True story:
As I sat in a parking lot in Wichita on Saturday, waiting for Megan to come out of the Dollar General we'd stopped at to get Maggie socks for her performance, I watched a black man approach the door.
He was tall to me, maybe 6 foot, had long, straightened hair, was dressed all in blue, held his left hand over his crotch and walked with a swagger. He had on dark sunglasses and white boat shoes. I wondered if he was a Crip.
From the other direction, a small white woman, maybe in her early to mid sixties, approached the same door. She was white-haired, well-dressed, a little swollen from middle-class living, with dangling sterling earrings that flashed in my eyes as I watched her.
I wondered if she'd be scared.
The man reached for the handle at the same time she did. He pulled the door open and took half a step back to make room for her to go through. She stopped, looked up at him, spoke something I couldn't hear, and touched his arm. His head threw back in laughter and I saw her shoulders shake with laughter at the same time. They shared a few more words and another smile and she went into the store as he followed right behind.
As the door closed on them my self-righteousness was torn ragged from my eyes, my prejudices bared to me.
They were beautiful, human, and right. And I was glad to see it. And ashamed of what I thought would be.
I have a long way to go. My only solace is that we all have so much to learn.
the beauty of this story is heaven on earth...the way it should be....the way it is when we can see it...
ReplyDelete"a little swollen from middle-class living"
fantastic.
This post makes me think of this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76BboyrEl48
ReplyDeleteCheck it out. I've had discussions recently, too, about our need to define people by how they look. Whether it's their skin color, dress, size, hair, etc. It's human nature, and sometimes just the easiest way to make someone understand what we mean "you know, that heavy set girl with the pink hair" . . . I am doing a project with my 7th grade class on labels. How we put them on ourselves and others put them on us, but they don't really define us. Deep stuff. I'm impressed by their ability to look deeply into themselves. I hope we can move past labels and quick judgements, but it's hard.