An Inter-racial Relationship

I recently returned from the states and, sadly enough, race is still an issue.

My wife is Polish. I am Black. Being in Poland, I often forget we are different colors. I guess I am kind of oblivious to any overt racism here since I do not speak Polish. I am sure there have been comments from a few ignorant types, but, again, I am blissfully unaware.

Not the case in my recent visit to the US.

We visited the deep south and the looks and bad attitudes started from the moment we entered the country. It was not so obvious to my wife, I guess she was blissfully unaware in the States as I am in Poland. Whereas she speaks English, the attitudes of some of the people we met were not so apparent to her. Thank God! I get very angry at this type of attitude and she was my anchor. I had forgotten about the ignorance of some Americans with regards to race.

Of particular disgust to me were some of the Black women's attitude. In one clothing store, a saleswoman essentially declined to help us look for an item. I can only deduce that she had a problem with the mixing of races. There was no other reason for her blatant attitude. Again, I found my anger tempered and was able to feel somewhat sorry for this woman.

Another example was a white guy who told me to "move my Black ass out of his way!". Yes, he actually said that and attempted to hit me with his cane when I refused to move. There was no chance of my anger being tempered at this point. I slapped him. Hard. I guess the good news is that I changed from my fist to my hand at the last moment and the only damage was to his glasses that flew from his face.

These are just two examples that were too obvious to ignore. Many of the signals we got were more subtle. Looks and glances and whispers. At first I thought I was just imagining things. But walking through Walmart one day it really hit me that race in America (despite Barak Obama) has a very, very long road to sanity.