Get Out of the Street

You fucking nigger!

I read these words days later, and they still hurt.

I grew up all over the country, but I managed a pretty long stint in Louisville, Kentucky.  I imagined as I was moving from New York all those years ago, that Kentucky was lined with dirt paved roads and wondered if people still traveled by horse and buggy.  The idea of moving out of an apartment building in the city into an actual house, with my own bedroom, backyard and picket fence was so exciting that I would have traded the luxuries of running water for the outhouse that surely waited for me in my new city.  Louisville, as it turned out, was every bit a metropolis, with concrete sidewalks and gas-fueled automobiles.  Incidentally, using the bathroom outside eventually proved to be frowned upon. 

I live in Boston now. They’ve had running water since the 1800’s.  Clearly, this city has arrived.  I share a neighborhood with Senator Kerry and his billionaire wife and Tom Brady and his leggy supermodel.  I have a good job.  I’m educated.  I buy my groceries at Whole Foods.  I share a dentist with Mick Jagger.  Clearly, I have arrived. 

I went to the beach on Saturday morning with a new group of friends.  I left my apartment at 8:45 to hail a cab, dressed in J. Crew from head to toe. Traffic was thin and I stood in the road giving myself easy access to taxis approaching from either direction. A couple of angry cars honked their horns at me.  One angry woman held her horn for seconds and threw her arms up at me. “Yatta Yatta!” I yelled back mockingly, not taking offense.  I knew I was wrong, but I was in a hurry.  I stayed in the middle of the street until a pretty, well-dressed woman my age in a brand new Nissan blew her horn, slowed down in front of me and yelled with venom that burned like poison, “Get out of the street, you fucking nigger!”

Like breaking a bone, the first reaction I had was numbness.  I stood slack jawed as if I had been slapped in the face.  Emotions raced through me as my mind began to process what had just happened.  I was immediately transported through time and was no longer the beautiful accomplished woman I believed myself to be, living in one of America’s biggest cities in the 21^st century.  Instead, I was back in 1990; an awkward little girl in Louisville, struggling with my identity, starting fist fights with boys who called me nigger. 

That woman, dressed like me, could have been any one of my friends.  She wasn’t a white supremacist.  She wasn’t old.  She didn’t have a confederate flag mounted on her window.  And as far as I know, she didn’t have magical powers. But in the course of five seconds, she was able to strip me of everything that I was.  In that moment, I wasn’t smart or kind, ambitious or quirky, funny or interesting; I was just a black girl, a nigger. 

I got into a cab and tears started flowing.  I had a lump in my throat and my breathing was shallow and quick, trying to prevent myself from sobbing.  As I went to meet my white friends, all I felt was humiliation.  They would know what this woman had called me and they would believe it too.   They would see my brown skin, full lips, curly thick hair, round button nose and they would think I was ugly.  They would see my clothes and think I was an imposter who wandered into the wrong side of town, the white side of town. 

More than that, they had probably always believed, as she did, that I was just a nigger. I felt bamboozled, betrayed by every white person I had ever met.  Because no matter what our background, we were all lumped into the same category and they referred to us this way behind our backs.  They were waiting for me to annoy them, to step out of place, to fail; then they would tell me how they truly felt about me; about all of us.

This woman could have been any one of my friends, but she wasn’t.  She had no idea what it was like to love me or be loved by me, to nurture me, laugh with me, learn with me, be annoyed with me or fight with me as so many of my beloved white friends and family have.  I have been struggling to find a meaning or lesson in all of this, but a social message seems a little boring.  Instead, I’ll share with you some thoughts I’ve had on the issue since it happened:

1)      I acknowledge that all white people are likely not out to get me.  I am fairly certain that this is probably true. 

2)      I imagine she will develop the strain of HPV that turns people into trees.  I mean, I’m not saying I hope this happens to her, I just kind of have a feeling that it will.

3)      I hope no one ever calls me this to my face without the luxury of fleeing in a car; not just for my sake but theirs as well.  Any one of my friends and likely any one of my blog posts will confirm that I truly am bat shit crazy.  Earrings will come off and Vaseline will come on.  I believe that there are certain situations where a good stomping is not only understandable, but well deserved.  At least I’ve got my insanity plea all but locked up.