Member-only story
“I don’t mean to scare you but you’re likely the only black person within 5 miles of here…”
In my former life, I did in-home TV and appliance repairs for a nationally-known company. My typical day consisted of completing anywhere from 6–10 service calls and driving anywhere from 200–300 miles every day. Most of the time I felt perfectly safe in homes and businesses on service calls but a few just didn’t seem right.
I’m a black man living in the Deep South, about as far south as you can go before going for a swim in the Gulf of Mexico. Yes, I’ve seen some racism. Most people aren’t overt with it though, at least not these days. They’re not going to call me by anything other than my proper name, to my face, but they will make little comments or send signals with their body language that let me know I should know my place.
On one service call way back in the woods, I was greeted by a husband and wife who appeared to be in their late 30s. They had 3 children and they quickly established that their kids, looking to range in age from about 5 to 12, were homeschooled. As I was there working on their family room TV, the kids were all excitedly talking and looking at me. Eventually, the father told me I’d have to excuse them, they had never seen a black person in person before. So you mean to tell me these 3 kids had never been in a place to see a black person in…
