There Is Not Only Us

The culture of the county in which I was raised is segregation-based. This antiquated segregation has been self-imposed, passed down from previous generations and at one time fell short of men in white sheets. Racism toward the African-American community is exceedingly evident there. I cannot recall one black man or woman residing within the county lines until I became old enough to move away from my family and beyond its borders. I was blessed richly not to become one of its many victims.

I grew up in a small community where the closest neighbor was at least a half of a mile away. My family home sat on 1.5 acres and we had a fairly good sized farm of 87 acres. I lived seven miles outside of the town where I went to elementary, middle and high school, and all of these in the same building. Nearly all of the families that neighbored my home were farming families. The breeze moved with the lush scent of cow, pig and chicken manure. The crystalline blue sky was filled with the charming music of chugging tractors, buzzing grain augers and blaring car horns of people foreign to our meandering style of driving. To us though, that is home. 96% of us are white. The other 4% is a very small mixture of Hispanic migrant workers, Hispanic migrant workers who became permanent residents, and Native Americans. The population is just under 35,000 as a whole. Almost 33,500 residents are white!

In the socially stunted area where I grew up, the racial demographics have always been predominantly white. As a child, I remember an incident where my Mom was driving my Nan-nan to the hospital for some sort of medical procedure. Our county does not have a hospital, so we had to drive about 45 minutes to the next major city (we have no major cities) to have a hospital available to us. As we are driving, we pass a grouping of dilapidated, project-like row houses. I, being a small child, was gazing out of the window at the unfamiliar scenery that passed by outside of my Cadillac rear seat view. My Nan-nan snaps at me, “Stop starin’ out the winda at them damn ‘porch monkeys’!” I’m not sure how I felt about what she had said to me. I just followed orders and planted my face into my book trying to figure out what Nan-nan had meant by that. My Mom had no comment at all and that is a bit of a shock to think back on how that situation played out.

Nan-nan was a vital person in my upbringing. She was strong willed, outspoken and vivacious. She encouraged me to stand up for myself and speak my mind. Later in life came one of the hardest moments with Nan-nan that I had ever encountered. She was so stubborn that when she was diagnosed with leukemia, she refused treatment. As a result, she eventually suffered a debilitating stroke and waited patiently for me to come to her bedside before she would allow herself to leave this Earth. Assuring her through sobbing tears that I would be fine and that I did not wish for her to suffer, she passed away. I loved her fiercely and though I had become achingly aware of her racism throughout the years, she helped to mold me into the strong, resilient, outspoken woman that I am.

My Dad was an appalling person. He was extremely self-centered, misanthropic, abrasive, and volatile. My Dad worked hard, drank even harder and treated his family with the hardest of hearts. He was a rock star of the Alcoholic Underworld. He not only treated us badly, he treated everyone badly; behind their backs. He was prejudiced against black people. He hated them. If there had been a KKK Klan meeting in our county, my Father would have been there with bells on, offering to light the torches.

My Mom was the most wonderful person in my entire world. She carefully sculpted me into who I am today with her tools of the trade: love and discipline. She was a fair-minded person and the least prejudiced person I have ever known. She taught me not to hate people because of the color of their skin. She instilled in me that skin color had no such effect on just who a person was. The remaining members of my family did not share the same views.

There were a few occasions where Mom had a couple friends over to visit and they were black. I recall my Dad being absolutely fuming when he walked in the door noticing his thoroughly unwelcome guests, who were having a delightful time in our home. He uttered not one word from his lips as he stalked past us all with a scowl on his face. I distinctly remember my Mom and me catching each other’s glances with a brilliant grin upon our faces. Ignorance did not bode well with Mom, as is now the same with me.

Jim Crow laws, superior attitudes and personal fears contributed greatly to racism. From 1876 to 1965, Jim Crow laws were established to separate white from black people. These laws were intended to segregate, but maintain equality; it did not work well. Many attitudes regarding “negroes” were honed by irrational fears. I do not understand the illogical thought patterns that fueled this fear embedded within people. Is it because their skin color is different? If we treat them with the kindness afforded to most human beings, will we catch the slavery bug? And oh no! What if our ancestors had went to the bathroom AFTER a black person had? Lord, have mercy! We might have acquired a darker skin tone! Or heaven forbid that a young Rosa Parks had sat next to one of the racist bigots who were sitting in the front of that now famous bus. They might have learned that there isn’t one single thing to fear from someone who is different from them!

My grandmother grew up in a small town, much like the area where I grew up. She has told me stories about “Nigger Dick” and “Nigger Dori”, an African-American couple who lived outside of the city limits. “Usually on my way to school, I’d pass Nigger Dick walking laboriously home from town. Nigger Dori and Nigger Dick didn’t come to town that often,” she had said to me in a casual tone. They were partially accepted in town, but strictly abided by the Jim Crow laws despite that. Dick and Dori were identified to all the town folk by addressing them as “nigger” before their given name and even referred to themselves as such. Couldn’t they have called them Mr. Dick and Ms. Dori?

I have always been struck by how it seemed absolutely appalling that Dick and Dori were treated like that and even viewed themselves this way or had accepted their lot in life. With every racial situation that I have either witnessed or been partially involved in, I have been stunned at the ignorance hemorrhaging forth from the offender.

Though I find the backwoods thinking of many of the residents of my home town/county distasteful, I think longingly for the simple farm life. I imagine driving as slow as molasses along a country road, behind a roaring, green John Deere combine as it fills the expanse of the road with its ready-to-churn header. I ache for the comforting scent of cow manure as I approach my childhood home. I have been back to once again live for a short period within its simple-minded confines and relished the easy going life. As much as I miss the little things that I was afforded in “that” life, I was never destined for it. God had planned something a bit different for me. I was to go out into the world and forge my own way. There are so few are those who grow up there that leave. Those of us who do, we find it only tolerable to return for short visits because we have found that there is a world outside of those county lines.

I find myself very lucky to have grown up in an area such as I have and racism hasn’t attached itself to my brain like a malignant tumor and metastasized though me. I believe that friends and family back home would fall over astounded to learn that I haven’t acquired their thought patterns regarding black people. They would assume that because I was raised within the folds of their community, I think along the same skewed wave length as many of them do. I am white. I am Irish, Scottish, Norse and German. I have loved a black man. I live with two bi-racial young ladies and adore a bi-racial little girl who I treat with reverence as if she was my own. I am pale and have freckled skin, auburn hair, and brilliant blue eyes. There is no difference between myself and Oprah but trivial things like skin color. I am a human being and so is she. That is all the matters. There is so much more to living than hatred. There is not only us on this Earth, on this continent, in this country, state or county. This country is the land of opportunity and freedom…might we try consider extending our hand and live up to the hype?