So last night, DD and I went to the fair in town. Just like the fairs set up in parking lots of all the other small cities in the country, it was a sea of asphalt filled with a few rides operated by the drug addicts and the mentally ill and hoardes of rigged games where you trade two dollars for a very slim chance to win a stuffed animal you could probably buy for three bucks. DD spent nearly 20 bucks trying to shoot basketballs into no-regulation rings, but I managed to resist the urge until right before we left, when I dropped two bucks on the game that involves throwing softball-sized balls into a what resembles a laundry basket, tilted at an angle.
When I was a kid, I won that at a carnival somewhere, but the carnie told me I had cheated, because I leaned in, and he didn't give me my four foot stuffed creature. So I figured I'd try it again. Three shots for two dollars. DD suggested the first one be a practice shot, and the carnie said "sure, first one's a practice shot, unless you make it, then I'll count it. just because you're white" I wasn't sure I had heard him right, and I really didn't want to believe that I had. I made the first shot, and even figured out the trick. Anyone can make the first shot because they leave the balls in the basket to dampen it, but they clear them out afterwards, to make the second two shots almost impossible. This way they get your confidence up, so you come back to try again and again. Anyway, as I took my second two shots, the guy sort of strck up a conversation with us, asking us where we were from, and so on, and as we left, he offered us a couple of small stuffed snakes, saying very clearing this time "just because you're white." I mumbled something, no, that's alright, no thanks, but he thrust them into our hands and i just turned a walked away, too stunned to really know what to say. We were leaving anyway, and gave the snakes to a seven or eight year old kid with big eyes, who smiled at the prospect of claiming them as his own prizes for winning a game.
The fair was really the first place where I saw blacks and whites socializing together in large numbers. My school has 4 white kids. DD and I stopped in at the bar on the way home, and it was all-white. When I've been to the bourbon mall, another restaurant / bar (try the fried pickles), it's also been all-white. Wal-mart and kroger were really the only places I had seen large numbers of white and black people together, and those, by nature, are not places that foster social interactions. Unfortunately, what I heard from that carnie last night was not the only sign of the latent racism that is still so strong here - DD heard a young white couple make the comment "these niggers are so fucked up." This world is so fucked up, when there are people thinking things like that.
The group of guys I play pickup soccer with is surprisingly mixed. There are whites, from the private school, blacks from the public school, whites and a few blacks from the catholic school (both alums and current students from all three). There are mexicans from the mexican restaurant, and there are a few guys from baghdad, doing who knows what here. Yet still, race is the defining characteristic, and generalizations based on race are still a little shocking to me "the damn mexicans just kick you too much" or even things like "where are all the mexicans today?. Usually, we play mexico vs usa, which is a convenient way to break up the teams. Sometimes the arabic guys go with the mexicans, sometimes with us, to even out the numbers. Most of the guys out there are really nice guys, and I wouldn't say they are racist. Yet race just looms larger on the radar here.
"until the color of a man's skin, is no more significant, than the color of his eyes
there's a war"
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5 comments:
not so latent at all. can only imagine what such an environment does to a kid ...
i think red and green m&ms taste the same. but the yellow ... i dont know.
A visit to One Block (is it still open?) is always an interesting study on race. I'll never forget the night "Angel" (her street name, I assume) taught a group of us how to dance.
HJ, Class of '02
I went to the carnival too! I rode the rides though instead of playing the games. Their version of the Scrambler was falling apart and the flying swings thing got a big black grease stain all over my cute pink pants, but it was so worth it!
As for the racism issue, I agree with you. Your phrase "race just looms larger on the radar here" really hit the nail on the head. All I can say is, ditto.
Being a former MTC member (this is my 5th year teaching in a title 1 Mississippi school), a native Mississippian, and someone who has lived outside of the South, one way or another, really makes me resent the view a lot of Teacher Corps members espouse about my state. Yes, it is full of racists, but whatever town you're from is as well. I have no idea what town it is, but I have yet to witness one that isn't.
I remember hanging out in Ithaca, NY, with a lot of 20 somethings who did social work jobs through AmeriCorps. I remember one making the statement, "If I lived in Mississippi, I would have gone to a TBC" (she only knew the term because I had told her) "because I would be their" (I'm not joking, she really said "their") "ally." Later that night she crossed the street we were walking on, went about a block, and then crossed again because she saw some African-American teenagers jokingly push and shove on the side she was originally walking on.
I also remember supervising a supposedly liberal volunteer in Binghamton, New York, who once, when I asked her for directions to the civic center, instructed me to park in "the black neighborhood so that I could run over some Vice Lords on the way home."
I even find overt classism (I see no difference is classism and racism with the exception that classism seems to somehow have been deemed pc) in your comment that the rides are operated by “drug addicts and the mentally ill.” How do you know this? Did you ask them? Have you read several impartial and reliable studies that stated this?
I get the same feeling from the response the stated “Angel” was probably a “street” name. Why is that? I know people named Angel. What about that human made the responder assume she had a “street name”?
Yes, I’m a little jaded, and I don’t resent your post as much as I’m making it sound like I do. It makes me sad that racism is so prevalent and surface in my state. However, I do get sick of hearing people from outside of Mississippi scapegoat white Mississippians, particularly poor, mostly powerless white Mississippians, for the racism that’s pretty well spread out across our country.
Is it really that shocking that stuffed snakes are disproportionately distributed at a parking lot carnival due to racism? Isn’t it a little more disturbing that (due to racism in my opinion) African Americans are over represented in prison and poverty and underrepresented in universities across the United States? If so, why is it that MTCers are so enthralled by telling their Mississippi racist story/ies?
I’m furious that the children of our state suffer because of a ridiculous academy system, under funded schools, racist policies, general short sightedness, and a myriad of other problems. However, I don’t see things as being that much better in the rest of the United States.
I feel bad that this might sound like I’m taking offense with you personally and not with an overall attitude I’ve witnessed a lot of. That’s not the case.
I really respect you for learning enough about your students to comment about why they have a hard time concentrating in another one of your posts.
The reason why I’m posting this as “anonymous” is because I haven’t registered for a user name.
Russell Barksdale
russellbarksdale@hotmail.com
Sometimes it's easier to see racism when you travel away from home but I assure you it's in your neighborhood back home too. Mississippi doesn't have a monopoly on it or anything.
I'd like to (gently) point out that you can find drug addicts and mentally ill folks just about anywhere--not all carnival workers are one or the other (or both). I have some of both in my family tree but none of us has ever worked at a carnival.
Prejudice is everywhere--sometimes in different forms than the easiest one to spot (color).
Glad you're here. Keep up the good work. You have a lot to teach and a lot to learn. Please stay long enough to do both and take this post as it is offered, in peace.
Not from here but stayed anyway,
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