Reluctant Neighbors
Page 19
“I doubt that you’d see pickets out in New Canaan.” So cool. We could have been talking of the recent snowfall.
“I agree. Zoning laws and all that.”
“Well, did you get some satisfaction from watching them go to church?”
“Oh, I wasn’t looking for satisfaction. Looking at them was like looking at myself and understanding that I, too, was easily capable of the same raving, lunatic, racist behavior.”
“I’m quite sure that everyone in Forest Hills was not on the picket lines. Some people up there do not oppose the project, but I don’t suppose that the liberal point of view interests you. No doubt liberals are included in your collective of racists.”
“Of course. As I see it, a liberal is someone consciously struggling with his own racism. Just as I’m struggling with mine. The label does not mean a damn thing.”
“And you say you believe in love.”
“I said I believe in challenge.” Keeping him in line.
After a pause he asked me, “Why did you decide to leave New York to live in New Canaan? I would have thought that the city would provide you with everything you needed.” He was quite at ease.
“Not quite everything. I moved because I’m an addict.”
His head jerked around at the word, his eyes swiveling uneasily.
“An addict?”
“Yes. I’m hooked on clean air and open spaces and lots of growing green.” The relief on his face was funny to watch.
“Oh, I see. Tell me. What’s your opinion of our local community? I take it you’ve lived there long enough to have an opinion?”
Did I detect a note of sarcasm? “It’s a very pleasant community,” I told him.
“You really mean that?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
I made no further reply, waiting for him to show me where it was leading.
“I take it then that nobody demonstrated against your presence in the town or attempted to burn your home.” Really enjoying himself. Good. I’d even help him.
“No. Not a single picket. Not a single match.”
“And you still say we’re racist?”
“That’s right. New Canaan is a piece of the whole, as is Watts and Selma, and Pontiac and Forest Hills.”
“But you’ve never been molested. You’re free to come and go as you please.” He was funny. Pitifully funny. Using the word “free” but evidently having no idea of its real import. I could feel the rage quickly ballooning. He was so aggressively defensive when I’d said this society is racist, yet here he was, expecting me to do somersaults because I could sleep peaceably in my bed and walk unmolested in the street. Damn it! It was not something which he’d conferred on me by his grace and favor.
I realized that the word which so easily stirred me really meant nothing to him. He’d never had to think of freedom, for himself. He really knew nothing of the condition of freedom, or the components of that condition. To him it was, “You’re free to come and go.” Come where? Go where? What the hell did he know of freedom? He’d never had his right to it questioned, never felt that his entitlement to it was threatened in any way. What the hell did he know of being free to come and go? I thought of my recent visit to Atlanta, Georgia. From the airport to the hotel the taxi driver had maintained a running commentary on the city, pinpointing for my benefit the highlights of redesign along Peachtree Avenue.
Approaching the hotel, he said, “Time was when none of us could go in there, man.” He was black.
After registering, I inquired at the desk about restaurants in the vicinity and was told of an excellent one near by, locally famous for its grilled steaks. After a shower, shave and change of clothes I went there. A hostess courteously greeted me at the door and showed me to a seat. The decor was pleasing, the room spacious, each table with its burden of spotless napery and gleaming cutlery. The uniformed help all smartly elegant. All white. Remembering the words of the taxi driver, I reminded myself that I was in Atlanta, Georgia. In the Southland. Free to enter that restaurant, free to sit and be served. I ordered an apéritif, then my meal, helpfully advised by the waiter on the specialties of the house. I sipped my drink while waiting, thinking about the South and the little of its history I had read. Yes, only yesterday I would not have been allowed in. Today I was able to buy accommodation at the best hotel in town or a meal in the finest restaurant. If this was freedom it had been dearly bought with the blood of many, black like me, who, not so long ago, had sought for none of these frills. All they had demanded was the right to live like men. Free in body, in mind and spirit. Not merely to come and go. Any disconnected soul can do that. But free to be a part of everything around them. Free to contribute, out of the fullness of their potential, to the growth, the development, the stature, the pride, the strength, the power, to everything which made their country live and thrive. For that they had reached. For that they had died. They had rejected both the fact and the spirit of slavery, and for that they had been brutalized, shot, lynched and imprisoned by those who casually accepted the notion and fact of their own freedom as inalienable.
Now here I was, an extension of all those who, black like me, had ever passed this way. For them there had been no room at inn or lunch counter. Instead of courteous service they’d received clubs and curses. Try as I might, I could not tear my mind away from the recent historic past and the wavering images it conjured up. Freedom must mean more than this.
The meal was placed before me. Considering the astounding collective cost, it was, surprisingly, only food, invested with no special virtue. The few dollars listed on the menu seemed but a minute fraction of the whole terrible price. I could not eat it. I put enough money on the table for the food, drink and tip and left.
The train slowed and stopped. We were in Grand Central Station.
By the time I reached down my briefcase from the rack he’d stepped into the aisle. Someone moved in behind him in the hurried procession out on to the platform. My companion did not look back. In the crowd he was soon lost to view.
About the Author
E. R. Braithwaite was born in British Guiana (now Guyana) in 1912. Educated at the City College of New York and the University of Cambridge, he served in the Royal Air Force during World War II. Braithwaite spent 1950 to 1960 in London, first as a schoolteacher and then as a welfare worker—experiences he described in To Sir, With Love and Paid Servant, respectively. In 1966 he was appointed Guyana’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations. He also held positions at the World Veterans Federation and UNESCO, was a professor of English at New York University’s Institute for Afro-American Affairs, taught creative writing at Howard University, and was the author of five nonfiction books and two novels. He passed away in 2016 at the age of 104.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
Copyright © 1972 by E. R. Braithwaite
Cover design by Mauricio Díaz
ISBN 978-1-4804-5743-0
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
E. R. BRAITHWAITE
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