Monday, April 6, 2015

Growing Up In the Race Divide (part 4)

Probably, you should go back and read part 3 of this series before going on. The two are somewhat related.

As I said last time, the reason my mother gave me for not allowing me to invite my black friend to church was that "it wasn't a good idea." At the time, I couldn't really figure that out. We were told every Sunday in Sunday school that we should invite our friends to church with us and, the very first time I wanted to do that, I was told it wasn't a good idea.

Needless to say, it was a long time before I ever wanted to invite anyone to church with me again. A really long time.

So let's jump ahead to high school. And I'll try to keep only to the relevant data.

My church employed a number of janitors; they were all black. The building superintendent was white, but all the guys that worked for him were black. Also, my mom was the cook at my church, and all of the help they ever hired for her was... I'll say non-white. I'll also say that, as part of the "paid help," my family, as with the building super, was barely passable, and that's just because we were white. The non-white employees didn't actually attend my church, and the janitors (because we still called them janitors, at the time) were specifically forbidden from entering the sanctuary during services. They could only come in to do the clean-up afterward.

I didn't know about all of this until later, but it all has to do with why it wasn't a "good idea" for me to invite my friend.

One morning, I was walking with the guy who was in charge of the bus ministry. He was helping a little, old lady from the "gym side" of the church to the "sanctuary side" of the church. When I say "little, old," I mean it, too. She was at least in her 80s, unable to walk without assistance, and what you would call wizened. Without any of the wisdom that came with it. As we entered the connecting hallway (the church was laid out in a large U), one of the janitors was leaning against the wall near the intersection. He was supposed to be doing this. They were stationed at what were considered the rear doors so they could open them for people (and to keep out "undesirables" (seriously)).

I liked this guy, and I wish I could remember his name. He was taller than me (not surprising), in his early 20s, had a big smile, and laughed easily. By this point, I was already working at my church, so, sometimes, when I was doing work in the gym area and he was around, we would joke and stuff. Plus, he played basketball with my brother who was only in the 10-12 year old range, at the time, and he treated him like a person, not a kid.

So... there he was, leaning against the wall, as the three of us came out of the other hallway. I went to say hi, the bus guy went to say hi, the old lady... She didn't let us say hi, because she -- pardon the language, but there's really no other way to say this with the same meaning -- lost her shit. Right there. She started screaming that there was a "nigger in the church!" She had a cane, and she, this lady who could barely walk, raised it and tried to go after him screaming about the "nigger" the whole time.

I think my brain froze up, because I just stood there not knowing what to do or how to respond. Evidently, the bus guy had dealt with this kind of thing before, because he just guided the old lady around the corner and off down the hallway while looking back over his shoulder and mouthing an apology. In what I'm sure she thought was a whisper, the old lady was saying, "Did you see that? There's a black person in my church!"

And the janitor? He just shrugged and waved it off. He even chuckled about it. But I stood there, mortified. I hadn't done anything, but I went over and apologized. It was the first time I felt, well, shame at being who I was. Because I was white. I felt soiled just from having walked down the hall with the old lady, not to mention that I had helped her off the bus and into the building. I wanted to go wash my hands. But he said it wasn't a big deal and not to worry about it. It wasn't me, and she was old, and it didn't matter.

To some extent, he was right. I mean, it wasn't me and she was old, but I couldn't get behind the part where it didn't matter. I thought it did matter. I mean, we were in church! What kind of person acts like that to begin with, but what kind of person acts like that at church? Which made me wonder what she'd been like when she was younger and that kind of behavior and been acceptable. And not just acceptable but expected. And I got all sick feeling again and ashamed of being white.

And that's when I understood why my mother had told me that it wouldn't be a good idea for me to bring my friend to church. I never came to a conclusion, though, as to whether it wasn't a good idea because she was concerned for my friend or if she was concerned about any potential labels that might have gotten attached to me or our family over it. After all, "nigger lover" was still a pretty common term in those days.

20 comments:

  1. Your parents did an amazing job raising you. Honestly I can tell you I have witnessed similar things here in NC and I guarantee you some white kids have absolutely no shame in being white, In fact, they taunt and tease and I have heard white kids use the "n" word. Imagine the kind of home in which they are being raised. You were wise beyond your years in part 3 of this post! Kudos to your family!

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    1. JKIR,F!: Honestly, you can only give my parents credit if you're crediting them for letting me raise myself. They were almost completely hands off.

