God damn America Pt II - Democratic Underground

truedelphi

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Mon Apr-21-08 12:57 PM
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God damn America Pt II

Edited on Mon Apr-21-08 01:56 PM by truedelphi

In 1978, My parents (in their late fifties) my son, age three and myself went to Orlando FL.

Of course, having a three year old in our midst, it was only natural that we would visit Disney World.

Among the many things we did, was to get a ride on a buckboard pulled by a horse.

As we were getting on, a young Black boy, maybe nine or ten, approached us. "Can I ride with you,
Mister," he asked of my father.

"Sure, Son," my father said.

Now some rides at Disney World are ticketed, and some are not. This ride was free, and as there was ample room for all of us including the nine year old to sit, my mother and me joined in with, "C'mon. Make yourself at home."

The horse clambered along the cobblestone under some shade trees, and all of us relaxed, glad to be off our feet and not standing in line for rides. The nine yet old seemed to eagerly be taking in the usual sights.

The driver of the buckboard, who could have modeled for any surfer magazine in America, was a tall, golden haired white guy - maybe all of twenty. He had treated my mother and me with Southern hospitality, being all "Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am," whenever we said anything. As we were from Chicago, where being addressed as "ma'am" was only slightly less anachronistic than being addressed as "mi lady" we found him delightful and charming.

We had been on the buckboard for about five minutes, when the driver reined the horse in, jumped from the front section of the wagon, and came back towards us.

He reached into the seats, and grabbed the nine year old out. "You have no right disturbing these fine people."

He more or less tossed the kid out of the wagon, jumped back in and reined the horse along.
The kid, being agile, landed on his feet, and acting as if this sort of thing happened to him every day of the week, simply ambled away. This whole interaction had taken mere seconds.

All of us adults sat there in stunned silence. I don't think we could have been more shocked if our driver had pulled out an Ouzi and started shooting up the park. We could no longer enjoy the sun and the trees and the ambience. My father started to say something in protest, then apparently decided against it.

And here I was -- a speechless 28 yr old. Yes, despite my having been in countless anti-war, or anti-nuke protests, I was speechless. I was not angry - just stunned. The offense committed was so grievous, on some deep inner level of the soul, that I couldn't come up with a response.

We finished up the ride in silence, brushing aside the driver's pleasantries as we left the buckboard.

We left the park shortly after that. I thought of making a protest to one of the Disney World executives, but suddenly realized that all of the smiling employees that I had seen that day had been white people. What was being dealt out to that nine year old and to my family was a deeply ingrained institutionalized racism, and I felt like the fact that the driver had deliberately ignored the cues - such as my dad and mom talking to the kid about his school and hobbies, if the driver could miss picking up those cues, what cues were the executives of Disney World missing??

From time to time I have been offered jobs in Florida that paid well, and would have met my career and financial needs.

All I can say is I have never set foot in Florida again.