Monday's Opening Thought: April 19, 2021
This week’s opening thought: An example of how white supremacy is the worst turducken you’ll ever cut into.
This morning my wife and I went to mail out a birthday care package. As we’re pulling back into our driveway, we see an older white woman, one of our neighbors, with her Black grandson in our yard grabbing and inspecting our tulips. We watched as she opened up buds, poked her fingers inside of the flowers, and forcefully handled the petals and stems. Her Black grandson appeared to be doing a homework assignment - and this white woman felt she was justified in doing this in our yard with our flowers.
My wife and I got out of the car after we parked. We were expecting her to move out of the way and even leave, seeing how she was in our yard and blocking our walk and stairs. Instead, she looked at us like we were in her yard and in her way. We had to walk around her, with her eyeballing us the whole time.
To say I was livid is an understatement.
Not even two minutes after coming into my house I look outside to find that this white woman and her Black grandson have pulled up one of our flowers.
I couldn’t take it. I had to say something.
I stepped outside on my porch and said, “Excuse me. Did you just pull out one of our flowers?” She immediately went through two lies: it came out on its own, followed by it was loose and it just happened. I said to her that I would like her to leave. Then she did it. She went there.
She said that her Black grandson pulled it out, but it’s OK because it was for a science assignment.
She threw her own grandson under the bus.
Even if he did pull out the flower, she felt no need to stand up for and protect her Black grandson in a neighborhood with like 5 Black people in a 10-block radius.
I was pissed, y’all. But I did not get into a shouting contest. I kept my temper managed and I continued speaking clearly and firmly.
I told her that they needed to leave and I would wait on my porch until they left. The entire time she was leaving she kept making excuses as to why her being in my yard was OK. She also kept looking at me like I was the crappiest person she’d interacted with in years.
I had decided to go on with my day. I wasn’t going to share this interaction with y’all. Truth be told, I see and hear so much racism on a daily basis that 98% of it just gets processed and disregarded for the sake of my mental and emotional health and well-being. But then I heard my doorbell ring. I thought it might be a delivery.
I was wrong.
I go to my door and I see the white woman’s white partner at my door. She was right in front of my doorway, so much so that if I opened my screen door at that moment I would’ve hit her. She was maskless. She wanted to "talk.” She wanted me to come outside.
I kept my screen shut and stood back. I’m Black, it’s a pandemic, and a white woman who likely had beef with me for some wrong she felt I perpetrated was on my porch. That’s all the ingredients for a Black person to have a “bad day.” I might’ve been born at night but it wasn’t last night.
She asked me if there was a problem, because, you know, things happen and we should just deal with it. She said to me her grandson was doing his homework and that you know, he’s 12 and 12-year-olds do stuff. She then told me I scared her grandson. And as pissed as I was that this person was on my porch, throwing this young Black boy under the bus while taking no ownership for her partner’s actions and feeling justified in doing so, I knew what would happen if I got into it with her.
I would be in danger.
I would be the villain.
And at that moment I knew engaging with this person wasn’t worth my while.
I started to break down her and her partner’s messiness and stopped myself mid-sentence. I just knew that it wasn’t worth it. Hell, it’s Monday and I’m already having this chat with myself. I usually can at least get to Wednesday mornings most weeks. I know when I can’t win or break even, y’know? I ended the short interaction with, “You know what? Never mind. I’m sorry if I scared your grandson.” I closed my door, sat on my couch, and shook my head at the world we live in.
White supremacy is believing you can say and do what you want to people and their property with no repercussions and feeling justified in every action you take with no regard for others.
White supremacy is modeling this behavior in front of a young Black boy in a 98% white neighborhood and giving him the impression that he has the same privilege as white folx.
And white supremacy is when Black boys are placed in situations where they are made to be afraid of Black men.
After everything that has transpired over the last few weeks with Black and Brown lives being taken I couldn’t help but feel for this Black kid who wanted to look at flowers and his future in a world his white family is not preparing him for.
I wonder how often his white grandparents even think of his future outside of compliance and assimilation or even care to realize that his reality and their reality are not one and the same.
