ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 30, 1996 TAG: 9601300054
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Beth Macy
SOURCE: BETH MACY
Ten days ago, vandals burned a cross on a Southeast Roanoke family's lawn. Police said the act probably was motivated by the couple's interracial relationship.
Three weeks ago, an African-American woman awoke to find a blanket of white snow in her front yard - and the word ``nigger'' written in it.
``Some days, even though we're proud of being black, we wake up and we're tired of being black,'' said a friend of the woman's. The friend - a teacher, a Ph.D., a scholar of African-American history - rolled her eyes when I asked if similar incidents happen to her.
Shoplifting monitors regularly follow her around stores.
A grocery-store clerk asked recently if she'd be paying with food stamps.
``I hear the word `nigger,''' she says. ``It doesn't matter if you're educated or middle-class. To the people saying it, you're just `a nigger with a Ph.D.'''
I am in an awkward - indeed, ignorant - place right now: attempting to write about the black experience through my comfortable white veil. It is what well-meaning white reporters do to make others see a story through their journalistic lens, to connect people to people, race to race.
But no matter how many interviews we conduct, no matter how many scenes we witness and reconstruct, we cannot understand the enormity of waking up weary of our own skin.
In David Huddle's new novella, ``Tenorman,'' the jazzman protagonist described the feeling this way: ``I'll tell you what I think the basic difference is...
``You have to think about being white about 10 percent of your time, and I have to think about being black about 90 percent of mine. Everything else is pretty much the same - but that's still a pretty big difference.''
The following story I offer as proof: Six weeks ago, I interviewed a young black man who works for a local fast-food restaurant chain. He arrives two hours early for his shift - so he can stand outside and wave to passersby.
I learned that many customers frequent the restaurant solely because of this good-will gesture. ``It's a wonderful thing to have happen every morning,'' one woman told me. ``I get about five minutes down the road and realize I'm still smiling because he's made my day.''
Finished with my interviews at the restaurant, I walked to the gas station across the street. I wanted to see if workers there had any observations for my column. A gray-haired man, who is white, interrupted before I had a chance to give my name.
``I know what you're doing; you're writing about that black boy,'' he said. I stammered.
``It's not that I got anything against niggers,'' he said. ``I just don't particularly like 'em.''
Speechless, I stammered again. Then I said the only thing I could think of - ``I thought you might be able to help me, but I was wrong'' - and turned around and walked out.
The entire exchange took less than 30 seconds.
I have told this story to whites, who are shocked. And I have told it to blacks, who nod knowingly and shrug.
Whites are shocked, they explain, because we rarely encounter these gestures of hate. We don't see the clerk's face drop when we approach the counter; don't hear the muttered racial epithet; don't know what it's like to end a 10-hour workday by being asked, ``Are you on food stamps?''
All we hear is, ``Cash, check or charge?''
We can't know what it's like to live in another person's skin. But we can learn history. And from that we can learn compassion.
We can take advantage of the upcoming Black History Month programs. We can talk to area blacks who were integral in the civil-rights movement. We can take the time to get to know people who are outwardly different from us at work and in our communities. And we can teach our children to do the same.
It's time we quit stammering in the face of bigotry and learn how to talk back - to show the racist gas-station worker that not only is he wrong about blacks. He's wrong about us, too.
A cross burned in our own community just 10 days ago.
Do we need any more motivation?
LENGTH: Medium: 78 linesby CNB