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In Warriors Don’t Cry (1994), Melba Beals describes one experience of her effort at age fifteen to acquire an education at Little Rock’s racially segregated Central High:
"Mother and I looked at one another, suddenly conscious that we, too, were trapped by a violent mob.
Ever so slowly, we eased our way backward through the crowd, being careful not to attract attention. But a white man clawed at me, grabbing my sleeve and yelling, “We got us a nigger right here!” Just then another man tugged at his arm distracting him. Somehow I managed to scramble away. As a commotion began building around us, Mother took my arm, and we moved fast, sometimes crouching to avoid attracting more attention.
We gained some distance from the center of the crowd and made our way down the block. But when I looked back, I saw a man following us, yelling, “They’re getting away! Those niggers are getting away!” Pointing to us, he enlisted others to join him. Now we were being chased by four men, and their number was growing."
Such violent racism directed at myself is hard to imagine. I have never encountered any detrimental racism. From time to time I have thought that a particular individual may dislike me because of my race, but my life was never affected in any way that I noticed. Racism, ethnocentrism and classism have never come either full force or in small measure on a daily basis for me.
My white middle class parents taught me that people who work hard and are honest get ahead, that people who are poor are probably lazy, and that discrimination is probably deserved. Until I experienced poverty directly, I had no awareness of how a welfare mother might feel demoralized and humiliated. I had no understanding of how poverty could seem hopelessly self-perpetuating, nor of how angry or depressed an impoverished person might feel. Not until I first experienced it, while raising my three children as a single mother trying to earn a basic living and improve our situation, did I realize how very difficult rising above the poverty line can be.
Having been raised in a socially and politically conservative family, applying for welfare so that I could feed my children was very difficult for me. It was unpleasant; however, as a white woman if I did not tell other whites that I received AFDC, they presumed me to be the middle class person that I had been. And from time to time they would talk about the “welfare trash,” and “those Mexicans who come here to get on welfare.”
While never witnessing the type of behavior directed by Melva Beals, I have noticed that when meeting a brown skinned woman, most whites come to different assumptions than they usually seem to do about me. As an example, when white people meet my friend, who is short with brown skin and has facial features that reflect an Indio heritage, they assume she is uneducated, unemployed and recently from Mexico. Her family has been in the United States long enough that she knows no one in Mexico. And I met her in college. She has a BSW, a Bachelors Degree in Social Work, and even while living with cancer treatments she works as much as she can.
In the lovely senior apartment complex where I live, many white residents assume that those who do not speak English are here to take advantage of benefits they did not earn. They assume they do not want to learn English. They call their neighbors “those Spanish speaking people,” and often appear to feel resentment towards them. They do not seem to realize how difficult learning to speak English as an adult can be – even though they themselves have not learned to communicate with their neighbors in their neighbors’ language. In contrast, as a white woman, my experience is that my efforts to speak Spanish with these neighbors are tolerated and encouraged. The Spanish speakers tell me how much they wish to speak English and how hard that is for them.
Were I to find myself in some other places on the planet, reactions to long time European, classism, ethnocentrism, and racism could result in a very different, very unpleasant experience for me. My blessing is that living in California, any prejudice directed at me is subtle, others do not appear to recognize my poverty, and as part of the largest minority group, that group’s ethnocentrism does not affect me. I say the prayer, “grant me the courage to change the things I can, the serenity to recognize the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.’ I pray that somehow humankind may coexist respectfully and peaceably on our earth together.
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