It was a beautiful August morning. The sun was brightly shining on my sunglasses while my mother drove the U-haul truck to a warehouse in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As my mother drove down the streets in Grand Rapids, I looked out the window and beginning realize that the color of people was no longer a mixture; there was only white.
When we arrived at the warehouse, I had to peel my arm off the side of the hot door like a burnt sausage off a pan. There were not many cars in the parking lot, and I could see the heat waves. As we walked up the boiling pavement, it felt like we were walking through a hot desert. When we walked into the warehouse, there was a variety of electronic appliances to choose from, and about three-fourths of them were white (of course).
About every 15 minutes, a white salesperson followed us around and asked if we needed help, as if we were children or ex-cons. My mother really dislikes it when salespersons constantly ask if we need help; she feels if she needs their help, she’ll ask for it. Finally, after about two and a half boring hours of looking for any scratches or marks on the dryers and refrigerators that might fit best in our new apartment, my mother picked a dryer and refrigerator that were just right. She then let the salesperson know, and he replied with a smile, “All right, you can pick up your items in the back in about five minutes.” My mother said, “Thank you,” in a nice, friendly voice and walked across the scorched pavement to drive the truck to the back.
When we got to the back, there were about three open spaces for picking up appliances. My mother chose the first parking spot she saw, which was by a white family’s car. Then she showed a white employee the receipt for the appliances she had just bought. She said, “All right, we’ll be with you in just a minute.” While I waited for my mother, I looked over and smiled at the white lady in the next car, but instead of smiling back like a nice young woman, she frowned at me like I had something hanging from my nose. At first I thought, “Well, maybe she is having a bad day.” Then a few minutes later the people working at the warehouse started to look at my mother and me in a mean way. Then I figured that maybe something was on my face,so i went to the bathroom and when I looked in the mirror, I saw nothing. At the time, I had only spent eleven years and some months on this planet. I didn’t know racism was still around. I thought that situation had died along with Dr. King.
Five minutes passed, then ten, then fifteen. We sat there watching people get their appliances and leave. We seemed invisible to them. As I sat in the car, burning up and listening to one of the most boring radio stations my mother could possibly like, I was thinking, “We’d better leave or else I’ll go crazy!” After 30 minutes had passed, my mother got frustrated and politely asked to have our items loaded. Five more minutes passed, and she asked again with an attitude. They replied, “We’ll be with you in a minute, ma’am.” I could tell she was beginning to get upset because she started to get that “don’t bother me” look. Five minutes later they finally packed our appliances on the truck.
“Hey mom what were the employees doing at the warehouse“ I asked. She explained, “They were racist. They didn’t like us because we have different skin color.”So I went on with the day surfing the internet because at the time I didn’t know what racism ment. So I finally found an article on google about racism. After reading the article on racism I felt like my world was over. After a couple days my mom got a couple of white colored friends that were not racist and polite. Also some of them had kids my age. So Moving to a new state can be a really big deal.
That was my first encounter with racism. It was just a small slice of reality that everyone isn’t going to be as nice as you, your friends, and your family might be and thats just because you look nice and politely smile at others, it doesn’t mean that others will treat you the same way they do. This situation made me feel very out of place and mad. I didn’t expect those people to react as they did. I always believed that everyone would treat you the same. But that was just what I thought. Seems like my thoughts don’t always come true.