Old racism with a new twist

July 9, 2:10 PMPhiladelphia Early Childhood Parenting ExaminerRobin Jessie-Green

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Togetherness.
(AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

In 2000, I was a mother of two. My oldest was five and I had a new born baby boy, black children born to a black mother and father. My husband, father, children and I took a long trip to visit family in Arlington, Texas. We drove from Philadelphia, through the south and then west.

After our visit was concluded, we decided to stop for a good ol’ southern breakfast from the Waffle House in Pearl, Mississippi. My little girl and I had to use the ladies’ room, so we made a bee-line straight to the back and the three generations of black males in my family, searched for a booth that would accommodate us all.

Several minutes later, we returned to find no water, no orange juice, no coffee, no semblance of service. Initially, I hadn’t noticed the solemn looks upon my loved ones’ chocolate faces. It was quiet and still around us. Not the typical murmurs of conversations you’d expect at a diner. There was no friendly waitress named "Flo" to greet us and take our order. Something seemed off.

My father, a proud and intelligent man, a war veteran who has served two tours in Vietnam for our country, simply suggested we go across the parking lot to McDonald’s. My baby girl complained, “But I want waffles.” Not knowing how to explain that we were being ignored, not being served, not being acknowledged in a form of old racism with a new twist, I told her there was better food at Micky D’s.

We were encountering a silently overt form of discrimination. Prior to returning to the table, my husband, father and baby boy bore witness to two other families of color—not just black—being avoided. They too headed across the lot to McDonald’s.

Instead of flat out announcing “We don’t serve your kind here,” we were left to sit without acknowledgement. Although it was clear, our presence had been known.

This most recent event with the Valley Swim Club in Huntingdon Valley is yet another reminder of the fact that bigotry has not been washed away, not by the chlorine in the pool water, not by years of alleged human progression, not even by the supreme accomplishment of President Barack Obama. We shall over come what day?

Our NE Philadelphia community, so close to Huntingdon Valley, is a mixed community that’s why we chose to raise our children here in the first place. We will continue to teach our children to love our white neighbors, our Latino neighbors, our Asian and African neighbors. When they are treated unjustly, they know not to play the victim but be the victor. We are an incredible people, most of the time the problem is simply that others haven’t taken the time to notice it yet.

SPEAK UP and SPEAK OUT Philadelphia.