Racism, Separation, Division
We Don’t Want Your White Charity
My first personal experience with racism, my childhood ignorance, and cognitive dissonance
I ask that you all forgive the imperfection of my eyes — in hopes that by shared grace, we can build on the ghosts of our past to create a better future. And by forgiving the imperfection of my eyes, I hope that you will also forgive the imperfection of my words. For neither my eyes nor my words are perfect, but I share them with you anyway because they are the only eyes and the only words I have.
As soon as we entered the building, I felt a cold emptiness. Everything was pale.
After they escorted us to a round table in an almost empty room, I took a deep breath. My cousin had gotten into some trouble and had served a year in prison. He was in work-release, a transitional facility, where he could start work and get back into the community before being completely let out.
I was an only child, and my two cousins, Randy and Toby, had been the closest thing to siblings I had growing up. I loved them dearly.
Despite the eerie feeling of this facility, with empty walls and miserable-looking faces, I was filled to the brim with excitement. I had not seen my cousin for quite some time, and I was so excited about his plans to start a new and better life. I could barely keep myself in the chair.
After he finally arrived, we sat and chatted. I had saved up babysitting money, so I would have money for the vending machine if anyone wanted snacks. It was the only thing I could do for my cousin, and I was very proud that I could accommodate. I even made sure to have quarters, just in case any of my dollars wouldn’t work in the machine. That was common in the 90s.
After getting everyone’s order, I skipped to the vending machine. There was a sweet little boy in front of me. He couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old. He was trying to get a soda from the machine, but it would not take his dollar.
Every time he put the dollar in, it would spit it back out. He tried to straighten it each time, to no avail. I hesitated as I counted, in my head, how much of my money I needed to fill the order. Before I figured it out, though, I opted out of counting. I could do without my fudge-round if need be.
“Wanna trade?” I said to the boy.
The child looked at me, uncertain.
I held my hand out to show my silver.
“See? I can trade you since the machine won’t take your dollar.”
His eyes lit up as he handed me the dollar.
“Thank you!”
Filled with the joy of seeing my cousin, helping my fellow human, and problem-solving, I placed the four quarters in his hand.
The next few moments happened so fast and shocked me so much that it almost feels as if I wasn’t there.
A woman came running over from what seemed like nowhere and grabbed the boy by his arm. As he started wailing, she pried open his hand and angrily confiscated the four quarters.
“We don’t want your charity!” She exclaimed with a blood-curdling rage.
Caught completely off guard, I was clueless as to why this woman was enraged or what either of us did wrong. I was in complete shock.
“It’s just his dollar wouldn’t…”
“You got me fucked up, bitch”, she said, as she snatched the dollar out of my hand.
I do not remember putting my hand out or how the situation ended because it happened so fast, and I was in utter amazement and disbelief. But I remember walking away with my four quarters back.
For the rest of the visit, I sat there, forgetting to breathe and unable to conceptualize what had just happened. The boy sat there with no soda, and his mother sat there going off about me, and talking about beating ass, etc.
When we got in the car, I burst into tears. I still had no idea why that woman had wanted to hurt me, and, at 12, I had never felt anyone want to hurt me like that.
My mother told me the snake story.
If you don’t know the fable about the snake, it is a situation where a person saves the life of a snake, and then the snake bites and kills the person. The lesson is that a snake is a snake, and nothing you do will change it to anything other than a snake. And snakes bite. So if you are hanging out with a snake — no matter what you do — you will eventually get bit.
So mother explained that because of the unspeakable things a lot of white people have done too many black people over the years, many learned to treat all white people like snakes. Basically — if some in the bucket of white people are snakes — it is too dangerous to reach in the bucket at all.
I felt crushed — broken hearted. I understood, in a way. But in a way, I didn’t. How would we ever be treated equally and live together in harmony if we continued to hate each other?
My life, until then, had been out of view of the world I encountered that sad day. I had been oblivious. The history of slavery and segregation was well known, and my parents explained that some people out there were still racist. But I didn’t know any.
There were a few black people in my school. But besides that, I was surrounded by white people. None of them were racist, though, or ever spoke ill of black people.
I remembered when my granny gave me a speech — about what I now know to be urban displacement — when I was young.
We lived in the small town next to the city. The city had more crime and gentrified communities — disproportionately affecting minorities. Meanwhile, our little village suffered from virtually no crime, and its members were primarily white people.
My granny owned a flower shop, and we were delivering funeral flowers in a rough part of town, but the directors were late and had asked us to wait a few minutes. Granny locked the doors to the car and turned to me.
“Holly, I want you to understand something, and this is very important.”
I looked at her with reverence, as we all did, any time Granny took the floor.
“I just locked the doors to the van, and you need to understand why. You see, some white people are scared of black people. They think black people are dangerous and would lock the door any time a black person is around.”
I looked at her with confusion as she continued. I only knew a few black people, but they were some of the most successful students in my school. They all got straight As and were good kids — far from someone that anyone would be afraid of.
“Those people are wrong, and you need to understand the difference, so you do not misinterpret what I just did”, Granny continued.
I did not lock the door because there are black people around. I locked the doors because we are in a dangerous community. It happens to have a lot of black people in it, but that is not their fault. And the reason we lock our doors here is not that the people here are black, but because of the large amount of violent crime that happens around here. But, you must not confuse being safe from crime as being safe from black people because that can lead to racist thinking. And if we want to get rid of racism because it is wrong, we have to be careful how we think. You understand, don’t you, Holly, that we are all created equally?
“Yes, I do, Granny”, I said, with a smile.
That day at the work-release center may have been my first experience with racism and the seeds of discord it has sewn in our country, but it would not be my last. I had only heard about racism until that dreadful day. But that day, I saw it, I experienced it, and I felt it.
Little did I know how entrenched I would become in that community — the one my granny spoke of on that day so long ago. Little did I know I would spend years of my life in those very streets. Little did I know, in general. So little did I know.
Much time has passed since I was 12. I can never go back to that girl I was before I knew the truth behind the curtain of my innocent ignorance. I can never unknow the paradox of racism in American Society. And until we stop promoting hate and separation, unity will never come.
Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. — Martin Luther King Jr
Written by Holly Kellums
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