Can We Ever Make it Right?
By Johanna Woodchild
As a white teenager in Oxford, Mississippi in the 1950’s, I was very much aware of the racial prejudice of white folks against black people. My parents, who were not native southerners, had told my 3 siblings and me that all people were of equal value, that segregation was wrong, but that we had to keep silent about racial injustice because if we did not we could be physically harmed or Dad, a professor at the University of Mississippi, could lose his job. For the most part we complied.
Most white women, including my mother, had an African American woman working as a maid at least one day a week for them. Although nobody wants to clean other people’s houses, it was the only work available to African American women in Oxford. Upon coming home from school one afternoon I saw that our maid (our maid?), Erline, a young woman in her early 30’s, was sitting in a chair sobbing uncontrollably. My mother sat nearby, trying to provide quiet company for Erline. Mother took my siblings and me into another room to explain that the flimsy house where Erline lived with her 4 children had caught fire and all of her children were dead. The 2 mothers were waiting for Erline’s friend to come and pick her up.
Erline had to work in order to feed her children but she could not make enough money to also provide them with supervision — the white-controlled system saw to that. So she left 4 young children alone all day every day.
How can we, as a so-called enlightened group of people today, ever make that right? That line of that particular family was snuffed out. We can’t ever bring them back. And what did it do to that grieving mother’s mental state? Saying “sorry” just doesn’t cover it. When Erline became old and developed health problems did anyone provide her with healthcare? There was a little from the County Health Department. Did she deserve good care? Hadn’t she given enough of herself and of her family to the economic system of Mississippi to have earned it? So now, a generation afterward, when a later child of Erline’s is angry about the treatment of his family how can we say, “But you have gone to a good public school, gotten a scholarship to a Community College, and are earning good wages. Why are you angry?”
I’m not trying to dump “white guilt” on you. But please just reflect a little when you feel annoyed that African Americans active in the Black Lives Matter and other movements seeking racial equality say, “This is what we need to make things right.” Don’t assume that we white people know best what our black fellow Americans need. Be good listeners. And supporters.