Angry & Frustrated
No matter how you slice it, discrimination is wrong. Whether it’s racial, political, religious or based on gender, treating an individual any certain way based on a perception or preconceived notion is never fair.
Recently an email circulated regarding a manager at a well known restaurant in Ridgeland, MS. An African American woman was seeking details on making arrangement for a birthday party for her mother via email. When the party planner responded to this customer to arrange the party she included (whether intentionally or not) the email from the restaurant manager that referred to the customer as “ghetto” and then continued to make the statement that “…they love us don’t they”.
I’m immediately struck by the fact that this manager has the audacity to put a comment like this in writing. Any professional person who has ever worked with other people (especially in supervision) knows you never put a crass statement like this in written form. *Shaking my head* To me this indicates that he felt this discourse with the party planner was acceptable. Thus, this lends to the idea that this attitude of superiority isn’t just his, but is likely shared around that particular restaurant. He obviously didn’t think these words would be offensive to the person he sent the email to otherwise he would have continued to mask his attitude about the “ghetto” people who come into their restaurant and love it so.
In the metro Jackson area we have seen a good number of public notifications from suburban businesses that attack Jacksonians. We are “ghetto”. We are criminals. We are many other commonly used and totally derogatory names. But that still hasn’t stopped us, black and white, from high tailing it across the county line to spend our hard earned dollars in a city and a county that doesn’t think much of us and its residents scream it to the heights of their emotions.
On any given day you can go to public websites and read outrageous notions about how counties outside of Hinds are so much better to live, work and play. Let them tell it, their police departments are better. There is no crime because all the criminals are caught that day. There are no break-ins -- unless, of course, someone from Jackson comes over there and robs them. Life is just sunny and dandy once you cross over the line that separates us from them.
Now, I’m no genius but you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that most of these people are separatists. They live by the idea that they are better than us and that they should be left to live in their own little world without the interference from those who breathe the Jackson air. Did you know that Jackson is nearly 80% (more or less) black? That being the case, is it not safe to assume that the people who they really have a problem with are black people. Sure, it sounds hard and reads harsh, but it’s the truth. Sorry, but I have no desire to sugarcoat this for you. If you are offended, I suggest you stop reading now because it’s only going to get worse from here.
I’m angry.
Am I angry at the restaurant manager? Sure I am.
Am I angry that a Mayor would cancel a community festival last year because too many people who reside on the opposite side of the county line (Jackson - for clarity) were planning to attend. Dismissing the fact that they spend their money there too? Of course I am.
Am I angry that this young black woman was referred to as “ghetto” without being seen? Yep, I am.
Even in all that anger, I am not surprised one bit. In all this anger it still doesn’t touch the amount of frustration and irritation I feel at African Americans in Jackson that continue to run away from the city they work in, pay taxes in, and reside in to spend their money in another city/county that uses every possible opportunity to show us that we are not valued, respected, or welcomed. What is that about? If you went to visit a neighbor and got to their door -- knowing they were home-- and they didn’t answer the door, would that not give you indication that they did not want your company? Well, what if they came to the window, pull back the curtain, lifted the blinds, stared at you and still refused to open the door. Would you go back there? How long would you stand there looking at them before you realized that clearly this neighbor isn’t interested in sharing in your company and doesn’t want to know why you are knocking on the door?
I think it is pathetic that we would compromise ourselves and our importance in such a fashion that we would discount being discriminated against to shop at a certain store or eat in a particular restaurant. Really? You just want a steak so damn bad that you have to go some place where your dollars aren’t green, but black. You want to drive way out to another county to shop instead of putting you money back into the city where you pay utility bills. Then to top that off, when the water pipes burst and there is no money to fix them, you complain. When we can’t pay for proper police training you complain that JPD is incompetent and is incapable of protecting us. When the largest mall in the area is facing foreclosure because you’re running outside of the county to shop at a mall that doesn’t want you there in the first place, you complain that there are not enough stores in the Metro Center. Why are there no stores in the Metro Center? Why is it that the Metro Center has been struggling for most of your lives? Simple. It’s because this community is not taking care of this community. We are taking money to North Park paying for their renovations and new stores instead of putting money back into our community mall.
See when you hear the phrase ‘Buy Local’ it isn’t because it sounds good. It’s because we have no choice. If we don’t buy local and support our own in a few years you will look around and our city will be a mere memory of what it was once and is today. There will be no businesses here. There will be no money here. Everyone will have moved away from our capital in search of a better life. Instead of staying here, claiming our city back and MAKING life better.
If our forefathers and mothers who had sit-ins and marches against this type of wrong doing had the attitude we seem to have, integration never would have happened. You’d still be seeing the “Whites Only” and “Colored” signs plastered all around this city. We seem to think that because those signs don’t hang anymore that we are not living in the same world as we were then. Surely you just. WE ARE! The only difference is the signs have come down and we refuse to stand up (or sit-in) when discrimination stares us right in the face.
Why is this fight not yours?
Why is this acceptable?
Look people, it’s early in 2011. Let us make this year the year that we unite against any discrimination we face. Let us begin to stand together – hand in hand- as our grandmothers and grandfathers have done before us. Let us scream out against injustice. Let us remember the blood that runs through us. Let us not forget what we are made of. Let us make it known that we are aware; we are not afraid; and we have right on our side. Gone are the days when we will simply allow those who discriminate to do so right to our face without any hesitation or regard for ramifications of those actions.
“If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” -- Fredrick Douglass