Not sure how old I was, but in the pictures I look about
ten. Lanky, long, wearing too-short hand-me-down plaid pants, hair in braids. For
some reason my grandmother got the idea to drive down to Beaumont to visit some
elderly cousins of hers, and mom and I tagged along. Grandmother was very into genealogy
and the bonds of family. It wasn’t unusual for her to detour on a road trip to
some small town to show up unannounced on the front porch of someone she hadn’t
seen for 50 years. I didn’t really care what the reason was; I just loved to go places.
Anything that sniffed of adventure was okay with me.
I don’t remember a thing about the drive to Beaumont or
about the town itself. Turned out the cousins were two frumpy, gray old ladies
who shared a house. One of them had a hobby of painting glass. She showed us
her treasures and we enthused politely. She made us a gift of two of her vases.
We sat down to a meal together. Lunch maybe? I don’t
remember anything except the conversation, which was appalling. The cousins
were distressed about the state of their community, apparently near total decay
and destruction on account of them awful niggers. Grandmother and Mom picked
silently at their food, looking more and more distressed as the venom flowed in
waves. As soon as the meal was over, we fled for the car.
“Well that was uncomfortable,” Grandmother said.
“It was purely awful,” Mom agreed. Looking at me in the back
seat, she added “I’m really sorry you had to hear that.”
“I just didn’t know what to do,” Grandmother said. “I’d
never met them before. I had no idea.”
To wash off the feeling of that visit, we drove to
Galveston. It was the first time I’d seen the ocean, and I was instantly in
love. I played and rolled in the waves in my plaid pants until Mom dragged me
away, reminding me of the long drive home. I looked back over my shoulder until
the water faded from my sight.
I still own, and use, those two hand-painted vases. Every
time I get them out and fill them with flowers, I remember those angry, ugly
old women. I think that’s why I keep them. For a long time, we’d thought that
level of open racism had faded from the scene, but it has not. We were complacent
because we couldn’t see it, but Obama’s presidency and the rise of social media
has torn away that veil.
I wish my mother or grandmother had spoken up during that
uncomfortable meal, had said “You know, this isn’t okay with me, and it’s not
okay to say these things in front of a child.” That’s another reason I keep the
vases. Because I’ve found my voice since then, and although I’m still a
daughter of the south, I’ve thrown away the fake veneer of “manners” that
enables hatred and injustice to go unchallenged.
And I’ve never again worn plaid pants.
