HOW FAR HAVE WE REALLY COME?
My weekend was absolutely fabulous. My friends came in from out of town for a “bridal weekend”. One of our activities was Sunday brunch at an exclusive country club. The food and service were superb. I just love being “ladies who lunch”. The only thing that made brunch less than stellar for me was the racial composition of the dining room. The only other black people present were the wait staff. Perhaps I’m a bit too sensitive, or maybe it’s a byproduct of living in the south, but an all black wait staff serving almost all white patrons just doesn’t sit well with me. It felt almost antebellum, for lack of a better word. I also wondered how it came to be. Surely white people must apply for those jobs as well and surely some of them must be qualified so why weren’t there any working? One of the ladies whispered to us that she was proud of us and it made her feel really good to see us there. On one hand, it probably did make her day to serve someone who looked like her for a change. However, the fact that she was moved to tell us makes me think the occasions that happened were few and far between.
That incident brought to mind a conversation I had a few weeks ago. Coincidentally, the conversation was with one of the ladies present on Sunday. She told me how another young lady and she were the second and third black women to ever earn a doctorate in their (highly complex) field from a particular university. This was in the not so distant past, over four years ago. She went on to say that the first black woman to earn that degree had graduated in the 1960s or 1970s. So for the next 30-40 years that woman was the first, the only, to have accomplished that feat. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to be the first, or the second and third for that matter.
I wonder how much longer it will be before we stop having black “firsts”, when the exception will become the rule. When a black man winning a medal in the Winter Olympics will no longer be newsworthy; when I’ll no longer have to deal with curious questions and snide remarks when I ski; when maintenance men and cleaning ladies at the airport won’t hang their hopes on children they don’t know, telling them to keep their minds on “books and not boys” as they pass through on their way back to college for another semester. I wonder when.
That incident brought to mind a conversation I had a few weeks ago. Coincidentally, the conversation was with one of the ladies present on Sunday. She told me how another young lady and she were the second and third black women to ever earn a doctorate in their (highly complex) field from a particular university. This was in the not so distant past, over four years ago. She went on to say that the first black woman to earn that degree had graduated in the 1960s or 1970s. So for the next 30-40 years that woman was the first, the only, to have accomplished that feat. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to be the first, or the second and third for that matter.
I wonder how much longer it will be before we stop having black “firsts”, when the exception will become the rule. When a black man winning a medal in the Winter Olympics will no longer be newsworthy; when I’ll no longer have to deal with curious questions and snide remarks when I ski; when maintenance men and cleaning ladies at the airport won’t hang their hopes on children they don’t know, telling them to keep their minds on “books and not boys” as they pass through on their way back to college for another semester. I wonder when.
posted by GeckoGirl @ 2:44 PM
