As the wheels continue to fly off my personal life, moments of simple joy and normalcy are increasingly hard to come by. My son’s unexpected visit home this week promised to be an opportunity to simply be present with family and savor the simple joys of togetherness. To share in the love that makes us a family, without the heady labels that often weigh us down.
Yet, as a mixed-raced family in a white space, the reality is that anytime we leave our house as a family, we risk incurring the wrath of the ignorant and hateful. To partake in the joys of the first treats of spring can turn ugly without notice and, sadly, a visit to Maine’s most populous city yesterday was the day when the ugly became personal and my nine-year-old daughter learned that there are people who will never know her essence but instead will reduce her to nothing more than a nigger.
I had no intentions of blogging about what happened to my family yesterday in Portland, though in a fit of anger, I did tweet about it in vague terms. However our degradation was witnessed by many, including a local news anchor who shared what she witnessed on her Facebook page and when a news anchor shares such a tale in a state the size of Maine…well, it seems I should just write about it myself.
My husband, son, daughter and I were walking in downtown Portland in an area known as the Old Port. The Old Port is a cute little area with cobblestone streets and an assortment of boutiques and eateries that draw crowds. We had already shopped at several local shops and were off to grab gelato before heading back to our little hamlet when suddenly and without warning as we were waiting to cross the street, a carload of young white men approached and without warning, the young man in the passenger seat yelled out very clearly and very loudly “Hey, niggers!” In that moment, I was frozen, I was scared…I was hurt. Yet before I had time to process what I was feeling, my son dropped the bags he had been carrying and ran off after the car. As I snapped to and realized that my son might be doing something foolish, the sounds of my daughter wailing for her brother to not run pierced my soul. I called out to him, too, in the hopes he would stop but he said he had to run and never paused for a second.
We stood there unsure what to do next, a sense of shame seeping into our souls. To be othered so publicly in such a vile manner is not a comfortable feeling. In that moment, the three of us stood, not sure if we should run after my son. My husband walked across the street to see if he could see our boy, he couldn’t. My husband asked if I felt he should go after him, I said no. We needed to be here when he returned. In those excruciating moments, nothing was said to us, though what seemed like minutes later, a white man crossed the street and asked if we were okay. I explained what happened and he asked if I could recall what the car looked like and that he would go look for my son once his own ride arrived to pick him up.
Eventually, the standing became too much and the weight of worry caused me to start walking and look for my son, while I had my husband and daughter stay put. I walked a few blocks down the street and came upon my son who was walking back our way. He wasn’t harmed but his anger was apparent. As we walked, I held his arm just as I had done when he was a small boy which, considering he is now a full head-plus taller than me, is laughable. I asked him why he ran, he told me he ran for every time growing up in Maine that a grown man had called him a nigger and he was too little to do anything but hang his head. He ran because he is tired of hanging his head and feeling nothing but shame. He ran because having his baby sister hear those vile words was simply not acceptable to him. He ran because a pack of white men calling his mama a nigger was not okay. He knew the risk inherent in running but he also knew that at 23, he is tired of stuffing down the weight of racism and being asked to be the “better person” by silently taking the abuse and waiting for society to change when it clearly has little impetus to do so. He realized that sometimes, a man has to be willing to risk everything, including an ass kicking or a jail cell, to right some of the wrongs in this world. It may seem…or maybe even be…foolish, but there comes a time when one is simply tired of dealing with injustice.
I have spent the last 11 years writing about race and racism. I head one of the few organizations in the United States dedicated to anti-racism work. While I can go into an academic head space about racism, the fact is it is very different when it is your family and your children living with the reality and weight of being different and being seen as less than fully human. It hurts and if you think about it too much, it will crush your spirit. Yesterday’s events were a psychic gut punch in a week that had already doled out a more than a few psychic kicks.
