Sylacauga
Susan was African American. I was Caucasian. We were in Sylacauga, Alabama, in the early fall of 1989, working for a private company, which provided a variety of unusual experiences for at risk teenagers all up and down the eastern United States. We were just passing through, had never been to Sylacauga in our lives, knew nothing about the town, the surrounding rural area, or the horrible future event which would make the town much more famous than it was at the time of our visit. We were in town that autumn day giving a birthday experience for a client we knew well. Rasheed, our client, was just turning sixteen and was a charming, intelligent, young African American youth who appeared just light enough of complexion to be our son. Susan and I both knew a lot about the distant history of southern Alabama and had traveled extensively in the state, but never in Sylacauga. We were in the process of embarking on what would become a very educational experience.
We drove our company van into a parking space on Main Street and led Rasheed into the local shoe store for a brand new pair of high-top sneakers, which he had requested as his major birthday gift. We were the only potential customers in the store. The bell on the door dinged as we shoved it open and walked in with Rasheed holding the door for us much as a son might have done for his parents. In the rear of the store, we saw a middle-aged couple, white, well dressed and apparently the owners or salespeople. We were not greeted and simply began assisting Rasheed in locating the sneakers near the front of the store. He quickly turned into the stereotypical kid in a candy store at the sight of the shoes. We carried on a smattering of conversation about his preconceived ideas about the shoes he desired. He actually knew his shoe size, had some fairly precise thoughts about the pair he was seeking and knew enough about our budget to choose wisely within our limits. He knew we couldn’t afford the Air Jordan VII or the Reebok Shaqnosis, but he took the time to find a pair of each long enough to tell his friends in school that he had once held them in his hands. He knew full well that our monetary ceiling was well below the $125 or more that either of those shoes would have cost.
After examining both of his favorite models, he turned to Susan and said, “I guess I’m going to have to settle for something like a Reebok, won’t I?”
“Yes, ’Sheed, you probably will. We can afford about $75.00, so you need to move away from the shoes which are shelved at eye level. Those are usually the most expensive aren’t they, Fred?”
I quickly agreed with Susan. “Sue, you know a lot more about shoes than I do. ’Sheed, we had this conversation on the way to town. Move down the shelves away from the door and find something you know we can afford that you still think is a little cool. We still need to make it to the grocery store.” I don’t think Susan or I had even realized until then that the two apparent employees in the back had never even spoken to us yet. But I did suddenly realize that they were surely watching us. I also realized that our conversation with Rasheed had sounded just a bit parental. I wasn’t sure yet that we were being ignored on purpose, but that thought did enter my head just about then. In a later conversation, Susan would confirm what I had already been thinking.
In another fifteen minutes of silence from the two employees, Rasheed chose a pair of shoes the agency budget would allow, and we turned to the clerks to check out. The male employee came to the register, rang up the shoes, told us what the bill was, and we paid with cash from Susan’s purse as the agency required in order to avoid pointing out the fact that we were employees supporting a client. The man took the money, gave Susan the change and never even said thank you. Rasheed led us out of the store carrying the shoe box in his hands. We were never even offered a plastic bag in which to carry the purchase.
Susan and I offered to take Rasheed to his favorite restaurant in Sylacauga for lunch before we went to the grocery store for the birthday party supplies. About a block down the street, Rasheed turned to Sue from his place in the back seat and said, “Can you believe the way those two treated us? I’ve lived in this town all my life and I still never get used to it. Will it ever change?”
Both Susan and I froze momentarily unable to respond quickly to such a serious question. I was hoping she would take the hot potato and give him what I seemed to believe would be her standard response to his painful question. After a moment of hesitation, which seemed much longer than it actually was, she responded, “Rasheed, you live here, we don’t, so you know this town a lot better than we do. Are you saying that it is common for African Americans to be treated that way in the stores and other public buildings?”
He responded with what seemed to be a choked “Yes!”
“Rasheed, I’ve always lived in Pennsylvania until I started working here a few months ago. I hadn’t run into this kind of thing down here before this. But, yes, the way they ignored us as we chose the shoes and never gave us a bag to carry them in seemed to be pretty blatant racism. It was blatant racism, I don’t mean to minimize it. I don’t expect you to accept it, but I also don’t believe it is productive for any of us to turn their racism into a major incident in a public place on a day like your birthday. I’m sorry if it seems to you that, Fred, and I never responded to them in any way. But they never actually said anything that was clearly racist. They just gave us the cold shoulder. It’s a tough call sometimes to respond or just walk off. What do you think, Fred?”
