Last week, my family and I were in Colorado for an event of which I was asked to be Music Director. The event was in a small town a few hours outside of Denver, and we had decided to take the beautiful drive from Denver through the snowy mountains to get there. The drive was even more beautiful than the pictures.
About two hours into our drive, we stopped at a grocery store in an even smaller town. In this area, there aren’t many Black people, which I am pointing out for a reason. On this drive, and in this trip especially, we saw a grand total of zero Black people outside of ourselves and most of my band who was playing at the event with me. This was no less true at the grocery store.
At this store, I noticed three main responses to our presence. The first response was a subtle, but genuinely pleasant surprise at seeing a Black family that one of my singers jokingly said “was not one of the two Black families that live there.” That was the main response; double takes, smiles, waves, gushing over our beautiful baby boys, etc.
That first response was normal for me. The other two responses are what I found interesting, insightful, and a little humorous. These other two responses are the reason for this article.
So as previously stated, the first response was from the vast majority of the grocery store. These other two responses were from two different people in the store; two fringes.
The first fringe was a man who quite frankly looked annoyed and disgusted that we were there. At first, I didn’t notice anything, but what caught my attention was when my two-year-old was walking around the grocery store with us, and happened to walk past him a couple of times, the look on his face whenever my son was in front of him was as if he had a tail and horns. Now, I’m aware that some people just have really angry looking resting faces, but when my son locked eyes with the man, I told my son to greet as me and his mother always do. My son said “hi,” while running past the man. All the man did was continue to stare at my son as he ran past with the same look on his face.
This man could have just been an angry man, I’m aware. Given the overall tone of the room, he seemed to similarly be just as surprised as the rest of the store, but not in a good way.
The third response was from a young employee. This one was the most overt. As soon as my family and I walked in, she looked at us, perked up and said “Oh!” Then she runs to her station, grabs stickers and toy rings, runs over to us, and hands them to our two sons. Again, much like the second response, I didn’t think much of it, except that she must love her job a whole lot.
So she hands the boys the little trinkets, gives me a fist bump, and very warmly welcomes my entire family. A few minutes later, after my youngest’s exchange with the man, the employee randomly gives me another fist bump as she passes by us in the produce section; still big smiles and lots of excitement in her eyes, she notices my oldest took his ring off, so she starts toward her station to get another one until my wife lets her know we have it, he just doesn’t want to wear it at the moment. After this, she disappears for a few more minutes.
Shopping is all finished, and my family is at the checkout counter while another employee rings up our stuff. While this is happening, the girl returns, and begins talking to my wife as I’m loading groceries onto the conveyor-belt. For the sake of anonymity, and also because I never learned her name, I will call her Sue. The conversation between my wife and Sue goes like this:
Sue: So do you like to watch movies?
Wife: Uh, yeah! I like m-
Sue: I just recently watched the new Black Panther. I really like Black Panther.
Wife: Oh, you like Black Panther?
Sue: Yeah.
Me: *focuses on groceries and pretends to stop listening*
Wife: Nice. It’s a pr-
Sue: Yeah I like Black Panther a lot. And Black lives matter!
Wife: *faded voice* Oh, hmm.
Sue: *turns toward me* Yeah, Black lives matter!
Me: *internally wishes there was a camera I could stare into like Jim from the office* Ok, we’re done. We gotta hit the road now.
As we leave the grocery store, the young lady, still excited as all get out, gives me a hug, first bumps my wife, and bids us farewell. It was abundantly clear to us that she had most likely never seen a Black person in person before, and had waited all her life to meet one. It was like she had waited her whole life for this moment. At the moment, it was hard to decipher what to do or say; mainly because both my wife and I were just there to get snacks for the road, our boys were hungry, and we still had about three more hours of driving to do. Looking back, I don’t think it was something we could have done anything about anyway, but more just for us to witness.
Both fringes are out of touch. The man seemed to be stuck in the past, and the young lady seemed to only get her information about Black people on mainstream news and/or Netflix specials. I’ve experienced both fringes at different times in my life, but never have I experienced both concurrently.
In all of this, it is worth reiterating that the vast majority of the grocery store was cool, and many were simply kind toward us. I don’t think most of the people there reacted any differently to when people in China see a White person up close for the first time, or even when Black Africans in South Africa see a Black American over six feet tall for the first time (which happens to me whenever we’re there). People tend to note when other people are different. There isn’t anything wrong with that. It is important to note this because just as it was foolish of both the man and the young lady to hold the assumptions they held, it would be foolish of me to narrowly focus on either fringe to paint a picture about White people. People are different. Some people are mean, and some are nice. In this case, most of the people were very nice. One person seemed repulsed at us, the other thought of us as angels sent from heaven. Everyone else treated us as people, people they had never seen before, but people nonetheless. Very kind, but overall, we were all there for the same reason. Our families needed to eat.
Time and hungry children did not permit us to address the fringes, and quite frankly, it wasn’t something we felt to address anyway.
I don’t have a conclusion for you. Just wanted to share.