I suddenly feel compelled to share a story that popped into my head as I was digging for a NOTABLE QUOTE for the sidebar of this here blog.
It was a parenting situation, which haunts me still, four years after the fact.
Instead of correcting the ignorant and hurtful comments of a fellow parent, I sat quietly - numb, in fact. The remarks were made in the waiting room of a ballet class for toddlers. Picture a suburban New York children's dance school: A florescent-lit hallway the size of a McMansion walk-in closet, crammed with rickety folding chairs and a video monitor on which we could view our prancing darlings, over take-out lattes. We sat together, the mommies and I, for an hour every Saturday morning, the summer my big girl was four. Let me explain that, out of fifteen ladies, there was only one with whom I felt some connection. Her name was Jackie. She was Korean, her husband was Italian American, their little girl was sweet and lovely. They had moved from the city to nearby Bergen County, NJ, to be closer to grandparents. The rest of the ladies were pretty unremarkable. Except for one: I'll call her Crissy. She was fancy, with an impeccable French manicure, blown out long dark tresses, and a pearl white Escalade, in which she drove her two princesses with soap opera star names to every extra-curricular activity imaginable. We heard all about it, every Saturday, with no means of escape.
One Saturday, Crissy chooses to regale us with the details of a day she had recently spent in the city, taking the girls to see The Lion King on Broadway. Front row seats.
"After the show, the girls were so wiped out they fell asleep in the car. And as I'm driving toward the West Side Highway I almost got into an accident with this black guy driving a Porsche Cayenne. The fucking guy almost killed us," she says. "He probably had his radio on so loud he couldn't tell what was going on... The drug dealers are taking over the city, I tell you. I hate going in with the kids anymore. It's so dangerous!"
Do I need to mention that there are no distinctly black women in this mommy crowd?
Jackie jumps in: "What makes you think he was a drug dealer?"
And Crissy replies, "Well, how else could he afford that car? He must've been a drug dealer."
Jackie glances at me sideways, stunned. No one says a word. Not even me, the daughter of a successful black man who proudly drove around the streets of Manhattan in a lovely little Porsche 911 (circa 1971) which he worked his ass off in order to afford. What I want to say is: Hey Crissy, maybe the guy was a professional athlete. Or an entertainment industry mogul. Or a neurosurgeon. DUMB ASS.
But I let her get away with it. Caught up in my own confusion. Had it never occurred to her that I might be black? Did she not care whether she insulted me? Where the hell was she coming from?
I will always regret not having spoken up when it happened. Maybe putting it down here will help.
4 comments:
Congrats on putting it down in paper, the Interweb sort at least. I would have, and will, mull over my 48 options and run them through the possible scenarios to the very end. All the while, I will get a little more upset. At the end of it all, I will just cram the anger into a small part of an overused portion of the noggin. I wonder how differently I handle certain situations with all my baggage and mulling.
I used to not say anything when I heard a moronic/mean spirited comment and later end up regretting not speaking up. I was younger then - not aware of the power I had inside me. I'm older, wiser and more confident in who I am now. Not only do I call that person out, I use that as an opportunity to educate him/her on how oblivious and rude they seem. I explain why their comment is hurtful and/or offensive. It sometimes opens a dialogue for a deeper, more meaningful conversation. I tell them about me and my culture - a black Haitian woman. I'm often mistaken for Hispanic or Middle Eastern..."NOT black". I've even gotten the "are you sure???"...wow there is still LOTS of work to be done!
It's too bad LP didn't really take to ballet. I'd love to hear 'part 2' of this story, when Crissy apologizes to you and everyone else in the room for her behavior.
It shouldn't take a black person in the audience for a speaker to not be racist. If a tree falls in the forest, it still fell whether anyone was there or not.
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