In the locker room at the Y, I overheard several ladies talking about the shooting that occurred at the Jewish community center in Kansas. The talk centered on the tragedy that left three people dead as well as the incredulity that someone like the alleged shooter has the capacity for such hate in these days and times.
The women, all of them in their late sixties and seventies and all of them White, then turned their discussion to their own experiences with racism, segregation and civil rights. One woman was still surprised at how, when taking her daughter to camp in Goochland county during the 1970’s, the family spied a Klan gathering as they drove through the country side. Another woman talked about her experiences with de-segregation of schools in Richmond, while a third recounted her first experience with an inter-racial couple. Despite the casualness of our surroundings — it being a locker room and all — there usual air of levity was missing. These women were reporting histories, what they had observed. I listened to the history lesson of sorts and continued to carry out my ministrations, heading to the shower.
When I returned to the locker room, the original group of women who had been talking had dispersed. Another older woman was packing her bag when a friend of hers walked in. They exchanged pleasantries and the first commented to the second how much she admired the latter’s snowy, bobbed hair. “It’s so lovely!” she gushed, “I bet people say that you look like Paula Deen.” The second woman thanked her and admitted that in fact, when her hair was longer, she was oft-mistaken for the chef and author. She then went on to say how glad she was the Paula Deen had “gotten her life back on track” and “put all that nastiness behind her”. The first woman nodded in response, saying “I mean, who among us hasn’t used that word. Anyone who says they haven’t is a liar.”
“Oh, absolutely!” the second woman said, as she laced up her sneakers. “When we were kids, we said it all the time!”
At this point, I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. My heart started to beat a little bit faster and in my head, I was telling myself be calm. I don’t know these women; they don’t know me. I doubt they even registered that I was there. I’m sure they saw me, but I don’t think they saw me. I told myself to give them the benefit of the doubt. This conversation could abruptly shift in its nature, but I could feel myself getting prepared in the event it did not.
“What was it we used to say?” the second woman continued, pausing to recollect. “Oh, eenie-meenie-miny-mo,” at which point the first woman joined in, “catch a ni—
“Excuse me, ladies!” I turned to face them, half dressed and completely put out. “I don’t think that is an appropriate conversation to be having in here. Thank you.” And I looked at each of them very pointedly as they gawped at me like fish out of water. There were no apologies from them, no words spilling from their mouths like milk from an upturned glass. There was silence, followed by several murmurs and their prompt departure from the locker room.
Did I do the right thing?
Would they have self-edited and stopped before actually saying the n-word? Should I have let them finish and then verbally eviscerate them? And then what? I’m never prepared when people pepper me with seemingly innocuous statements about my hair, my children’s parentage, or my own racial make-up. What makes me sure I could have handled this situation in a decorous, yet scathing way that brokered no argument about the absolute impropriety of their discussion? I’m struck at the dichotomy between the incredulity the first group of women felt about the persistence of racism and the complete cavalier nature of the second group of women. I wonder if there had been anyone else in the locker room at that time, would they have spoken up? Would they have continued in their routine and just shrugged past, chalked it up to two ol’ blue hairs talking nonsense? I hope that wouldn’t be the case, but if you plotted my hope in humanity on a graph, it would look more like a roller coaster than a beeline.
Have you had an experience like this? How did you handle it? Would you have done anything differently? Let’s talk in the comments.