I couldn’t get my bearings, or tell left from right, or figure out where the train station was in relation to where I was standing. I had just moved to the US and didn’t have a phone yet, but I had a destination. I stood on the sidewalk, reading signs and staying positive. “You’re smart, you’ll figure it out,” I whispered to myself. I was proud and on my way to college in Washington, DC, but this was my first time feeling this cold and this lost. Spinning like a gig, somewhere in Virginia.
I saw a man walking past and thought to ask for directions to the nearest train station. “He looks like he’s from here, he’ll know,” I said to myself. “It’s just directions. And otherwise you’ll be stuck here.”
“Excuse me, sir. Could you point me to th– “
“–I don’t have any cash, excuse me,” the stout, white man hissed the second he laid eyes on me. I stood, stunned, as he scurried off in undeniable scorn and fear, clutching his briefcase.
I crossed the street and went into a Starbucks, heading straight for the bathroom. I stared in that dirty Starbucks mirror for 15 minutes, looking for the beggar in my face.
I spoke to myself out loud. “Your hair is frizzy. That must be it. Or actually, it’s this scarf.”
“The scarf is scraggly,” I persuaded myself.
I felt more confused than insulted. I wondered what in the start of my sentence implied that I was asking that stranger for money. I wondered if he couldn’t hear the strong Caribbean accent when I spoke, if he couldn’t see that I was just lost. I put my scarf in my suitcase. I bought a latte and continued in search of the nearest train station.
It took years of my being here – of hearing other people speak of white women clutching their purses on sight of Black people – to eventually understand that I didn’t really look like a beggar that day. I looked Black. I looked like a Black woman with the audacity to ask for something – even directions.
I experienced racism in retrospect, and that’s been particularly illuminating for me. It’s highlighted for me that we all may or may not have consciously experienced or been exposed to racism, but regardless, we all have a duty to be able to explain it.
Racism is a feature of [modern] American society, and by way of being part of that society, it is relevant to all of us. It’s dangerous to remain oblivious, since this is a matter of life and death for human beings. That’s the danger with not ‘seeing color” – If you don’t see color, you also don’t see the problem, which makes you part of it.
In every space we occupy, we can challenge ourselves to see color and see how it affects the way we feel and think. We can challenge ourselves to practice empathy and understanding, and to probe every one of our preconceived notions about people and systems (from real estate, to healthcare, to education etc.). Understand that all the original architects of racism are dead; these are all inherited and learned mindsets and behaviors. Now is the time to learn and unlearn as needed, and to build the necessary habit of that going forward.
empress. french press. success. 