Traveling with my mother to Mexico and living there also never made any impact on me, except that being white made me the target of hoots and hollers from young men as I went about my day.
But when my Mom took me to live in Louisiana for a while, I got my first confused glimpse of a time that is slowly fading from living memories. We had just crossed the border into Louisiana when my Mom stopped for gas. I headed for the restrooms and was confused by the three doors: White Men, White Women, and Colored Men & Women. I had to ask my Mom which door to use.
My Mom rented a house out in the country side and almost daily we got together with my Aunt and her family; my only regular playmates were my cousins. But on days that we did not get together, I had to play by myself. It was not long before I found a family living a good walk from our house in the country. Sometimes I would go there and stand across the street waiting for an invitation to play. I could see there were several kids my age and they had a big tire swing that looked like it would be great fun. I went there a number of times waiting for an invitation but it never came. It was not until much later that I realized that the family was black and I was never going to get the invitation to play with them because it would have been too dangerous for them, as the Civil Rights Movement heated up in the South.
During my lifetime things have changed a lot, and things that seem easy now, were not so easy a few decades ago. As a young person working those “character building” jobs that we never put on our resumes, I had the opportunity to learn to cook in a small cafeteria in the JCPenny Department Store. I had wonderful mentors in my Uncles who were cooks and when I had mastered most of the basics, they urged me to move on to the next level: cooking in a coffee shop. This was a big step for me, the pay would be twice what I was making and I was scared when I went to apply for position advertised in the local News Paper. The manager was very polite when I told him that I wanted to apply for the "cook’s grave yard position", but after a brief conversation, he said “No”. I went home and Mom asked “Did you get the job?” and when I told her that they didn’t give it to me she said “You go back there and tell them to give you that job!” So, I got back into the car and went back and asked to see the Manager again. When he came to talk to me, I asked him “Why didn’t you give me the position?” he replied that he was very glad I had come back and that I was hired and to come in at 11 pm. He told me they had never hired a woman cook before and that it was a bit awkward hiring me. I worked there for a number of years and for a long time I was one of two women cooks working for that coffee shop chain.
The election of Barak Obama is only the beginning of changes that will ripple through this society and the world. History has been changed forever. There is no going back to a time that only white men could work, hold political office and make decisions. Each tick forward is on a ratchet that can never be unwound. It doesn’t matter if there are great successes or miserable failures, the ratchet has been clicked forward and new dynamics have been unleashed. Barak Obama has been given the position that was advertised through out the country. He is now the first on the road and leads the way for everyone who has ever heard the word “No”.
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