The Blacks
“So do you ever have to deal with The Blacks?” the woman asked me. I was at a bluegrass festival about twenty five miles southeast of Scranton. I don’t know the woman’s name: we’ve met a few times before at bluegrass festivals, and the night before I’d picked until after midnight with her husband, a guy about my father’s age with a belly twice the size who picked a mean banjo. The night before, I’d overheard the woman talking about a black person she knew, and how the black person’s lips were so big and “they just flapped around those big old lips”, before she burst into a fit of wheezing laughter at the image she’d conjured up.
The woman and her husband were asking me about my neighborhood in Philadelphia: they had grown up, and at one point owned property, around Eastwick, an area that was sacrificed for the airport. “God that place was a good neighborhood back then,” the woman muttered. “Such a great place to live.”
I never know what to say to racists. Usually, I just try to shrink into the woodwork: despite my strident tone here on the blog, sometimes it’s just not worth the effort, especially with a woman in her 60s who’s set in her ways. I’m no good with names, but this woman and I had met a few times at other bluegrass festivals. Before I discovered she was a racist, she had seemed pleasant enough, and in fact that’s one of the problems for me with racists: once I discover the hidden hatred, it’s difficult for me to look at them the same way. I wanted to like this woman, hell I already liked her, but then she had to go and ruin it.
I don’t know what it is with racists: for some reason, when they start a conversation, they inevitably steer the topic to their race hang-ups. It’s as if the racist wants to invite you into the club, seeing if you know the code words. How much more productive would our conversation have been if she’d said something neutral about my neighborhood, like “Is the poverty still a big problem?” or “Is everyone still addicted to crack?” or “Any shootings lately?” It still would have conveyed that my neighborhood is troubled, without any of the pointless racial smears: it’s not black people that make a neighborhood bad, it’s poverty, drugs, and hopelessness that ruins a neighborhood, and unfortunately in America, many black people live in poverty.
“Yeah, I deal with the blacks all the time,” I said smiling. “In fact, I’m the white guy on the block. And all the black people are your age.” She looked up, an eyebrow arched. “In fact, they invited me to join the town watch to get the criminals off the block!”
Her husband piped up then. “back in the meadows, we had some black families too. But it was different. Good people, but everyone in the neighborhood was good then. We didn’t have to lock our doors or anything.”
“Yup,” his wife added. “And if we screwed up, you can bet the neighbors would tell our parents about it.”
“Where I think the trouble started,” the husband continued, “was when they did away with prayer in schools.”
“I don’t know if it’s that,” I replied. I wasn’t about to get into that discussion, since I’m an atheist. “I do know that there’s a massive problem with people not being there for their kids…” And on we went on a discussion of how parents today aren’t like our parents were, drifting far away from the race-baiting that had opened our conversation, until the coffee began to have it’s effect and my bowels began sending that message that my morning turd was finished brewing.
“Do you have to deal with The Blacks?”
Yes, I do, and it’s far more pleasant than dealing with ignorance.
3 Responses to “The Blacks”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
June 20th, 2007 at 8:38 am
How do you deal with the dentally challenged?
(OK, that’s a bluegrass stereotype. Mea Culpa.)
June 20th, 2007 at 10:29 am
I’ve been to Scranton. It’s like Kensington, only colder.
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Enjoyed this post. I’m originally from PA and would love to come back. (Well, I actually did come back for 2 years a year or so ago. But went straight to the country where I grew up. Didn’t work out so well–for some of the same reasons you mention in this post.) Anyway, this was a refreshing little essay. Pretty much sums up how I felt during my stint there. I’d love to think my experience would be different if I were in a city in PA–like Philly. So thanks for the glimmer of hope.