GETTING RID OF POISON OAK AND POISON ATTITUDES

My heart hurts….like the majority of this country.  Our hearts are breaking at the senseless death of George Floyd.  I’m 71 years old and can remember so many instances of racism as I grew up…especially being raised in the south.  The “N” word was used often by my family.  I was disgusted by it.  It was even used by aunts and uncles who were such loving people, yet they used that vile word.

I had two uncles and aunts that didn’t have children.  Since I was the oldest grandchild, the two childless couples kind of “adopted” me and often invited me to do things with them  or to spend the night.   Our home was a living hell with two alcoholic parents, physical and sexual abuse so I tried to spend the night with my aunts and uncles as often as I could get away.  It was my refuge.

When I was 16 I left home and went to live with one set, Uncle Bill and Aunt Della (who I dubbed “Sissie” when I was small and it stuck all of her life).  I always thought they were rich.  They owned a two bedroom home, had a newer car, and always had good food to eat.  All of these things were generally lacking as I grew up.  They both worked and weren’t drinkers.  Their home was humble, but it still seemed like a palace to me.

At one point while I lived with them, Sissie discovered that the house she and Uncle Bill had lived in when they were first married had become available for rent.  They wanted to live there again.  They rented out their home in town and rented the house they had lived in earlier.  It was in the country (probably had an acre or so of land), had one bedroom and an attic that had a floor all the way across the width of the tiny house.  The attic was going to be my room.  It had a window at each end and the house had a tin roof, so sleeping there was always awesome and an adventure!

The house had an old chicken coop out in the back and it was overgrown with poison oak.

Uncle Bill and Uncle Allen (the other childless uncle) worked together at Myrtle Desk in High Point for many years.  They both loved to tease and cut up all the time….I’ll share some of the stunts they pulled on me in another blog.

They had a black coworker whose name was Van.  They particularly loved to tease Van because he believed in ghosts and they were always making him think that the building had ghosts everywhere (at times one would hide in an area and rattle chains to scare Van).   I was 16 then and they would often tell tales of the latest joke they had pulled on Van.  To me they seemed to like him.

Apparently Uncle Bill mentioned at work about the poison oak growing on the chicken coop and how he wanted to clean it all up, but was very allergic to it.  Van told Uncle Bill that he would come over and pull it all up by hand.  Van said he didn’t react to poison oak at all.  They agreed on a price that Uncle Bill would pay and one summer Saturday Van came to the house and started pulling the poison oak.

He worked for several hours and it eventually was time for lunch.  I asked Sissie if we were going to invite Van for lunch and she said we were.  She was making sandwiches and potato salad.  She had me go out and ask Van what kind of sandwich he would like.  He told me and I said that we would be eating soon.

Four plates were soon prepared with sandwiches and potato salad.  I told Sissie I would go get Van and let him know we were ready to sit down for lunch.  Sissie looked at me like I had snakes coming out of ears and said, “We’re not having a ‘N*****’ come in this house and eat with us!”  With that she handed me his plate and had me take it outside to Van.

This sweet, kind black man meekly took the plate from me and thanked me as he looked at the ground.  I felt sick.

I went back in the house and we sat down for lunch.  My chair faced a window where I could see that Van had pulled up a lawn chair outside and was eating his lunch.  I began to cry at what I felt was cruelty laid upon this kind man.  At that point Sissie began to lecture me about how it “wasn’t right” to “mix” with “N’s”.

As I type this I am literally shaking all over.  I still remember the pain watching him accept his lunch without being invited into the house even just to wash the poison oak off his hands, without being welcomed at the table with the three of us, with being treated as if he were a leper or something.  All I could think of was how I would feel if that were me.  It was horrible what they did to him and they thought nothing of it.  It still haunts me 55 years later.

Even my sweet Aunt Louise who died in 2015 still used the “N” word in her final years.  She was such a kind woman, yet every time that word came out of her mouth I cringed.  How could that be okay?

My father was one of the biggest bigots I’ve ever known.  Now this was a man who couldn’t keep a job because of his alcoholism, who cheated on his wife constantly, who failed to provide food, utilities, clothes, etc. for his family.  We had to move constantly because he wouldn’t pay the rent.  We often moved out of state to hide from bill collectors.  He sexually abused me, physically abused my mother, me, my brothers and sister…yet he somehow thought he was better than any black person just by virtue of his white skin.

Once when he was drunk we argued about his bigotry and he called me a “N*****lover”.  He said “If you ever marry a “N*****” you will never be allowed back in this house!  You’d better not bring that kind of shame on our family!”  I couldn’t believe it!

I can’t understand how someone thinks just because they were born white they are better than someone else….that they have the right to treat anyone of color horribly…that anyone of color is up to no good.

I wonder if we will ever finally get it.  I wonder if we will finally get to a place that justice will be served for the George Floyds and better yet, will we get to a place that incidents like this NEVER happen again?   We will get to a point that we all take a knee to protest what happened or walk side by side with peaceful protesters of any color?  We need to be the example we need to spread the love.  We need to hold people responsible for their actions….especially if they are law enforcement officers or political leaders.

Van didn’t deserve how he was treated.  It was clearly nothing compared to George Floyd and the many other blacks who have lost their lives senselessly, but no one deserves to be treated less than another human being.

THERE IS ONLY ONE RACE…THE HUMAN RACE