The Dumb-Struck Witnesses of a Racial Slur

Justin Phillips, a columnist in the SF Chronicle who's also on the new podcast "Extra Spicy" with restaurant critic Soleil Ho, related an incident of shocking racism in his column today, when in Petaluma someone in a pickup truck screamed "n----" at him.

https://www.pressreader.com/usa/san-francisco-chronicle/20200709/282316797329372

He said of those in his dinner group "Reading everyone's faces, I could tell they were navigating a mix of emotions, including confusion, anger, remorse and disappointment.  But nobody shouted back at the driver."  That prompted me to write to him:

Dear Mr. Phillips,

I'm so sorry for the shocking (I hope you still find it shocking) racist epithet the truck driver hurled at you when you were eating in a spot where you thought the climate  was now supporting Black and brown social movements.  (Why is Black capitalized, but brown and white are not?)

I hope it was "just" one woman who was painting over that rock on Bernal Heights.  I think she's stopped.  Otis R. Taylor Jr.'s column today related another painting over--of a mural!

But as for the failure of the people who did not shout back at the driver, here's my thinking:  Anyone that crazy and full of hate might have gotten out his rifle and shot everyone in sight if someone had dared shout back.  

I like your optimism in believing that we can talk with family and friends so that people like him might be enlightened.  I have the feeling these conversations would have to happen very early in life before kids are "carefully taught to be afraid of people whose eyes are oddly made and people whose skin is a different shade."  

We late-in-life OWL members (Older--and Wiser Women's League--ranging in age from 60 through the 90s) had members of SURJ (Standing Up for Racial Justice) in June's Zoom meeting, and we're having EJI (Equal Justice Initiative) this month.  I have one-to-one conversations with friends who feel threatened by Black Lives Matter, but they would never use the n-word.  They think the omission of the Too at the end of that declaration means that other lives don't matter rather than that it's about time that we had a system that showed that Black lives matter TOO!.  They also feel threatened by the slogan "De-fund the police" because their experience hasn't been with a police officer's knee on their neck but rather with watching the Walgreen's across the street  get looted from the break in to the carrying away of goods, and when they've called the police, the police never came. 

It could be that the way we talk to people could matter, too in convincing them instead of alienating them.

I was just reading about the letter in Harper's begging people not to shut off dialogue through the Cancel Culture.  But what the truck driver shouted at you was not dialogue.

Thanks for your regular column, and good luck with your. "Extra Spicy" podcast. 

Your reader,

Tina Martin