Waiting room conversations can be very enlightening, to say the least. Last week, I went with a friend to her eye doctor appointment, and while she was in with the doctor I was busy observing and listening to human behavior. One man in the waiting area was looking to talk to anyone that would listen because, as he stated it, he had gotten there early and he now had to wait. I did chat with him a bit, but he soon was called in for his exam.
Soon, a lady and her son came in and went up to the desk to check in for the son's appointment. They took him in almost right away, and the mother came and sat near where I was sitting. I had overheard her talking about her son being in a soccer game the day before, and knowing what the weather had been like that day (pouring down rain for hours) I asked her if her son's eye(s) had been hurt in the game. She told me that it was some other problem with his eyes, but then she went on to tell me about what else had happened at this soccer game she had attended with her son.
What she told me litterally brought me to tears. If you have watched soccer games at all, you will know that it can be a very injury-prone sport, with kicking, shoving and falling a normal occurance. Her son was noticeably limping when they came into the office and I asked about that. She said that she had watched as one of the players on the other team had purposely slid into her son's calf with both of his feet, got up and never said a word to her son. No apology. Nothing. We are talking about teenagers here, not little boys.
She went on to tell me her greatest hurt though, had been when her son had been singled out for an award for his soccer play, and one of the other parents said within her earshot something to the effect of "first you take over our sports and now our scholarships". Everyone heard it, including this man's son, who ignored his father's racist remark and instead came over and put his arm over the shoulder of this lady's son and told him to just ignore his stupid father and what he had said. My waiting room aquaintance told me that the father did come over to her at the end of the game and apologized. She said that she didn't say anything more to him than "Yeah, well...".
Being "white", I don't think I can adequately understand what it is like to wake up each day and know that I am going to be defined by the color of my skin. Not in the way that black people are.
There was a certain irony to this whole scenario. I am white, she was black. I struck up the conversation because she looked like a nice lady to talk to. I had seen the pride in her eyes as she stood next to her son at the desk. We were just two mother's talking about our kids. Not about my white kid or her black kid. We were just people talking, and sharing life experiences. I don't think I 'changed the world' that day or anything.
As we parted, she turned in my direction, and I said, "It was nice talking to you". She said it was nice talking to me too, and wished me a "Happy Thanksgiving". I wished her the same sentiment, and in my mind, I wished her to always be seen as a person first.
"The world is a dangerous place to live -- not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." ~~ Albert Einstein
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Comments: 14
I realized something about my parents not too long ago . . . my father had sold a house to a couple with whom he and my mother had had extensive interaction. My mother talked about the couple quite a bit -- she really liked the husband, whom she described to me in some detail. My father also talked about them quite a bit, and remarked upon the same things about the husband that my mother had -- his elegance, his confidence, his impeccable taste in clothes. When I finally met this man, I was delighted to see that he was also black. It had never occurred to either of my parents to mention it . . . it wasn't important. I was really proud of them . . . especially since his wife was white, and most people would have said something just based on that fact.
My mistake. I didn't know which incident to which you were referring The boy sliding into the other was not racial. Just one young man being a rude lout.
My daughters tell me that people often deliberately aimed comments at them for their mixed heritage under the guise of 'kidding' around.
Sad commentary on ourselves.