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The Subtle Shades of Racism
Dispatches from A Life: Here’s How It Began
- This reflection was read to a diverse group of women from The Woolfer. After completing Rachel Cargle’s 30-day Unlearning Racism #dothework program we were asked to write about our own racism. Personal work and daily action continues.
Here’s how it begins:
Cocoa-colored hands. Helping hands, bathing hands, cleaning and cooking hands, working hands. These are Georgia, peanut-picking hands. These are Mary’s hands.
I’m two. Mary holds me on her hip while she cleans the house, while she makes everything smell lemon-scented. Mary makes the best fried chicken and sweet potato pie, she makes the whole house smell like spice and marshmallows. Mary tells everyone I’m her baby, she smooths me over with almond oil and pats me down with powder. Mary has a smile so wide I can see her pink gums above her teeth.
I don’t understand that Mary isn’t part of our family.
Now, I’m four standing on a stool at Southern Farms, my grandparent’s grocery store. Now, I see more working hands. Mary’s husband, Eddie, cuts meat with Grandpa. There are shopping hands pushing grocery carts.