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  2. I just can't fathom that.
    That old lady would have a meltdown if she saw our church. And with that attitude, she would not fit in at all.

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    1. Alex C: Most of the people in my church kept that attitude hidden, but it was still there, as you'll find out in part 5.

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  3. Man, I was mortified just reading that story. I know how you feel. I've had similar experiences where I felt ashamed to be white... it's never a good feeling to feel trapped in your skin. :(

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  4. Wow, that's insane. I can't picture that either. It seems unreal. I know the whole "they're old, they won't change, it's no big deal" thing is so common, but I still think it's weird. I mean, yes, a lot of the old, prejudiced people that eventually die off will help lessen this kind of thing, but we're still going to have idiotic racist people of all ages. See today's post as a prime example.

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    1. ABftS: Yeah, it gets better. Sort of. I mean, Obama -is- President, but, usually, I'm of the opinion that it doesn't get better fast enough. And, well, Obama being President has also served to really pull a lot of the old racism out of the closet. Even my brother went on tirade at me not long after he was elected about the whole birth certificate thing. Let me put this in another context:
      My brother is dating a black girl, but he went on a bender about how Obama isn't really an American.

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  5. Pretty weird behavior to me, but I guess it was the norm in some places in another time--well maybe even now. We were always encouraged to invite people to come to church, but maybe some churches had specific definitions as to what constituted being "people". So I wonder if some folks like you've described figured that heaven was a segregated place or maybe some folks weren't really people and weren't allowed to go to heaven. A lot of contradictions at play in the minds of some.

    Arlee Bird
    A to Z Challenge Co-host
    A Faraway View

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    1. Lee: You know, I think some people taken that whole "chosen people" thing a little too seriously. Right now, those people tend to think that "chosen people" are WASPs. Sure, there might be a few other people up in heaven but not many. Maybe the disciples but, then, they're white, too, right?

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  6. I've seen this with my mother -- not the racist rants, but the speaking her mind part. After falling and hitting her head twice a few years ago she's basically got full-blown dementia now. She's forgotten she's not supposed to say what's on her mind out loud so others can hear. It's not unusual to sit in a restaurant and have her say something LOUDLY about how big a person is or whatever. Yeah, it's pretty embarrassing. But nothing compared to what this woman did. I imagine, though, those were always the woman's internal thoughts, but as she aged the walls of inhibition eroded. Sad stuff.

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    1. L.G.: Yeah, I'm sure that's true. And, I suppose, that's why we shrug off that kind of behavior, but that doesn't excuse the interior thoughts of people. I mean, sure, good for them for not speaking that stuff out loud, but it doesn't mean anything if they're not working on becoming better people.

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  7. Gee, what a typically compassionate church-going woman. Ugh, I'm glad I didn't have to see that. It would have made me feel disgusted for my race, too.

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    1. Jeanne: I know! And that's the problem, because that's how most church-going people act. People who don't look them and believe like them are to punished, not loved.

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  8. My grandmother was 92 when she died a few years back. She was horribly racist and used to say racist things around me. I never corrected her or challenged her because she was my grandma, and she was 92, and I'd think "Well, she grew up in an era when that was acceptable."

    Except now I realize that even in the era when SLAVERY was generally accepted, not everybody approved of it and some decent people were vocally and actively against it and trying to end it. And so just saying "Well, that's the way things were" can't excuse racism.

    AND, after 1965, or so, it should've been apparent that as a society we were no longer allowing people to be racist. So my grandma had 30+ years in which to re-learn her viewpoints and make them right.

    I guess I should've tried harder to figure out a way to address the issue with my grandma.

    Your stories about this stuff are so vivid. I like them.

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    1. Briane: I don't know... It's hard when you're that young to be able or to even know how to approach your elders with how they aren't acting correctly. But there will be more on that coming up.

      I'm glad you like them.

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  9. You and I grew up in such different environments. These posts are really illuminating. Not to say I didn't ever see racism, but it was a different breed when and where I was growing up.

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    1. Shannon: Racism does tend to look different from place to place, but it's all the same dog. The most insidious seems to be in places where they think they're not racist.

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    2. Funny you say that. A co-worker here told me she was planning on moving back to Georgia, because at least there the racism was in her face and not behind her back.

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    3. Shannon: Yep, I have some stories about that kind of stuff, too, but they're not my stories, so I haven't decided what to do with them, yet.

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