Prejudice in Two Colors
By Lawrence Webb
Minister and retired College Professor, Anderson, South Carolina
Until I moved to South Carolina in 1959 at age twenty-five, after growing up in Texas, I didn`t realize the Civil War was still being fought nearly a century after Appomattox. This is not to suggest we were free of race prejudice in Texas. In fact, prejudice in Texas came in two primary colors: black and brown. I grew up hearing the "N" word for blacks on the lips of my parents, relatives, and neighbors. I also heard Mexicans referred to as "Meskins," basically a lazy pronunciation similar to "Nigra." We had prejudice in two colors. But not all prejudice is equal. Prejudice against Mexicans was not all-encompassing as it was against blacks. For example, Mexicans went to "ou" schools in the 1940s. Blacks did not.
Two incidents are etched in my memory, exemplifying racial attitudes which were common among "our" kind in West Texas.
James, the middle-aged deliveryman and janitor at Levy`s Department Store, was an African-American, or Negro, as his race generally preferred to be called in the l940s. Levy`s was on the south side of the courthouse square in Sweetwater. I saw James just about every Saturday for several years as I came in to town from the farm. With five children to clothe, Daddy bought from Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward much more often than from Levy`s. But Levy`s was just a couple of doors down from the Texas Theater where, as a teenager, I often went to the two o`clock show.
In my round of window shopping at stores on the square, I would hang around the theater for a while in the morning, studying the posters and promotional pictures for that day`s movie as well as for "coming attractions." So I often saw James in the alleyway between the department store and the movie house as he disposed of packing boxes or put packages into the store`s black station wagon for delivery.
This gentlemanly, gentle black man watched me grow up, and we often exchanged pleasantries in our comings and goings. Before 1 finished high school, our family moved to town as Daddy left farm work and found steady work with a building contractor, so I often saw James almost every day. When I went to college, I often came home on weekends. Then, when I went to Kentucky to seminary, my returns to West Texas were much less frequent. Still, when I came back home, I maintained an on-the-run friendly acquaintance with James.
I confess, I do not remember his last name. Given the racial structure of the 1940s and 1950s, it was acceptable for white children and youth to call this black man, who was old enough to be my father, only by his first name.
On a visit home from seminary, I had a chilling conversation with James. We talked about my ministerial studies and our mutual concerns for equality of opportunity. He recalled how he had watched me grow up, and he mentioned other little white boys he had related to in much the same way as he had related to me over the years. Then he told of an encounter with one of those little white boys with whom he had sought to be friendly and courteous.
"One day, the little white boy walked over to me, reached out and touched my hand, jerked his hand back, looked at his own hand, and sounded surprised as he said, `Momma said it would rub off on me.` I said, `Young man, I`m sure you misunderstood your mother."` But James told me, "I said that because I didn`t want to tell the boy his mother deliberately misled him so he would keep away from black folks."
Through no deliberate choice on my part, I had stayed a distance away from people of color most of the time. Growing up in rural areas of West Texas, we rarely saw blacks except when we went to town. There were few, if any, blacks in the farming communities where I spent the first fifteen years of my life. Though the "N" word was commonly used in our family, my actual knowledge of blacks was abstract.
I had more contact with Hispanics, but this, too, was limited. My closest and most endearing association with a Mexican in my formative years was with another middle-aged man, perhaps near the same age as the department store janitor. Victor Ortiz came to the Wastella community on weekends during the cotton harvest to conduct church services in Spanish for Mexican migrant workers. He was recruited for this ministry by the white pastor of Wastella Baptist Church, Brother Marvin Burgess (the common courtesy title for Baptist preachers in West Texas).
Brother Burgess sought to develop acceptance and respect for the Mexican minister, who attended Sunday school and the morning worship service with us and then conducted Spanish services on Sunday afternoon at the church.
In time, most of the members of the small country church spoke of "Brother Ortiz" about as readily as they referred to "Brother Burgess." Most members, but not all.
When I was about 12 years old, I was in the home of a friend the same age. As we talked, Bill referred to "Brother Ortiz." Bill`s mother overheard him and interrupted our conversation, insisting, "Ortiz is not my brother."
I was shocked by those negative comments regarding the black janitor and the Mexican preacher, even though I was not free from racial prejudice myself Most of my impressions about other races were stereotypes, based on generalizations I heard from white adults. I felt differently toward James the Janitor and Brother Ortiz because I had personal contact with them, unfiltered by interpretation from other people.
Will Rogers, the cowboy philosopher, is often inexactly quoted as saying, "I never met a man I didn`t like." If we harbor generalized prejudices toward people of other races and ethnic groups, we will be more likely to like individual members of those groups as we get to know them. As I came to know those two men during my impressionable years, my acceptance of them taught me to accept others of their race also..