I stalled momentarily before answering but decided that since I was in the company of two people I cared for in more than a casual way, I had to be honest. “Well, since I’m white, I’ve not seen a lot of racism except when I was in the company of African Americans, which happens now more than it used to, since I work where I do. But I’m always a bit baffled when I see, hear or suspect racism. But some of this today has been just blatant, and that’s a different kind of beast, so to speak. No, I don’t like it. I won’t ever accept it. But, at the same time, I honestly don’t know how to handle it. I agree that it wouldn’t have changed a thing if we had called them out about it. It might have even made matters worse if it is as widespread here as you say, Rasheed. If we had protested, they could have called the police and lied on us, claimed we were trying to shoplift or some such thing. I honestly don’t know what we could have done other than just try to be the better people and leave without making a scene. Am I wrong in thinking that way?”
Both Susan and Rasheed avoided much of what I suspected they were thinking in response to my question, but I knew that I had been wrong, at the very least wrong in some key points, maybe even totally wrong and possibly ignorant or even implying that I was willing to accept the shoe store employees’ racism. I scrambled to find an adequate way to apologize and wound up simply hoping that my embarrassment and contrition were readily apparent. Neither of them seemed to feel totally insulted, and I suspected that was because they were able to understand and accept my lack of exposure to and knowledge about such problems.
Susan took the easy way out for me by saying, “We really need to go to the grocery store, get the rest of what we need and get Rasheed home before any of his guests arrive.” She drove as we headed to the store and gave me one low-key look that seemed to say it would be easier if I just shut up.
We drove across town to the largest grocery store available after lunch and headed in to buy the cake, balloons and a few decorations for Rasheed’s party with a few of his friends when he got back home. As we entered the store, Rasheed took on the cart-pushing work, and Susan and I followed along behind, side by side, much like most couples with a teenage son might have done. Our first stop was the bakery in the rear of the store where we chose a medium-sized birthday cake and allowed Rasheed to give directions for the decoration, which would be completed as we shopped. He spelled his first name slowly and distinctly for the clerk who wrote it down on a ticket to be attached to the box. When the order was completed, Rasheed politely thanked the clerk and we resumed shopping.
We took the store aisle by aisle and realized as we shopped that it was Friday afternoon, about 4 PM, the time when the payday rush hits most stores in small towns. The population inside the store was rapidly growing larger and whiter. No one said a word to us as we traversed the aisles to find the items we needed, candles, a cheap banner that read “Happy Birthday,” some snacks, including watermelon-flavored Jolly Ranchers, which Rasheed loved but rarely received at home, and one small surprise item which Susan and I shared equally.
Then we headed to the checkout lanes to find that four registers were open with a few people in line at each of them. We waited our turn and finally got to the register with a line still behind us. As Susan and Rasheed unloaded our cart at the belt, I stood in line behind to avoid making a mob of us in line. As the cashier completed the ticket, Susan reached in her purse for the money, suddenly realized that she was short a couple of dollars and turned to me for some cash.
“Hey, Fred, I need five bucks!”
I reached for my wallet, jerked out a five, and handed it to her across the cart just as I realized that the male clerk from the shoe store was in the next line just opposite us. He said something to the people in line ahead and behind him. All three of these white citizens of Sylacauga turned toward us, and I could feel the temperature dropping all across the checkout area as more heads turned, more and louder comments were exchanged between the watchers, and all three of us realized that our racially mixed group was now the center of attention all across the front of the store. Susan got her change, Rasheed picked up the items as the checker had placed them on the turnstile, and we walked out without rising to the increasing bait in the generally Caucasian crowd.
Neither Susan nor I had any brilliant ideas to pass on to Rasheed about how to deal with what we had just seen. We took him home for his birthday party, helped set up the cake and candles, tried to stay out of his mother’s way and left after being there a respectful but not burdensome time. We never saw Rasheed again, since our agency stopped the program we were working in about a month after his birthday. We both returned to our home territories, stayed in touch by telephone and e-mail until we gradually drifted apart. Then suddenly in March of 1999, my telephone rang, and Susan was on the line. I never even got to mouth the usual pleasantries we give a formerly close friend when we have unexpected contact years later.
“Have you heard about what just happened in Sylacauga, Fred?”
“No; what are you talking about?”
“Two white rednecks murdered a gay man and burned his body.”
For an hour or more, we talked about our failure to do anything for Rasheed that day ten years before, wondered why we never got to finish whatever work it was we were supposed to be doing in Alabama, and hung up to never hear from each other again.
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