My Mom Sat in the Back of the Bus
She was colorblind. Are you?
My mother was raised in Western New York, got her Music Teaching degree there, and taught for a few years in the Hudson Valley.
Then she did what was unthinkable in the 50s! She decided to switch her career and went to school for Occupational Therapy. To add to the adventure, she decided to cross the state border to Virginia for her training.
Mom made friends quickly, and after a couple of days of classes, she and a new friend decided to get to know the area a little better. So, they waited at the bus stop and chatted away until the bus came.
When their ride arrived, they boarded, paid their fare, and looked for open seats. They spotted a couple together in the back of the bus and headed back to take them. They were excited as they rode to a new destination.
Then something strange happened.
People were staring at them. They turned their heads around looked at them in disgust. The two women felt uncomfortable and sat in silence for the rest of the trip.
When they reached their stop, they quietly left the bus. With a sigh of relief, my Mom and her friend began to talk about their experience. “Did you notice people looking at us?” “It looked like they were angry.” “Why would they do that?”
They were bewildered. Then, a gentleman nearby spoke up. What he said shocked them!
“You were sitting in the back of the bus with us colored folks. They thought you should be standing in the front with the white folks.”
They stood stunned in disbelief because they didn’t notice people’s skin color.
They were colorblind.
With racial injustice being one of America’s most talked-about issues, I had to ask myself if I was colorblind, too. Here are some things I pondered over.
People see color in the words they say
My adopted son is a Romanian gypsy or Roma. Despite its use on popular TV, “gypsy” is a derogatory term. Because the Roma people originally came from Northern India, they have a slightly darker complexion, brown eyes, and dark hair.
We lived in the Netherlands at the time, and I was shocked when one of my best friends said that we shouldn’t tell people he was Roma. She had lived in different countries and explained that some people in Europe were prejudiced against Roma. I was skeptical but took her advice.
A couple of months after we brought our beautiful chubby toddler home, we went for coffee time at our neighbor’s house. Her husband had passed away unexpectedly, and I knew she got lonely. She made a fuss over Tony, giving him a couple of toys to play with and a cookie.
During our visit, she said something that stunned me.
She was talking about how some people were the way there were because of their blood. She gave an example that “Gypsies can’t help that they steal things. It’s in their blood!”
I felt like asking her if she would like to check my boy’s pockets before we left to see if he stole something. After all, it was “in his blood.” Her words showed she was not colorblind.
People see color in the products they choose to sell.
After having lunch with a friend recently, we roamed around a nearby mall. This shopping center is less than 5 miles from Buffalo and was always buzzing before COVID hit.
I LOVE bookstores and there was a large retail bookstore in the mall. So, we strolled in. We browsed the many sections commenting on things we saw. My friend likes to play board games, so we wandered into that section to see what was interesting.
The toy section was right next to it where I spotted Barbie dolls, a favorite childhood toy. I walked around the square display, noticing the different themes. And then it hit me.
Almost all the dolls were white!
Out of the entire display, there were only two with Latino colored skin. Wow! How disturbing. I went home and wrote to the company about their apparent bias. This store was not colorblind.
People see color in the way they act.
A burqa is an outer garment worn by Islamic women to conceal their bodies and faces when leaving their homes. It includes a mesh screen allowing the wearer to see. I read an article a couple of years ago about a woman that wore a burqa for a day. She was surprised at what she experienced.
No one said hello as they passed and most people looked away. Store clerks seemed uneasy. 3 or 4 times, someone bumped their shoulder on her as she walked down the sidewalk. She was attending the same places she usually did but looked differently and was treated differently.
I felt my stomach churn as I realized that I acted differently, too.
In America, the majority of Muslims are people of color. Here in western New York, a niqab is more common for women, covering the entire body, head, and face with an opening for the eyes. I realized that I usually didn’t greet women wearing a niqab as I did with others shopping in the same aisle.
I often strike up conversations with those around me (which embarrassed my kids when they were teenagers). I talk to people in the checkout line. If I saw a woman with a pretty blouse or hijab (headscarf worn by a Muslim woman), I wouldn’t hesitate to tell them.
I had never had a conversation with a woman in a niqab.
I was not colorblind and I decided to change.
Blatant or Overt racism is passing over someone of color for a promotion or apartment rental and using unacceptable language, for example.
Covert racism is a form of racial discrimination disguised and subtle, also known as a ‘socially acceptable’ form of racism. This is what I had displayed and it motivated me to change. It’s important to examine yourself to see if you, too, display subtle forms of racism.
Here are some questions to ask yourself:
- Do I sit by people that look different than me on the bus or train?
- Do I lock my car doors in neighborhoods different than mine?
- Do I flip the channel when the majority of the characters aren’t white?
- Do the playdates I make for my kids have diversity?
- Do I honestly treat every person as an individual without bias?
In John Lennon’s hit song, Imagine, he urges listeners to imagine a world where people aren’t divided or segregated by religion or even nationality. Yoko Ono explained the lyrical content as “just what John believed: that we are all one country, one world, one people.”
Let’s be one people.