It’s an interesting question. I’ve lived in the South, Charlotte, twice. Once as a child for a year and then as an adult for longer. As I child I didn’t attend school, I was 11 but i was in my 30s when I returned to help care for an ill parent. I was also better educated as an adult so I was able to travel around the city/towns and work there in the city at two places.
There is racism but it’s mixed, just as it is here in the North—NYC, Buffalo, Philadelphia (places I’ve lived for 1+ years).
In Charlotte it was mixed—-racism isn’t simply racial or by race it includes bias, discrimination, apathy, judgment which is why we’re so confused by it. Think of it like smoke that permeates a two story home—-it might be unclear exactly where the fire is coming from.
(In California, up in Napa Valley, there were direct questions to the other Black males in a 60+ conference that descending upon a small town for a weekend, from a nearby resort. Understandable but I still walked away from the discussion, from the questioning White townspeople, before I said something…confrontational. But I will also add that I walked the length of the town—-20 blocks after 10pm/11pm and the police and I waved at each other. I was alone and I don’t give off menacing energy. I was sightseeing, store window gazing.
I’ve mainly flown over the Midwest or been in airports and people were okay in rural Northern states like PA and NY. Again though I was alone and my comfortable, polite self.)
Belk’s Department Store.
What to do for work in Charlotte? I applied for a position with my “real” resume at a position that was to be constructed in Charlotte on a campus—-but that was a year away. They wanted me to train/work in Oregon—-a 10 hour flight away—defeating the purpose of going to Charlotte for an ill parent. So I opted to go lower end, retail and picked out Belk’s Department store for the Christmas season. I’d worked at A&S and Lord & Taylor in college up North so I figured I could barrel through for a couple of months to offset my expenses.
My stepfather drove me to one of the malls (there are several) but it was distinctly heavily Black populated, customers and employees. Spiffed up in a suit and tie, I went in with my printed resume and asked a sales associate behind the counter how/where to apply. She explained she was it and with visible disdain took my resume, looked it over, deeply looked me over then told me they’d get back to me but the newspaper ad was wrong, they had no openings.
Okayyyyyyyy.
I went back out to the car and told my stepfather to take me to the White mall, where there was a Belk’s. Got there interviewed with a White woman who was doing the interviews as she’d worked there for 40 years, we chatted so long my stepfather had to leave for work. She even told me about supermarkets downtown that had different foods and products I liked from up North.
Here’s what happened—-the sales associate was a young Black woman and I was a young Black man. But I wasn't a Southern young, uneducated Black man. I speak clean, clear English, my resume included my colleges degrees/experience and I also was only interested in the temp work. I was clearly an Outsider, an Other, within a Black sphere. It often happens that Blacks discriminate against one another based upon social class. I present as too high and proper.
When I told my stepfather to take me to the White mall—-I also said—-because “…they (White people) tend to like me better.”
What I’ve learned happens is I have more experience with White people as friends, teachers, students, supervisors, subordinates, lovers, etc. so I lack the intimidation that Black people, not all but some feel in a White sphere. I’m not blind, though I wear contact lenses, but I’m not off-put by White people. I’m used to it. I’m not intimidated nor frightened, though I do work with my students and teachers about their own issues of being surrounded by White people. I also work with White teachers and students going into high Black/Latino spaces about being surrounded by non-White students.
That awareness of racial “stuff” and my own comfort at being “unique” in some spaces (I also feel it about intelligence, since I was a child and to a milder degree, sexuality. But I’m out about race, smarts and sexuality so I don’t feel self-conscious in the ways people expect. I generally feel self conscious in the sense that I see others reacting to stuff that are norms of/to me.)
So I understood the young Black girls bias towards me. I also knew that in a White environment predominantly, I stand out as “one of the good, proper, smart ones”. What i didn’t expect was that it would be so pronounced in the South. I honestly expected more White to me/Black bias. In fact I found the Southern Whites more accommodating and helpful and thoughtful with rides (there was a black out across the city and a young White girl gave me a ride home so I wouldn’t have to wait on the bus. I was adamant that we talk and our coworkers know she was taking me because I was a big Black dude and she a small, young White girl. Not that I feared appearances but her generosity was a little naïve, I thought, to take a male acquaintance across town. But if we push this farther, she knew from my mannerisms and the houses address that I was “okay”. ); information—-another Belk's coworker, an older White man, retired who came to Belk’s for the discounts for Christmas and to get out of the house, intricately explained Medicaid/Medicare laws to me about my mother as his mother had died under similar circumstances; of the guys I dated, the most thoughtful about me, my parents home and safe sex were two White guys and one Black guy but several other Back guys were social class judgmental about my parent’s house and the mixed county it was in vs. being on the Black side of town. Several of the Black guys, unfortunately bearing out to racial statistics, insisted on unsafe, no condom sex and I declined.
