two bags. The woman says “Well I’m not done kind of (who’s that racist guy from that 70’s TV show?) person, but I’ve noticed certain characteristics of certain ethnic groups.” I was taken a bit off guard and the best I managed for a response was “I think it can really be a matter of perspective.” The moment was quickly over. I was glad I let her know I didn’t agree, but felt like I could have done much better with the moment had I been prepared.
A week or so later back in the US, I was travelling through a very rural area in Michigan known as “The Thumb” having breakfast at a little hometown joint where some middle age and older guys sauntered in and out and all seemed to know each other well. Eventually the conversation turns to the city of Saginaw, which is a poor urban community in central Michigan. The man mentions that it is a good place to avoid. I inquire about industry leaving, which invites a very long pregnant pause … after which he explains that the place has gotten “darker.” So here I am hoping to respond a bit better than the last time, so I mention my experience as a teacher in a low income, largely African American public school, sharing stories of people working hard to improve their lives and those of their kids. I wished I had included mention of many fine folks I have known in my personal life add well, but at least my response was better. I was more prepared.
So I was a bit taken aback when during a convenience store chat in Iowa with a pretty reasonable seeming fellow a week later my response to the statement “the problem is those nigs” in discussion of news of some murders in a nearby city was to simply look at the floor. I wasn’t ready as I thought I was. Not for this to come from someone who I thought was OK.
I feel fortunate that this type of blatant racism in my daily life in Massachusetts. I’m wondering how you, gentle reader, respond or wish you had responded to such attitudes.
