Ignorance Makes Excuses. Awareness Makes Amends.
“But I am hungry!” Trying to make sense of what was happening I pleaded with my grandfather to stay. Instead of entering the restaurant, he stormed back to the parking lot.
“Why do we have to go Papa?” I asked as I tugged at his hand to get his attention. I could not have been more than 5 or 6 years old.
Disgusted, he grumbled, “There are too many coloreds in there to enjoy my meal.”
“What are the colored people going to do to your food Papa?”
“Don’t argue with your grandfather,” my mother pulled me toward her. In stony silence, we drove to a Morrison’s Cafeteria on the other side of Columbus, GA. When I later asked my mom why my grandfather refused to eat with colored people, she said dismissively, “It’s just his way.”
As I grew older, I came to the painful realization that “his way” was the wrong way. It was painful because I loved him. My grandfather was not a criminal. He was generous, hard working, and loyal, which made it all the harder to understand his attitude toward people of color. In most respects, he was a devoted grandfather spending hours on the back porch playing checkers and dominos, doing magic tricks and spoiling us with candy. He delighted me with tales of quitting school in the third grade and going on adventures with his younger brother. Though not wealthy or educated, he took great pride in providing for his family. During the Great Depression he worked as a lineman for the Georgia Power Company and used every penny he made to feed people who were hungry, both black and white.
I tried but never could piece together the jagged edges of his life. It was as if two different puzzles were carelessly tossed into the same box. How could a man who prayed and studied the Bible also support the beliefs of the Ku Klux Klan? How could he threaten to leave his church because the minister agreed to baptize a black family in the same baptismal font as the “whites”? How could such a loving man also be so hateful?
And why was my mother complicit in this insanity? She knew better. She was better. At the age of 17 she won a full scholarship to the University of Georgia, but my grandparents would not let her accept it. A girl had no need for a college degree, they said. Less than a year later she met and married my father. She worked as a secretary so he could get an engineering degree, and then followed his career across the globe with three children in tow. Somehow she still managed to go back to school to get a degree and teach high school English. I saw her only as intelligent, well traveled, and strongly opinionated, with a wicked sense of humor.
She found her calling when other teachers were too afraid to teach English to “at risk” youth. She believed in her students and loved introducing them to new worlds through the written word. They responded with remarkable enthusiasm. It was not uncommon to walk into her classroom and find a circle of students hovering around her desk. They wanted to sit as close to her as possible. Perhaps she bonded with them so quickly and deeply because she understood the devastating impact of low expectations on a young person’s future. She encouraged her students and her own children to engage in healthy debates about literature, theology and politics. She took great interest in learning about her students lives and passionately defended those who were considered “other” in the pristine suburbs where we lived.
But I never saw her stand up to her father. I never heard her say, “You can’t talk like that.” When he stormed out of a restaurant, a store, or a gas station because there were too many coloreds, she followed him. “It is just his way.”
When I was in college, I attempted to discuss racial issues with my grandfather on numerous occasions. Much to my bewilderment, he insisted he was not a racist. According to him, life was simply better when people knew their place. It is how God ordered the world, he claimed. Stunned, I challenged his assumptions with questions and facts. His response was always as swift and furious as it had been the day he stormed back to the car years earlier.
I have long since crossed the threshold of youth, and I still cannot fit the odd puzzle pieces of his life together. Somewhere between the gaps, lies the truth. One can be a blatant racist and not even realize it. Likewise, good people often ride silently through life allowing racism to steer the way. Short sighted, we choose to follow evil rather than forge the difficult path of love and justice.
Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to be an Antiracist, says when people claim not to be racist, it is a good indication that they are. However, white privileged people who acknowledge the ways they have benefitted from systematic racism are capable of growth and change.
Grotesque evil likes to hide beneath an “I am not racist” crown. Each time an innocent person of color is killed by police brutality, that crown is ripped off, at least momentarily. We have had far too many of these moments recently. Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and Dion Johnson — to name a few — expose an ugly truth white people would rather hide.
Similar to an alcoholic at an AA Meeting, I own my addiction to white supremacy. “I am a racist” and I want to recover from this crippling disease a day at a time.
We cannot excuse racism in ourselves or others. It is never “just his way” or “our way”. People choose ignorance. It may not be bliss, but ignorance is comfortable because it offers excuses instead of challenging us to make amends.
People who ascribe to “all lives matter” argue that good police get hurt and die in the line of duty. “Liberals don’t even care” they say. Of course that’s a lie. We care. We grieve for their families and all those who love them. But the number of black and brown bodies crushed in the hands of white police is grossly disproportionate. We cannot ignore and dismiss it as “it’s just their way.”
For years, I judged my mother for not confronting my grandfather about his racist behavior. As I grew older, I came to understand that her whole life had been a confrontation of sorts. She fought for the degree he said was useless. She responded to his red neck slang with impeccable grammar. Her entire career defied his values. Had he ever dared to visit her classroom, he would have grumbled, “They’re too many colored,” and left in disgust. Rather than lamenting her limitations, I realize now that I must build on her strengths and openly confront the forces holding systematic racism in place. And I pray my children will continue the work long after I am gone.
Black people didn’t change the flavor or diminish the quality of the food at the restaurants my grandfather refused to enter. His bigotry just kept him and everyone in our family from enjoying a good meal. America is starving because white supremacists refuse to approach an equitable table with people of color. They would rather binge on fear and greed and hate that always leaves them hungry. If we want to satisfy our souls, we need to sit down with our black and brown neighbors and make amends. Only then can we taste the fullness of life and love.
(graphic: white words on hot pink fabric, 'STAND UP TO RACISM, underneath black bold letters Ignorance = Racism)
