However, despite the warmth of the day, I felt a chill. Just a feeling. As we turned down a residential street to go downtown towards the Inner Harbor, I turned to J. and asked, "Was this one of those white neighborhoods that, when you were a kid, you just didn't come to?"
"Well, yeah," said J., looking surprised. "I was actually just going to say something like that. But it's not like that anymore. It's changed. It's like one of those cool neighborhoods, but still sort of trashy --"
Just then, we were passing by a house where three white children, two girls and a boy about ten or eleven years old, were playing in the front yard. As we pulled even with them, they looked in the car, and the boy shouted quite clearly,
"NIGGER!"
The girls, laughing, joined in, "NIGGERS!"
J. turned to me, shaking her head. "What are you psychic?"
I shrugged. "Just racial intuition, I guess."
Incident (1925)
Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."
I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.
-- Countee Cullen
8 comments:
Sweetie, it makes me sad that you've posted such a despairing story on your birthday. You almost sound like me. Keep your heart and spriit intact, k? w/o them the world most certainly will not change.
xxxep
aw man. i missed your birthday. did you get your scary kitty? (more on the n-word later)
i know that violence isen't the answer. but f*** that.
i want to hurt those children for uttering such hateful words they don't undertand, i want to hurt their parents for teaching/and or not teaching them that word and i want to destroy the culture that continues to use perhaps the most hateful word in the english language. >:0
You know, driving home, we always feel we've crossed into the South once we get to Maryland, because that's where we start seeing the rebel flags. The strange thing is that it always feels odd there, but once we get 'home' it doesn't.
Erica, belated Happy Birthday, but also how horrible (and typical)....
To answer your questions:
1. No i did not get the scary kitty. Sigh.
2. My student said the same thing, Sophia. But really, what could we do but laugh? I wasn't going to approach some white people's children on the street, and really, it's not the kids. Scarier to think of the adults.
3. Yes, Maryland IS the South. It was a slave state until the end of the Civil War. For some reason, lots of us don't associate Baltimore with THE SOUTH.
3. Thanks for your bday wishes, lovely people. Yes I was really depressed on my birthday. It was my first birthday where I knew, no matter how long I waited, kept my phone charged, on vibrate, etc, my mother was not going to call me. And the first anniversary is coming, the day she went into the hospital is next week...so I have been really really really sad lately.
Hi baby:
Yes, Hampden. It's supposed to be 'hip, trendy, kitchy' but in fact it has always been one of the most racist neighborhoods in town. They've run out black families who've tried to live there, and gave someone white I know 'cause he was seeing a black man (race being more of a problem than orientation). Folks I know have a pretty nice store (and gallery/reading venue) which moved from another neighborhood into Hampden. They always invite me there, I've only visited the new place once. I just don't like that neighborhood, don't like the people, and frankly don't completely trust all the white gentrifiers who are moving into that neighborhood. Don't tell me they can't see how racist and backward their neighbors are.
PS: EVERYONE I know from New York thinks that Baltimore is 'South'! "I can tell by the accent," they say. "What accent?" I say -- LOL.
But yes, the Mason Dixon separates MD from PA, we have a double equestrian statue to Stonewall Jackson and Robt E Lee, as well as one to Confederate Widows and Justice Roger Brooke Taney (who wrote the Dread Scott decision). Frederick Douglass escaped to freedom on a ship sailing out of Baltimore and he and Harriet Tubman was born over on the Eastern Shore.
The Shore and Southern MD strike me as being REALLY Southern (and conservative and Republican), much more than B-town. However, some of the first blood shed after the start of the Civil War was here (rioters attacked Union Troop marching from one train station to another in town. The first person killed during the riot, however, was a black man -- what a surprise...) Federal Hill over looking the harbor is called that 'cause Massachusetts troops were stationed there to keep the city from formenting succession (the cannons are still trained on the Washington Monument downtown).
So, yeah, even though I can FEEL the difference between MD and VA when I cross the Potomac, we South down here too.
Belated happy birthday!
You know what my new thing is (though that may have been to blatant an offense by too young a offender) if someone treats me like the proverbial "nigger," I act like one (yeah this mos def wouldn't have worked with kids). But say for example if that was an adult: "Well, by what to do mean suh?" "Uh, no sah." "Yes, sah?" Sometimes you don't even need all that, just a simple "Suh?" make 'em uncomfortable real quick. Little kids though...that's why it is good to carry waterballons around so you can bust them in they damn forehead. For all we know, they may have picked it up from Chappelle's Show.
Post a Comment