I tried to register with two temp agencies—-one a Black/Latino one, again trying to just do temp work for a couple of months (not having a timeframe on my terminal mother) and needing a flexible schedule; the minority one was unhelpful. But Manpower was the one who got me the job/interview at $80k a year in Oregon that I didn’t take.
WalMart!
Finally I landed at WalMart for 6 months before I brought my mother back to NYC. Because it had health care, stock investment, and flexible hours. They pounced on me to come right in and happily put me into their system—-you get pay bumps by your educational experience and my willingness to do their position graduating Computer Based Learning (still one of the best systems I’ve ever seen as a teacher).
I didn’t mind working at Customer Service and I even corrected several of the managers who were younger, Black and putting me into a jackpot situation because they were upset at other Black customers stealing/returning for store credit and gas card credit. The discussion then became that the majority of the store employees, Black and Latino lived and commuted by car or bus to the Black-poorer-Latino side of town. The same as the “thieves” so they were all intimately aware of each other.
I had picked WalMart (over a local pawn shop) because of the benefits I explained and because it was a good 15 city block walk or the shuttle bus, ninety cents—-literally stopped right in front of my parents front lawn and let me off right across the road. Charlotte is like a perpetual early to late summer so sometimes I walked, sometimes the bus honked for me outside of my front door. And every night the bus left from the WalMart itself—-ten feet from the front door to put me 20 feet across the road from the house in 5 minutes. A $10 a week commute cost meant that though the pay was much lower than my teaching/consulting rates in NYC, it put me solidly on the middle class rung in Charlotte, which is about 25% cheaper.
(The high cost and thievery comes from the population addiction to cars (and gasoline)—-which I noted immediately and why I refused to get a car. Now that I think on it there were some coworker grumbles about that because I could clearly afford one and instead liked having extra money.)
I also would make or buy nice lunches at WalMart and I was regularly editing textbooks and novels I’d written in the breakroom. I think I was the only employee who actually read the magazines—-science, finance, etc. in the bathroom and gently put them back or bought them. (Tony Robbins Money Matters, Scientific America, Forbes—I would preview then pick up on payday. I also got a great deal on clothing and a flat screen TV. As a social class aside though, I wasn't comfortable with their having a direct deposit onto my ID card—-posing folk to not even get cash itself and just work and swipe for everything, including gas—-instead I opted for a deposit into my own account and I did 75% of my food shopping at Food Lion, just to have a little distance, detachment from WalMart world.)
While this might seem small and idiosyncratic, I was defining myself intellectually and financially and even as an employee, as different, because of my thoughts about myself, money, etc. than my coworkers—-particularly, my Black coworkers. I recognize that's such class based things and critical thinking make me stand out among Black people and if not admired, then regarded well among White people—-for some of the same and different racialized projections.
I was of course enhanced by the fact that my mother and stepfather had bought an overprized, slightly too big house a decade before that having lived in a really oversized house in Pennsylvania and co-op in Brooklyn. My stepfather is a ne’er do well that my mother bought to have companionship and then regretted it for years—-his poverty mindset infecting her entrepreneurial mindset—-she had a lot of money when they got together and they frittered it away.
I offer this because to some degree there are these two distinct mindsets/habits/educated thinking of my mother vs Poverty, survivalist, money-hungry mindsets of other Blacks.
The statistics is that 40% of Black Americans are in permanent generational poverty—-he was and still is; my mother being the come up for him. And yes, to some degree her and my biological father meeting while both in college, are the come up for me; my grandparents both educated—-my grandmother not Black but Narragansett light tan and my great-grandparents Narragansett and White—Upper Class/Rich by early 1900s standards in Rhode Island.
All of that advanced education for 70+ years is infused to me and makes me more Middle to Upper social class/intellectually detectable to Whites and as I often joke, as soon as I open my mouth, to Blacks, as well. (I also write in cursive 95% of the time—who knew that social class tell? lol)
But I was like one of three WalMart employees out of 200 who lived within a mile of the store. Immediately, with my speech and intelligence, labeling me a Black Other. And there was some crusty treatment, remarks, a young fool almost got his ass beat—-he was a former employee on crack who I rightfully refused a return of—-yes, one immediately becomes all kinds of niggers and faggots.
It got shouted at me a lot of times all the times by Black folk. I went to a sort of outdoor, downtown city proper mall/party but never got to a gay club though I did walk past it during the daytime on one of my many, daily walking trips—-I would pick a direction, a road, take a bottle of water and just walk until I was tired, then walk back. I literally walked in about a 15 mile circumference of the house in Mecklenburg and never had a problem—-because I was pushing into more White areas.
But again, I’m generally dressed casual or more conservative, no bright sneakers or hippity-hoppity outfits, I have really good manners and make confident eye contact with everyone. I think it’s important to point out this makes me approachable by Whites and available. It also makes me seem more direct and perhaps challenging to Blacks (who don’t know me personally.)
