Racist Pt. 2: the first african-american i ever encountered

Susan Parlato Revels - age 3 - 1961

As I recounted in a previous blog post entitled Racist Pt. 1: How Did This Happen?, my experiences with Black people growing up were limited mostly to how people of color were portrayed in  the media - characters in Shirley Temple movies, Gone With the Wind,  the nightly news.  As psychologist Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum wrote in her book "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?", it is not uncommon for many White people to have grown up in environments that are very homogeneous, lacking racial or ethnic diversity.  While I did have exposure to various ethnic groups since they existed within my own family, I did not have much exposure to other racial groups.  As Dr. Tatum calls it, I had merely "second hand knowledge" when it came to races different from myself.

I do have a distant but distinct memory of the first time I ever saw a Black person.  It may sound odd for some people to hear that. I wonder how that experience might translate for Black people in America.  Can many Black people remember the first time they ever saw a White person?  By and large, probably not, since most Black communities in the United States, being part of a minority population,  interface regularly with White people as a daily occurrence.  It may feel "taboo" to talk about this topic.  But we must dialog about such things, even if it feels uncomfortable. 

Back to upstate New York: I was perhaps three years old, not yet in kindergarten. Standing in line with my mother at the P&C grocery store on north Main Street, we awaited our turn at the check out.   Several people were ahead of us.   I was  looking around, keeping myself occupied, when I noticed him.  A middle aged Black man stood in front of the cashier as she rang up his groceries. I had, to my recollection, never seen anyone like him.  His face, neck and hands were all dark brown.  I seem to remember him wearing a fedora style hat as men commonly did in the late 50's and early 60's.  As a three year old might do, I stared.  Some people have argued that small children are color blind.  I heartily disagree. Children do notice people, especially people different from themselves.  They may NOT yet associate fear with the differences they see.  Or they might, for other reasons.  I could not take my eyes off of this man and I recall feeling some measure of alarm. I did not feel fear.  It can be described more as a deep level of concern.  In my mind, something must have happened to him to change him to that color.  I assumed he must have been my color at one point in his life, and some horrific event must have happened to cause such a pronounced change.  Had he gotten in an accident?  Was he sick?  Had he gotten burned?  Was he okay?

"Mom!" I said quietly, "What happened to him?" 

I don't recall if my mother shushed me.  Perhaps she did, since we were around other people.  But I do recall her eventually giving me an answer. 

"Nothing happened to him, honey.  That's just the color that he is.  He was born that color." 

"Oh...." I said. 

I remember feeling an immediate sense of relief to know that pain had not been associated with a color "change".  But now I  had a new piece of information that brought surprise and curiosity to my small world and a whole new set of questions! He was born that color?  Well how did THAT happen?  What did his mother think when he was born?  Was she surprised to see that his face and hands were brown?  And how did MY mother know that he was born that way? He was an older man and she didn't know him.  She wasn't there when he was born!  Answers such as this led me to believe that my parents knew everything.  It was quite a let down for me upon finding out that they didn't.  But that's another story. 

Seeing this man and hearing my mother's answer did not yet elucidate for me that this man was completely brown from head to toe, that his mother and father would likely also be brown, that brown children came from brown parents (most of the time), and that there was a whole WORLD of brown people out there!  That understanding would come with time.  And with it would come the realization that brown people down through history and into the present, had indeed experienced their lion's share of pain.