When I tweeted about the exchange, I was literally blowing off steam on the ride back home and had no intention to really talk about it again. But waking up to numerous messages and to see my painful exchange shared publicly and in detail, well…I am grateful for the anchor’s observations but I am also saddened. Saddened that she was not comfortable enough after seeing the entire exchange to come over and ask “Are you okay?” In my professional work, I work with white people on race and the white American culture is a, all-too-polite space where too many times white people don’t speak up and unfortunately silence can be harmful. Racism is a system, and that silence upholds that system even when we don’t believe we are actively creating harm.
In having the story go public, it created many questions and one being: What happened afterwards? Well we had a sober ride home, the mood of the day being utterly destroyed on a day that we honestly needed to be good. We needed a perfect spring day to savor as we grapple with the uncertainty and fragility of life. Instead, we were reminded that the world can be an utterly ugly place, my daughter asking on the way home if we could move away from this place. I reminded her that ugly can live anywhere. If I felt there was a place that was safe and where we could be assured that we would never hear that word again, I would move heaven and earth to get us there. However, there is no such space in a world that is not comfortable with Black and Brown bodies, instead all I can do is prepare her for what she faces and pray that her gentle soul is not destroyed in the process. Prepare her to wear the mask and stuff down her self just enough to stay strong but not too much otherwise the weight of the mask that Black and Brown people wear in spaces becomes too much and will eat you alive.
So, that’s what happens when you go out on a gorgeous spring day and you’re Black. Your humanity, security and even dignity can get snatched away in a second. You feel the pain, you try not to let it utterly consume you, and then you take it and stick in the jar and keep it moving.
I will keep moving. As will my family. Sometimes, if you try to tear us down, we will run. Not away from you but after you, and you will see us in your rearview mirror or over your shoulder. Even if you outpace us, we will ensure you do not forget us or take us lightly ever again.
First, I am horrified at what happened to your family. In fact it made me so sad I felt like crying. I’m white and grew up in Maine but moved away and married a Kenyan-American and he agreed to move with me back to Maine. We lived there 5 years and honestly while to my knowledge he never experienced the extreme hatred that you did during this incident with your family — I observed enough to make me want to move away, which we did. And in all honesty, it IS BETTER for us living in NH, only one state away. Something is wrong in Maine and I’m not sure what it is that causes people to openly discriminate against people of different races.
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t always know how to respond and often look to my husband for guidance. I’m not sure I would have known what to do if I had personally witnessed this situation. I have often tried to call people on their treatment of my husband but he tells me to ignore it which I usually don’t want to. I want to yell at them, make them aware that the way they are treating him/us is hurtful and they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. I wonder if that course of action actually changes anything. Ignorant people are ignorant people.
I don’t have the answer and I don’t know if I had witnessed what happened to your family if I would have run over to you or taken down a license plate number or ??? But I would have most definitely be angry and sad. I would have been glad to see your son run after them. I think sticking up for yourself and others is important. And while some disagree with the way the tv anchor responded or told the story, I think the most important thing is that the story is being told and attention is being given to it. Because people should be called on their hate and they shouldn’t be allowed to ‘get away with it’. Even if the outcome is a trial of public opinion.
My heart is heavy. Those ignorant and cowardly young white men poisoned your family’s day — and made a lasting imprint. Your son was fueled by pain and anger for so many, and I see his actions as an honorable attempt to restore balance — to right ingrained racism and white privilege that is too much in this country’s bloodstream. I’m a white woman doing my best to become increasingly aware of that privilege and its ravaging ways, historical and current. I do believe that we white people must tune in, deepen our empathy, overcome the living legacy of shame and the comfort of repression and denial, open the door. And may we all work together and take one step at a time toward our common humanity.
