What a beautiful spot we found for a quick getaway from what we expected to be a hot and muggy early August in the DC area: an AirBnB in Hardy County, WV, about two and a half hours away from Leda’s and my house in East Riverdale, MD. Surrounded by woods up a steep dirt road near Lost River State Park, it has a great deck with a hot tub, more than enough beds and space for us to spread out, high-speed internet (this is an amazing thing about rural WV and probably has a deep back story involving someone with serious political juice), and it’s dog friendly so we could bring Rhombus.
I wish I could just enjoy it but a conversation this afternoon reminded me of how much my skin color gives me a pass to come to places like this. I went out for a walk up the road leading down the valley from where ours ends, past a mix of second homes, abandoned barns and houses, and occupied farmsteads with chickens in coops and woodpiles in the driveway.
A pickup coming down the valley slowed and stopped, and I engaged the driver—a white man in probably his 60s—in a chat for less than 5 minutes. Told him where we’re staying, clarified whose place we’re staying at, and said we came up from the DC area; learned that he moves snow for the folks who live up here (generally coming in for a few days at a time from usual homes elsewhere); and found out he’d lived in the valley for 45 years. He was in the process of cutting and delivering firewood. Mostly oak? I asked, adding that I’d also seen maples, hickories, and pines. Only oak, he said, I don’t bother with pine. Friendly wave, and on he went.
A couple hours later I was on my way back down the road, having ascended past an extensive new development with showy No Trespassing signs and gates, including a probable second (or third) home overlooking the whole valley to the ridges beyond whose owners named it “Almost Heaven.” (I wonder how many “Almost Heavens” there are in this state?)
At just about the same spot as our earlier chat, the same man slowed and came to a stop heading back uphill, this time driving a Ford compact. We talked a few minutes more; I asked him how many people lived in the valley year-round, and he said about 25, probably. So all the other houses are owned and occupied by people who come up from the DC area? Yes, he responded, and Baltimore. Oh, Baltimore, I said, even from there. Yes, he said, they got all those n***s down there. They’re trying to take over. (Or, they’re taking over, or something like that—these aren’t exact quotes so no “ ” here.) He didn’t say anything more about how he felt about that, but then, he didn’t have to. The contempt and disgust were on his face, in his tone of voice.
I was flummoxed but at least I said something, along the lines of, That’s not my experience, I’ve known good people and bad people from all backgrounds. He asked, Where are you from? and I said I was born in Baltimore but have lived all over since then. I asked the same of him, and he said, I’ve lived here all my life. As we stumbled along into the awkwardness, he said something like, To each their own, and I said, that’s a good thing about living in the united states, we all get to have an opinion. Then another vehicle approached from behind, so we said our uncomfortable “have a good day”s and went on.
What was up with this? Why did he go for the most racist thing he possibly could’ve said, right in the middle of an otherwise pleasant conversation? No way he didn’t know the valence of the term. Given how I look, how I’m dressed, and where I live, he must have had me figured out from the moment he set eyes on me, so was he lulling me into a sense of comfort until he could stick the knife in? If he didn’t have my number, then was he throwing that out there so I’d signal agreement with his white-supremacist orientation? Or did he basically just not give a shit, and say it because like 45, he thinks the best thing is just to say what you think?
Friendly readers, I really would love to hear your perspectives on this, about what was going on; about whether I should have said something more confrontational (which really seemed wrong to me because I came to his home place for my vacation and how would hostility have helped?), or anything.
Rolf,
I’ve heard similar uncalled-for epithets, mine at a local barber shop or a misguided nephew (my brother is as liberal as I am). It clearly spouts from ignorance and misinformation. Of course, suspicion and fear of the unknown play a role too. But it’s tough to go about setting things aright beyond saying things like “that’s not my experience from Baltimore” (in
my case West Philly). The fact that being poor plays a major role and not race is tough for folks to disentangle, given the bigotry that prevails.
Thanks Michael– Can you say a little more about the introduction of class and race into your comments here, and what species of bigotry you mean? I’m confused about whether you’re considering the likely low income of my interlocutor as a factor for him, for all of us, or something else?
I think he’s likely just who he is. You probably just got an unvarnished glimpse into his racist perspective.
Yes, no doubt, and any encounter like this makes me wonder, “Who am I? And who do I want to be?”
It is difficult to attribute motives to someone, so I have no idea whether my response to what you described is an accurate interpretation of events, but my gut reaction is that he was marking his territory. He was declaring that he owned that particular place and time and that you were merely an interloper – possibly one who agreed with him (in which case the exchange was a chance for some typical backstage bonding around white supremacy) or not. Either way he was asserting dominance. This may be taking things too far, but I suspect that he kept things polite during the first encounter but couldn’t pass up a second chance to speak his mind.
Thanks Jowell. It also occurred to me that the first encounter set the stage for the second one. First we got to know each other a little. Then he felt free to speak his mind, maybe because I treated him like a person the first time around (and in the first part of the second encounter).
If I had been in your position, I think I would have reacted similarly and been left asking the same question of myself: should I have confronted him more directly? As a practical matter, I don’t think it would have made much difference. A guy like that is probably getting reinforcement for his racist attitudes from all directions: his family, his friends, the media. Hell, the (former) president. Nothing you say is going to change his mind.
As an ethical matter, I think we are all called upon to show courage in such moments. But it requires us to be prepared, equipped with the right language, the right retort. We have to learn from the moments when we don’t perform as we wish we had and commit ourselves to doing better next time.
Personally, I’ve found that this isn’t unique to those moments when I’m confronted by raw racism, but true of the entire equity and inclusion project. For all my commitment to those principles, I regularly have moments where I don’t live up to my expectations. I say something that I later realize was offensive. I exclude someone from an important decision. If we’re going to be resilient in this work, I think we have to grow accustomed to feelings of failure and not indulge in shame. Perfectionism, they say, is a tenet of white supremacy culture.
Your experience is a good lesson for me and I appreciate you sharing it.
Thanks Peter. I’m really bad at quick comebacks when I’m feeling off balance. Considering there’s a French expression, “l’esprit d’escalier,” the spirit of the staircase, for the perfect riposte minutes after the verbal combatant is gone, it’s probably more common to feel this way than to feel ready with the perfect retort. But all in all I’m probably better off for it, since it probably wouldn’t have helped if I’d said, “I sure hope that’ll happen. We’ll probably all be better off,” after his comment about taking over.
Also, I love the reference to white supremacy culture. I still have that SURJ article saved and need to go back to it now. Thanks for the nudge, and for sharing it with me earlier this summer. Another saying (cliche?): there are no mistakes, only lessons. Probably better to frame this as, We can learn from all our mistakes and failures, since otherwise we’d always be saying thanks for the lesson instead of apologizing for a trespass.