Because I was always unsure/hedging how long I would be there, eventually 1.5 years-2 years, I tried to keep my expenses to a minimum and became a black belt in connecting bus routes and times to the hospital, home, work, downtown, the mall. I got around.
Black In The Court System
Then because of his financial mismanagement, I had to take my stepfather to court (county’s clerk) to get the money right for my mother’s care. This also involved the diabetic rehab having countless meetings about his being in arrears and then eventually civil court—-where I got to cross examine him—-I kid you not! (Still one of the highlights of my life/trip.)
But I will say the judge/clerk and pro temp lawyer—-were mightily impressed by me in court and saw my stepfather and his daughter (who literally dressed like a prostitute—-mini skirt, bustier, mini-vest, bald head and bangle earrings in court) and the contrast of me in an Armani suit, Italian shoes, speaking properly, calmly.
Then in civil court, again in Armani, the Judge, an educated Black woman, invited me and coached me, how to question and cross examine my stepfather—-because she could see that we had enough in common education that I could. This time my stepfather's daughter yelled from the bleachers in sweats and a t-shirt, and got shutdown.
But I held my ground against my stepfather’s lawyer, in a packed courtroom, and cross examined him from memory to the point where the Judge literally favored me as much as possible in her ruling. There was Black educated simpatico between me and the Judge. (She looked like Judge Maybelline on TV.)
I point this race stuff out for her and the White male judge-clerk before because I could see them seeing the educated and uneducated differences/temperament between us. I could see the favor, in both court outcomes, was to my personal presentation. While my stepfather was wrong, I did feel enough sympathy for how I saw him in his cheap suit, crocodile tears and rubber shoes—-being perceived by them, not to have dropped all the TEA on him I could’ve. I saw their bias in my favor and why they were biased about him and my stepsister. They were presenting and acting out as “loud, poor, uneducated Negroes”
(Now you can see where some of my mixed emotions, guilt comes in at.)
The Distraction of Work and Races There
I did well at Belk’s, reasonably enjoyed the ease of the time, it distracting me from my terminal mother. I even got to help a Black woman who fainted form the heat with her 5 children—-and I jumped into School-Teacher Child Safety mode, having two designated women watch/corral her children (against predators/kidnappers) until her husband arrived.
WalMart for 6 months was a nice distraction too—-I actually got to see a Black Friday sale—-I’ve never been to one (better things to do in life besides just be a consumer). But it’s heavy Black/Latino population garnered a high speed chase of a submachine gun armed gang, followed by SWAT, cops, Deputy Dog—-forcing the whole of the store onto the ground as they rounded up the M-16 packing gang.
I blithely arrived 2 hours later. lol
There was also the Madea impersonator who regularly robbed meats and stun gunned the cancer riddled security head. I explained that I was not like the confused employees who took the robberies personal and I would never intercede. And that I was thinking perhaps of transferring to a more White supercenter up the road.
Do you see how race, racism, bias, discrimination, social class spite and judgment are intertwined?
Now I’m sure there was some White bias/race issues but again, I present—Middle to Upper Middle Class in carriage, presentation, speech so as a singular person, I don’t get it much. There’s still stuff. This is America.
But as a whole, the South had more Black to me, Black racialized/social class bias. What I will offer though in some sort of not Black defense but explanation, is that a lot of the Black to Black bias, is engrained or enforced or pressed by White perceptions, society and desire for favoritism.
See, I feel like I’m good enough, I have skills and such—-I can get offered the $80K a year job off of three phone interviews and turn it down (my stepfather went apoplectic—-how could “we” not get that paycheck? Of course, I was there for my terminal mother—-you can see his money greed.)
Even the greed, the fear I’d take over, become management (WalMart offered several times and offered me positions up north here if I wanted) or perhaps even harm or judge those “less than me”.
Generally you don’t judge down, particularly if you’re a teacher, the whole point to uplift people—-but racialized hegemony has twisted some Black people to believe betterment is at the expense of others. Black others. So lots of times I felt the pronounced racial Catch-22 I feel here in the North, though that 22 is based upon Poverty vs. Middle/Upper Class more pronouncedly within a racial context. In the North, I’ve found I become the Other when I don’t collaborate to demonize ALL White people, Jews, “them”, etc..
Don’t get me wrong, I believe we all are racist, that was the inculcating point of social mores, laws, strictures, structures, restrictions, etc. And I believe it is a part of human consciousness that we have to actively redress or challenge or correct. But I also believe that we all are along a spectrum of intensity of racialized bias.
And in the South, it is more intensified but for different reasons than what we see as “classical racism” here in the North.
#KylePhoenix
#TheKylePhoenixShow
That was a very comprehensive and informative piece done from a unique perspective. Thank you.
Thank you. I try to be honest, even in my own confusion, or multi-layered feelings, responses and understandings of things like my own ethnicity and culture, I’m lucky to be old enough and young enough to understand and experience this transitional space in time in society.
Excellent post. I would share, but for some reason my share button won’t work. Thanks for writing about your experiences.