After visiting the Middletown Art Center exhibit that Corine Pearce curated (the exhibit of contemporary Native art and the first curated by an indigenous person), and then going to the play Driving Miss Daisy at the Soper Reese, prejudice was on my mind.
I remember the time when I went to Florida with my father. I was about 5 years old. While we were still in the airport, I was thirsty, and I went to get a drink from a water fountain. Above the fountain was the sign, "Whites Only." Can you imagine the confusion of a young child who had never seen prejudice so up close and personal? Who had never seen any prejudice.
That incident colored my perception of racism for my entire life.
When my beloved grandma spoke of how scared she was when the complexion of her neighborhood in Downtown Detroit changed from White to Black, I got mad. I couldn't understand her fear; the fear of an elderly White woman who lived alone on West Grand Blvd, across from the General Motors Building. The only other time I got mad at her was when she watched her stupid soap opera during my visit. That and her TV heartthrob Lawrence Welk. We had plenty of great times, though. She'd let me put on her dark red cinnamon-colored lipstick that I lightened with her cover makeup until it was a bright orange tangerine color. I must have looked ridiculous, but Grandma took me over to her hairdresser to show me off. No judgement on me, ever, from her.
My mother's cleaning lady was a Black woman, Sara Harris. When Sara was at our house and my mother would go out on an errand, Sara and I would sit at the piano; me, watching her long dark fingers glide over the ivories. She could play by ear, something I had always wished that I could do. When I married and had my daughter, Sara had her son, Miles, six months earlier. When they were walking age, Sara and I would take the kids on a walk along Main Street in my hometown, which was about as White as White could be. We thought we'd shake things up and get people used to seeing Blacks and Whites together.
I remember going to Sara's house and it was filled with music. Even little Miles, at 5 years old could play the piano. I never played while there, because I hadn't learned (never did) to play by ear, and of course I didn't take my sheet music with me. What good were those 11 years of piano lessons besides learning to love music?
There was a time when I took my PC computer in for repair. A young Chinese fellow helped me. Tried to. I couldn't understand a word he said, between the Computer-ese and his Chinese accent. I told him how frustrated I was. Told him that not being able to understand him made me (irrationally) dislike all Chinese people. He nodded his head and said, "Me, too." We both laughed and became friends and he repaired my PC computer until I switched to a MAC. Lesson learned.
That certainly helped when I went to Sri Lanka. In most circumstances I was the only White person at an event. For some reason it never weighed on me that I was different. Until one New Year's I was shopping at a store that was hot as hell and the queues where a good 200 people long. I had been in line for close to an hour when the fellow at the register yelled, "Madam! Madam!" When we made eye contact, the cashier waved me to the front of the line. I thought to myself, "There's no way I'm cutting line in front of all these people!" I shook my head and said, "No thank you."
It wasn't until I had lived in Sri Lanka for a few years that I realized the Sri Lankans that day must have thought me stupid not to cut line. They would have.
Being in Sri Lanka was one of the first times I had felt prejudice toward me for my color. People were friendly but being a foreigner, prices were way higher for me than for a local. Until I learned the prices, and some tricks. When I bought a suitcase to return home to California, I sent a friend, a local, to buy it while I waited in the car and gave him a thumbs up or down through the open window on which suitcase to buy.
What's a girl to do?…in this strange time…talk, listen, walk down Main Street.
Lucy Llewellyn Byard is currently a freelance journalist and columnist for the Record-Bee. To contact her, email lucywgtd@gmail.com
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