When Mom Became Colorblind

My mother was born in the 1920s when racism was prevalent and often crudely displayed. There was strict separation between the races and those who crossed the color boundaries were ostracized, humiliated or dealt with violently. Consequently, my mom’s world was an all-white world, where people of color were thought of as inferior beings. 

She attended all-white schools, worshipped in an all-white church, shopped in stores where water fountains were marked for white people only. If a person of color needed to use the restroom, well, that was just too bad. Mom lived in an all-white world, where she had virtually no contact with non-white people. 

When my dad retired in the 60s, they bought their dream home in an all-white middle class neighborhood. Over the next 15 to 20 years the neighborhood began to diversify as more and more people of color moved in, much to the displeasure of my parents. She was not pleased with the influx of black and brown people who often spoke with accents, and she was certain the neighborhood would soon become a trashy ghetto. Her anxiety rose to a new level, however, when a Hispanic family moved-in directly across the street from her house. 

Mom called me to complain about her new neighbors, imagining all kinds of crimes and acts of vandalism that were sure to accompany their arrival. I tried to reassure her, but from her voice I could tell my words were having little effect. 

Several years passed and Mom said little about her brown neighbors. Whenever I visited her, I noticed that the house across the street was actually much improved in appearance since her neighbors of color had moved-in. The lawn was neat and tidy, the bushes in front were trimmed, a new fence had replaced the old dilapidated one and the house had a new roof. When I casually mentioned this to mom, she just grunted and quickly changed the topic. 

One bitterly cold January day Mom’s world was turned upside down or maybe I should say, right side up. The worst ice storm in decades buried Oklahoma City in a sheet of sleet and snow and knocked out electricity in much of the city, including my mom’s side of the street. Amazingly the other side of the street was not affected. With temperatures in the teens my mom could not stay in her home, but neither could she leave as icy roads made travel dangerous. 

As Mom weighed her dire situation, she heard a knock on her front door. When she opened the door, the Hispanic woman from across the street, whom Mom had still never met, was standing on the porch with her husband and three children. 

Mom cracked the door open just enough to hear the heavily accented voice. The woman smiled at Mom and said, “We have come here to help you. You have no heat or electricity, but we do. Please come and stay in our home until your power is restored. We have a bedroom just for you.” 

Mom was speechless. People who had lived across the street for several years, people she had never taken the time to meet, were offering her a warm place to stay. What other option did she have? She reluctantly accepted, and the woman helped my mom pack a few things and then escorted my 85-year-old mom across the street. 

For the next five days she lived with these people of color. They treated her like family and by the end of those five days my mom had become colorblind. She called me almost every day and talked on and on about how wonderful the wife and mother, Sylvia, was. She praised the children on their manners and how they included her in the games and family dinner conversations. Mom felt right at home. 

From that day forward until my mom’s death six years later the people across the street were like a second family to Mom. They frequently invited her over for dinner and she cooked for them as well. The Hispanic family looked out for Mom and whenever she needed help, they were always available. They loved her and she loved them. 

How did my mom become colorblind? She spent time with a family of a different race and got to know them as human beings. She had never before been around people of a different cultural or ethnic background, at least in any meaningful way, but the ice storm had melted her prejudice, and what she discovered was that her neighbors, neighbors she had never welcomed into her community, neighbors she had feared, were warm and gracious and loving. 

What we are ignorant of, what we don’t understand, we often fear, and fear has a way of devolving into hate. Unfortunately, we find much of that in our country today. 

My wife found a plastic bag recently on our driveway, weighted down by a small rock, with a boldly-typed message inside. The message was printed on plain white paper and warned that people of color were attempting to replace white people. Most every driveway in our neighborhood had received a similar bag. The note stated, “White men created civilization and everything good in it.”  

I have no idea who these people are who circulated such an ignorant and hate-filled message, but one thing I am quite sure of—these people are grossly clueless about history and civilizations. Great civilizations predated white people by thousands of years. It can be argued that many of these civilizations were as great, if not greater, than our own present one. Sure, we have more technology, but technology does not in and of itself make a nation civilized. Great civilizations are judged by the arts, music, literature, scholarly pursuits and architecture. 

Long before Jesus was born the Chinese invented the magnetic compass and hundreds of years before Gutenberg’s invention, the Chinese had block printing. In India, the cradle of civilization, sophisticated dentistry was performed long before western culture. The Indian people also developed the Pythagorean Theorem long before Pythagoras, even though he received the credit for it. 

Japan also contributed to civilization in a number of ways. Their architecture, pottery and literature were marvels of the ancient world. The ancient Egyptians had an unrivaled culture during their golden years, especially in architecture. The pyramids stand as one of the great wonders of the ancient world, admired by people today from all over the world. 

In the 11th and 12th centuries the Islamic empire pioneered new discoveries in medicine, astronomy, science, algebra and philosophy. During this enlightened era in the Arab speaking world, Europe was languishing in what we now call the “Dark Ages.” Only when Islamic inventions and innovations were exported to Europe, did European society finally begin to flourish. 

All of these civilizations were remarkable in their achievements and were non-white, and I haven’t even mentioned the Babylonians, Assyrians, Aztecs or Incas, great civilizations in their own right. And there are so many more.

White people owe a debt of gratitude to nations all over the world for our present civilization. Our achievements could not have occurred without the great civilizations of the past. And even today we continue to be strengthened by the immigration of non-white people from all over the world. Close to 50 percent of Fortune 500 companies are led by either immigrants or their children. Without people from Asia, India, Africa and other parts of the world, America would be a far lesser civilization. 

Ignorance drastically warps our vision of other people, but when we take time to get to know each other, when we welcome each other into our homes and hearts, we discover that we all belong to the same race—the human race. Truth be told, we can sometimes see much more clearly when we are colorblind.