The ugly truth
Throughout this week of school we had been given
packets to read, annotate, and analyze. Upon receiving the passage from
"Postcards from the Trenches" by Allyson Booth and "The Meaning
of July Fourth for the Negro" by Frederick Douglas. Both were extremely
compelling reads, but one stood out to me on a personal level and that had to
be the speech from Frederick Douglas.
After reading the text I couldn't help but
resonate with it for the rest of the day leading up to now. I know I’ll never
be able to understand what life was like for my people when Jim Crow was the
new black and I’m not trying to relate to the hardships they had to face, but
in a way... Douglas's speech spoke to me and made me look back to the times
I’ve experienced racism from others and truly felt alien in a world I was led
to believe was where I belonged. Reading the lines of the speech triggered a
flashback in which I went up north with my best friend Varun, and at the time
going to Petoskey Michigan was a safe haven from all of the stress, drama, and
problems back at Troy. It was a place of beauty, where the ugliness of the
world was supposed to vanish. Although I realized that if you take the time to
look hard at anything long enough then you're sure to find that everything has it's
flaws.
During our vacation I took the time to look
around and I saw old white men glaring at us as we walked into stores or on the
sidewalk. I had a stranger confront my friend (who is also dark skinned) and I
for trespassing on "private property" when I had lived their for
almost four years now.
I don't know what it was but the more time
I spent there the more weeds kept sprouting up around me, and it just gets
better from there. We had brought my new puppy Winston up with us this time and
naturally all of my neighbors fell victim to his cuteness. Everything was normal
until this older couple in the neighborhood that I can only assume was seventy
or older at first glance, had owned two chocolate Labradors in
the past. Before I get to the climax of the story let me warn the easily triggered
audience to turn back now while you’re still enjoying your day but for the
interested reader keep reading. When my family had asked what their names were,
they had said "Amos and Andy" and after hearing that my parents made
a weird face which at first they just seemed like a couple of odd names but
still good dog names right? Right? No.
I ended up googling the names and my jaw had
dropped to the floor in a matter of seconds. For those of you uncultured swine
that haven't versed yourself with the "humor" of the 50's, here’s a
link pulled straight out of tales from the crypt
https://www.google.com/search?q=amos+and+andy&oq=amos+and+andy&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i60j69i59j69i60j69i61j0.6934j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
To my disbelief they were two white male
"comedians" who wore blackface to entertain the public at the time. I
was mortified and the worst part was that they didn't even realize it when they
told us. Calm faced, normal speech, looked us dead in the eyes and told us
their names. It was just as casual as asking to pass the pepper. "Your
high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us"
(Douglas 1) This quote rang through my head like the bells of a cathedral and
even now, looking back at that moment that an elderly couple made a six foot
teenager shrink back to a cold defenseless child with just a couple of
words. I remember the details of that conversation more than the taste of
my burger, the funny jokes, and the colors of the fireworks that night. That
one conversation alone had successfully managed to make me feel like the
literal black sheep on the farm, like I didn't belong, like...an outcast.
Anyway, if you made it this far, I apologize for such a long and serious post but I just couldn't keep this to myself anymore. Yours truly
-Connor
I feel like society tends to give older people a pass for being so close-minded. Of course, racism used to be the norm back then, but in no way does it grant them an excuse to treat you and your family that way. It's truly disgusting how a place that holds such good memories can be tarnished, just because of some people's views. Your stories were really eye-opening as to what work still needs to be done within our community.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read the speech for the first time, I was under the impression that it was written recently, and was about modern racism. Interestingly enough, while reading it, I couldn't tell the difference between the hardships he spoke of, and the racism that exists today. It got me thinking about how even though we as a country have come a long way since slavery, a lot of the basic elements of the time, such as constant racism are still around, and it's truly terrible. Connor I apologize for the things you've experienced in your story, and I hope that someday in the future, this obscene racism won't be anything you have to worry about.
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