Little Black Girl

I was originally going to name this blog Little Black Girl, but this girl beat me to it.

I took a job in Monroe County to help pay for my trip to Europe last March. It was to clean the house of a friend, get it ready for sale, do some touch up work, etc.

While I worked, I had two visitors. One was a concerned woman who came to the door. She'd been neighbors with my friends for years and knew they'd moved out nearly 4 years ago. She wanted to make sure things were okay with their home. She knew me by face and was relieved to see that no one was breaking into their home. The other was also a neighbor for years, but they appeared in the driveway, poking around the house before I got there. The woman's face was so unfriendly, I found myself gripping the paint roller and watching for ambush. And when she questioned me, it felt more like an interrogation and one where I couldn't be my normal self and ignore her (I had the right to be on the property, she didn't), but where I felt that not answering may cost me the harassment I was trying to avoid. Her son was with her asking questions that were truly none of his beeswax yet I still found myself answering because of the particularly unpleasant, sour look on his mother's face. Even when he remembered me because he had also met me very briefly once, the look never left his mother's face. I was very glad to make it in the house.

After that I never wanted to go alone. It's weird. I am surrounded at all times by diversity. I add to the diversity of my surroundings and I am used to being the only black person in a place now. I don't even think about it anymore and because they are used to me, neither do my friends. But in this instance, I was hyper aware of my skin colour. Even more aware than the time someone came into Sears (where I used to work) and refused to buy a phone from me because I'm black. I don't care about that. That is borderline hilarious. Yes, take the box and pay for it at the nearest white station. Us blackards will sit over here out of your way. It was borderline hilarious in the bright lights of a busy mall. But deep in the woods of Monroe County*, that kind of sentiment does not bode well.

I told my father about working in Monroe County and he told me never to go alone again. I'd already made that decision. He described a situation where some guys came to harass him and a friend while they worked on a house (my dad used to do construction). If they wouldn't fear approaching two grown men, he said, what makes me think they will leave one little black girl alone.

I have come far, have many places to go as I find my place in this very big world. It just sucks, that after all that's happened in history, after everything I feel I've accomplished personally, after the safety that I've found in a group of friends that would have to think for a few seconds before they could even begin to name the ethnicity of everyone in the group, that in the eyes of some, I'm still just a little black girl.

*Not everyone in Monroe County is a racist. Maybe the mother just didn't like the cut of my jib.