Caution: Racial Observations Ahead

I found myself in a unique situation yesterday. Apparently—and unbeknownst to myself—the mall closest to us is a venue visited predominantly by black people. (Insert ‘African American’ if that is your preference, but most of the black people I know currently dislike this phrase, so I’ve reverted to my personal standby, having heard a close friend use it extensively—and she’s black.)

Now I was going shopping with Kate, to a store she and I both adore, so that I could find a nice shirt to wear when we go to the Fox Theatre this Wednesday night to see a play called ‘Bombay Nights’. (Side note: my husband is from India in origin, and Kate is black. Aren’t I the culturally rounded one?)

There we were, making our way through the mall during ‘Tax Free’ weekend, so that it was heaving at gills with people—not my most favorite time to go to a mall. In fact, I usually dislike going to malls in general, unless it is with a friend. Anyway, there we were, walking along, when Kate said quietly in my ear, “This is why Ashton doesn’t want to come here…right now, you’re the only white person I see.”

I have to admit, I was a little surprised at this observation, having not yet made it myself. There have been a few times that I have looked around and suddenly noticed that I was the only white person in an area, i.e. a party at a black friend’s house, a club that was suggested by a black friend, an Indian dinner party where my pale face stuck out among so many darker ones.

It’s not that I was unpleasantly surprised, mind you. I just find it…I don’t know. Intriguing. It didn’t really register, nor would it have, had she not mentioned it. Now in the aforementioned club, I felt awkward when I walked in the door and everyone was looking at me as though an air horn had sounded, heralding my presence. I was with very good friends, though, and soon the shock to the people around us wore off and I was treated with normal disinterest.

Of course, at the mall, no one really cared. It was Tax Free weekend! Whoo-HOO! We had already heard several mothers cursing out their children on our looooong walk in from across the Sears acreage, but that just made for comic relief. I secretly admire how many black mothers are not afraid to absolutely speak their minds to their children. It’s refreshing at times, albeit a bit frightening from the children’s perspective.

But by golly, you KNOW their kids sit quietly in church on Sundays. Hell yes they do.

It was at this time, though, that I thought to delve deeper into a mystery. You see, Kate and I are bookkeepers at our workplace, and so there are often hours on end where she and I get to talk while we work. We knew that we had many things in common before I joined her in the back room, and so we have yet to threaten to kill each other after long days together.

To summarize, we get along rather well. So I did not shirk my next question to her in the mall, as it seemed pertinent to the current line of interest.

“Why won’t Ashton come here?” (Side note number deux: Ashton is a self-proclaimed skinny white boy, very sweet and intelligent, and a good friend to us both.)

Kate shrugged and laughed a little bit. “I don’t know…”

“Does he think everyone would gang up on him and kick him out or something?”

She just shook her head, clearly not wanting to throw out any answers, so I let it go. I’ll ask Ashton today to find out. Perhaps I would have felt similarly unsettled, had Kate not been there with me. I honestly couldn't tell you.

We went into another store, called ‘Ashley Stewart’, which is totally funked out and full of black women’s 70’s fashion. I bought a skirt there, which is really freakin’ beautiful—long, full, dusky peach, heavy lace panels sewn in, and On Sale. But they also had the shirts held together with interlocking gold rings and leopard print this, that and the other. In this store, I got a glance from the other patrons here and there, but nothing that denoted distaste at my being in there and being non-black. (Side note numero tres: I am a white girl, of German, Irish and English stock, blond hair and blue eyed. An unmistakable cracker.)

I can be naïve at times; I’ll be the first to admit it. But I’m starting to feel like many of the barriers between the races are breaking down. Perhaps not on a global front, perhaps not according to the news…but slowly, in the world around me at any rate, it is growing acceptable for a black man and a white woman to strike up a conversation in line at a Dunkin’ Donuts and just chit-chat about the day they had yesterday and the day that has begun way too early for both of them.

Let me know if you have had any similar experiences lately, to map out the easing of racial tensions closer to home—or perhaps the heightening of it, whatever. I just feel like the world I live in is different from the world on the news. And this gives me hope for the world my son is growing up in.