Hate

I suppose I should give fair warning to the couple or three people who might pause to read further. This is not a pleasant remembrance of some bygone moment of life in or around Emmitsburg. For those preferring a politer view of Emmitsburg- please pass this one by.

So it begins. I hate having to think, to ponder unpleasant moments. Sadly, I often have no choice.

“NIGGER!”

I turn in stunned disbelief. Wanda and I are standing on the walk in front of our house in Emmitsburg. Our son’s girlfriend is on the door stoop, just about to go into the house after a long day at her job “down the road”. She stands stone faced as I turn from her to a speeding away, dark green, older SUV and back to her.

“Did he yell what I thought he did?” I’m no longer sure I’m standing where I thought I was in space or time. I feel… confused? I definitely feel a rage building. I’m wondering if I’m about to go into the house to get a weapon? What’s handiest? Bow and arrows? Rifle? Pistol? Ball bat? Hammer? Something explosive? So many options and he’s speeding away.

“Yes.”

I’m in the middle of the street now, staring after the vehicle, trying to will it back so I can drag the driver out of his cage (biker talk for the wheeled boxes oblivious idiots travel about in) and break his bones. Hurt him as badly as I see my friend hurt. Cripple him physically so he’s forever in pain as this friend of mine is now forever hurt by someone on my street! In my town! In my county! My state! My country! MY WORLD!

Her words penetrate the rage. “Old Man, he’s just a dumb ass Emmitsburg cracker who doesn’t know a spic from a nigger. Leave it be.”

I can’t leave it be. I shake with rage. Rage that I long ago learned to turn into foaming, incoherent cursing rather than hurt the people around me.

Then she tells me that this has been going on since the first day she moved here almost 3 years ago. “I’m afraid to get out of my car in Thurmont.” she says. “And there are places in Frederick that are worse. Emmitsburg isn’t so bad. This is the first insult I’ve gotten in town in at least a couple of months.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I don’t want to believe what I’m hearing. I thought the town had changed. That the racists had at least learned to keep their prejudices to themselves. I know some local people who are still in the Klan, but they keep their mouths shut publicly. I’m aware of the Kluxers in the Thurmont area and have had young friends tell me of their fighting with children of Klan families in Catoctin High School over the years. But in front of my house?

“Old man,” she says. “Why do you think I never walk around town unless I’m with your son? I’ve been called nigger and have been told to go back where I came from since the first day I got here. Believe me, I have seriously concidered doing just that! I was never called a nigger in any part of the boroughs of New York City. No! I had to come to nowhere Emmitsburg to experience that!”

Now, I’m a racist… as well as a bigot, a sexist, a homophobe and probably a few other unpleasant things I’ve yet to grasp the meanings of. Many people I know share these… traits with me. Some of these traits are probably survival instincts hardwired into our animal selves, unlikely to ever not be just below the surface of our thinking. Other traits I know I learned along the way to this place. They can be unlearned. When I meet someone for the first time I notice skin color and sex. The brain automatically slips the person into a category- say… black/woman. Cute, handsome, plain, unattractive also get tagged with “black/woman”. Depending on the meeting I might discover a pleasant attitude and the person gets tagged as friendly. If she says something of interest she gets tagged with that too. If I have time I begin asking questions to learn what I can of her. I may even decide I like her and consider cultivating her as a friend. But she is first, and always- black- different. Which is good, as I have little use for people exactly like me. They bore me. In the case of the “cracker” in the SUV- they embarrass me.

And there’s the rub I think triggered the rage. All the racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic thoughts and utterances that have ever escaped me caught up with me the instant I saw the hurt on my friend’s face.

The puzzlement I’m pondering- What feeds my rage? The hurt my friend took, or the guilt I experience?

Fortunately for me, and the cracker, the spic won’t let me hurt him, ever. Not that she thinks he’s worth saving, but she thinks I am.