It Is sickening that this still happens..and that it had ever happened at all! :/ when will people realize that we are all one race–human! We are all the same on the inside and our various colours and cultures are what make us unique and interesting. There should be no borders. No countries or states. No labels or boundaries. We are all human and we are all citizens of Earth. One love! ❤️
I am always astounded when I hear people talk as though racism were a thing of the past. It is alive and well, not only in Maine, but across our country. It has perhaps in general become more subtle than it once was, but that does not mean it has gone away. The battle against ignorance, anger, and bias is never won; it is something we should all understand and take part in. Silence truly is complicity. I am sorry for your experience. Cowardly, ignorant, idiots like the one in that car cannot be allowed to win.
I am crying as I read this and can only say how sorry I am that you and your family had to experience this. Please know that they are others out there who are standing with you and fighting these ignorant, intolerant people and attitudes.
This breaks my heart, not only for this family but as a white mother/grandmother of wht/blk grandchildren. These are actions of the ignorant. Whst’s worse to me is we have protection for animals but really is there any true justice for these types of behavior?
wretched. I’m so sorry this happened to you and your family.
I wanted to share my experience in Maine as well. My family moved to Yarmouth last summer from Washington DC. My primary concern with moving here was its lack of diversity. I was concerned that my children, growing up with this lack of diversity, would develop a very superficial understanding of their own skin. I’m sorry to say I haven’t been that much comforted to feel differently about this. Its very hard to come to feel connected to a place when there is such sameness, such lack of depth, such seeming obliviousness. I’m sorry to say I also read the News Anchor’s words as slight and kind of ignorant, only at the end does she summon the anger the situation demands. Friday, while picking my son up at his public school in Cumberland, I actually started to have a very dizzying, disconnected from my body type feeling. I have become so hyper aware of the Whiteness of this place. I was looking around to anchor my vision with just one, just one face that wasn’t like my own, and I couldn’t find any. Its difficult to find solace in feeling that you’re some sort of pioneer, some sort of representative of being the change here. Hundreds of years of White pilgrims pounding the countryside with their guns and their religion, pushing back or killing off anything that is other.
Again, I’m so sorry this happened to you and your family. Try to enjoy this day. We have some sun and chocolate here at our house today, hope you have the same. Peace to you.
God Bless you all!. I for one am ashamed of the boys who did this. I want to tell you how sorry i am Your family was treated like that. But I would like to say as for the Anchor woman, she meant no harm to you and your family. She and myself just can’t believe this is still going on! We all need to be more responsible to teach Respect for one another.
Jackie Ward reported this because, if she had as sheltered a life as most of us have had she was totally unprepared to see such hate. By bringing it to the attention of the rest of us, she was telling us it even exists in Maine. We, here, often think of hate as a Southern thing. I am glad the lady to whom it happened also posted. She has told us what the stunned bystanders should have done. So now we all know what to do if we see such a thing. One certainly hope it doesn’t ever happen again, but I never cease to be astonished by the folks I thought of as fellow Americans. I say kudos to both Jackie Ward & blackgirlmaine.
Bravo!!! This isn’t the right thing to say….but be thankful you don’t live in Arkansas! To me….Maine has never been a bigoted state. So sorry your family had to go there that!
I have watched a brilliant mixed race young woman grow up — her father’s black family is from Arkansas, her mothers white family is Boston Irish to the nth but migrating to the Connecticut river towns of Mass. and Connecticut. She never experienced the level of racism in Arkansas that she and her mother has had to endure in New England…. to the extent that her mother even wanted her to abort her mixed race grandchild !
I have personally spent a great deal of time in DE , LA., Some in FL and TX. Just last year the N word was used in front of me in TX like commonplace, because I don’t have typical hair and eye color. The racial casting is still strong in LA, and FL racism is really bad, some parts of TX, they still consider some people as their niggers, and I noticed at the airport talking, that some of the Maine racists are moving to places like TX. Maine is really no where close to some of the things I have seen, the racism in Maine is mostly associated with low IQ white garbage, not racial casting. It does exist, but not like where I grew up, where some people still think black men can’t be quarterbacks because they are not smart enough ( that comment was from down south not Maine).