When I was two weeks old my Granny and Pappy sent me a cabbage patch doll. I still have the picture to prove it. Although its now faded and taped to a random page in my baby book, I pull it out every now and then for a good laugh. The cabbage patch doll, with yarn hair, a pudgy face, and exaggerated dimples, is African American. Seventeen years later, so is the majority of Marlboro County. However, what bothers me is not that I am a minority when I drive down the streets of downtown. No, what does bother me is that some people allow racial background to determine their opinion of a person. Those people are very much part of the population, majority and minority, of Marlboro County.
Aside from my little black cabbage patch doll I did not encounter another black person until I was four and I met Mrs. Washington. I was living in the North at that point. I met her on a visit to see my family. My only comment was that she was covered in chocolate. My parents did not tell me that Mrs. Washington was black. I figured it out for myself when I was in the third grade. That year the only black family that I ever knew to live in my area moved in. This led to my first taste of racism. Children placed her at the bull�s eye for all harsh comments. Spitting out hateful words criticizing her dark skin and perfectly braided hair. Even while I befriended her and held her hand on the way to class, I wandered why it was people could be so cruel? Did they not have a black cabbage patch doll at home? Had they never met a Mrs. Washington?
Moving to the South was like reinforcing all my prior observations of racism. I was exposed to abundances of the little examples I had seen before. Marlboro County is the victim of a slave town past and a failure to forget. Harsh words, not quite as innocent as the ones aimed at the girl in third grade, can still be heard. In elementary school in a white area where even asains were rare, it somehow seemed less offensive that people could be so blindly aware of a person�s race. In a town where minorities and majorities live in the same neighborhoods, where black and white kids play together as children, how can adults and even teenagers, perfectly aware of the situation, allow racism to tear a community apart?
In the Eighteenth century racism was so accepted and widespread most people did not think it was wrong. By the 1900�s equal rights were a work in progress. The year is 2001 and it seems that we have become comfortable with where we stand. Racism, although in many ways dying, is still alive and well in our community. Unlike pollution and litter or even teenage pregnancy racism doesn�t have a definite cure. I will continue to be an example. Maybe somebody else will learn from me. There will always be people who will teach their children that color is never an issue. Just like thee will always be people who will teach their children that it is. It will take a lot of work. Work done as one community, not as racially divided persons. It is work that will require looking further down than skin deep. Two hundred or even one hundred years ago it was impossible, but today it could be a reality. It takes more than one person or two people to outgrow a community�s past. It takes a racially congregated society. |
