A Wake-Up Call No One Wishes to Answer

by Dylan Pentoney

First Year Writing Awards

Second Place (Tie), Category: Style

I have found that to know something and to experience something firsthand are unimaginably different things. To actually experience something is truly the only way to understand it, or at least begin to. I was a naive 22-year-old in nowhere-North Carolina when I was to learn the difference. It would be the first time in my then young life that I would witness blatant racism. Not your everyday subtle racism, bad enough in its own right. No, full blown, in your face, questioning-humanity racism. It would forever change my perspective of our society, its inhabitants, and the necessary reaction to injustices.

I blame my visceral reaction to this first experience with blatant racism solely on geography. Although I was lucky enough to go to a diverse school, at least by rural Vermont standards, I was nevertheless sheltered from the out and out racism more often viewed on TV or in a textbook. Even after attending multiple Geo-Bees in high school, I am ashamed to admit that I was under the assumption the infamous Mason-Dixon line more or less separated North and South Carolina. It made perfect sense in my not yet fully formed brain, and I assumed the vast majority of terrible racism stories were relegated to the backwoods below this line. I had never been so wrong.

The incident took place on a cold evening in an unremarkable town only kept afloat by the local Coast Guard training center. The moment you step into this town your immediate inclination is to continue driving, lest you get stuck here forever. The inhabitants seem to move at a resigned, glacial pace, the hopelessness of any substantial future etched on their faces. So, there I was, drinking alone in the corner of a dimly lit bar, when this Colonel Sanders looking patron enters my periphery. I am talking the whole 9 yards. White hat, white suit, boots, and mustache. You would have thought he had just come off a commercial set. He seemed a caricature. It would have been a comical sight if not for the ensuing comments. My gaze followed him as he approached the bar. Had he been here this whole time? How did I miss him? My main concern at the moment though? What does a man like this drink? A classic Manhattan, a stereotypical mint julep? The answer would soon be irrelevant. This mustachioed man walked right past the bartender and approached a lady deep in conversation with another gentleman. Without so much as an acknowledging look at the man she was talking to, he approached the lady and asked far too confidently, “is this n****r bothering you?” I was frozen in my chair, unable to move due to an overflow of emotion. Shock and anger, quickly followed by disbelief. Because here was the thing almost as shocking as hearing a racial epitaph in 2011, the fact that no one reacted. Not the other patrons all within earshot, nor the bartender. Not even the gentleman who had just been accosted. All that was heard was the lady he initially questioned, who brushed off his comment with a quiet, dismissive no.

That was it. No outrage from patron or employee. No immediate switching of establishments to avoid such distasteful people. What I was witnessing before me was acceptance. Business as usual. In your face racism in 2011 in what I was quickly doubting was the north. I left quickly after this incident with much to digest. Things I had once considered facts must now be reconsidered. The racism we like to leave in the newspaper columns was in fact all around me, merely hidden by a thin veil of polite society. And people had not reacted like I thought they would, like I hoped they would. This was not a TV show where everyday people stand up for those facing injustice. No one was going to risk confrontation to defend this stranger. Was it apathy for the situation or a silent endorsement of the assailant? And more fascinating still, why had this innocent man, enjoying a conversation with another human, not reacted? One imagines this was not his first time having to fend off abhorrent racism. Perhaps not even the first time that week. My first-time experience might be his everyday reality. Perhaps he made a calculation he'd had to make too many times before. Was it worth it to say something, or easier to ignore such ignorance instead?

As I waited for my ride back home, I was left pondering the reality of how our country has and continues to deal with racism. How does a wealthy nation like ours, with our constant optimism and exceptionalism, find it so hard to stamp out racism? Or at least make it so socially unacceptable that people find the need to confine their heinous beliefs to the shadows. I am not so naive as to imply that we can ever truly root out racism, but I feel that we must at least educate those who are open to it, and shame those who refuse to evolve with the rest of humanity. And perhaps that’s the lesson learned from my first-time encounter with racism. That we must all be active participants in the fight against inequality and racism. And when I say “We”, I include myself first and foremost. Because the first person who didn’t help that man when he was accosted for the color of his skin? Me.