I was reading a diary this morning about white privilege and about white poverty and the diary provoked an incident that I recalled from my single Mom days.
The day was cold and rainy and I was going door to door on Fulton Industrial Blvd in Atlanta looking for a job. I had gone to the temp service to no avail. I had checked out just about every classified short of welding to find a job. Before I tell you about an incident while job hunting I will give some background info on how this whole anger thing rose up in me so quickly.
I was a newly divorced Mama and my ex husband was not paying child support. I am and having always been fiercely independent. I was not on food stamps but if I had it to do over, I would have applied. I was driving an old car that went dead at every stop sign or traffic light. The vehicle had no heat or air. I think the thermostat was missing.
I had one good and decent outfit to go job hunting in but my shoes were worn. My mother and father were in the process of a divorce after 34 years and Daddy or my older sister kept my young son when he wasn't put in nursery care. ( Day care was too expensive for me to look for a job).
Times were hard and my sister and her husband were living on strike pay from General Motors. We were all hard working folks but none of us had real money. We had been brought up in an upper middle class household and these trying times were hard.
There was a war on gas and gas lines were backed up everywhere. I think gas was somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.35 a gallon and that was equivalent to about 5.00 or so by todays standards.
We had Nixon as a president and the war in Vietnam was raging. My apartment rent was 110.00 a month. Sounds cheap doesn't it? Not if your earning power was only 120.00 a week before taxes. It was a nice little apartment with good amenities and provided stability to my son as my x husband and me had lived in those apartments for a couple of years prior to the divorce. I lived there 9 more years.
I had a nice, clean comfortable apartment with a raggedy car but I lived in the city limits and could walk most places except to work, If I could find a job. Jobs were not plentiful and one had to drive into Atlanta which was a 40 minute drive. Douglasville was home and was not even considered metro back then but just suburban.
I think it was more rural than even suburban. The shag carpet was green and the walls off white. Two bedrooms and a bath with washer dryer connections in the kitchen closet. I had a dishwasher, stove, refrigerator, garbage disposal, a doorbell, an apt. swimming pool, a small playground, and used furniture. Blinds were not included so I had drapes that had to be lined white. Conformity. I didn't think of it then but all the buildings had to conform and I actually did have the lining but black sheers. The only one in the complex with black sheers. Nobody ever said anything to me.
As I was reading the other diary, I knew somewhat how the diarist felt but I knew I had a lot of energy back then and cleaning house and tending to my son while looking for work kept me very busy. I had a TV and there was no cable back then but 4 channels.
I read and kept myself very busy. I would have dark days and I would drag out my ironing board and iron or go visit friends. They were as poor if not worst off than me.
I had some friends whose husbands were returning from the war and it was difficult for the wives trying to adjust to what later became known as PTSD. I would buy diapers for a friend who would window shop with me or just hang out while her husband stayed in bed with a loaded gun under his pillow. I would buy the diapers from cleaning toilets when I picked up some work before finding a REAL job. My friend would retreat to my home and we had been childhood friends and she had two kids whereas I just had one.
Sad that later she became a Bushie and forgot about those days and now makes judgements of her own, being a pastor's wife.
I spent many a weekend doing this sort of thing. Cleaning..hanging out with my good friend, taking the kids down to play in the complex park, frying up som apple fritters ( when I had the money for fried pies) and walking to the Dairy Queen for a milkshake.
I spent my weekdays looking for work because I felt I had lost so very much and did not want to have to move in with my sister.
The day I was looking for a job I had decided I would not come home without one.
I would present myself as the business person and typist I had become and have a little resume' of my former experience. It was so easy to get down after about 10 doors slammed you in the face. Signs were actually posted saying.."WE ARE NOT HIRING".
This is the part I am working up to... the white privilege compared to white poverty.
I walked into a small two girl office and I always preferred one girl offices. Quieter and could work unsupervised. I would have worked in an office pool if they had been hiring but I will never forget finally seeing a door in the industrial area with no sign on it.
I walked in, chilled to the bone and walked to the front desk reception area.
I saw a lovely looking woman who appeared to be in her mid thirties . She had no smile but came to the reception window and pulled the window back. I was well dressed with my one outfit and had long shiny dark hair. I had borrowed a pair of heels from my sister but had no jewlery. I wore little makeup and was smiling as I noticed the applications sitting out. The office was beautiful. It had plush carpeting and french provential office decor. I asked the woman if they were hiring. She said, "Well my supervisor and I have discussed a part time file clerk, but to be honest I don't think it is yourtype of employment. I was stunned. She didn't know me. She didn't know anything about me. I had not handed her my job qualifications. She made a spot on assesment... HER assessment of me without knowing anything. I held my head higher and replied," Why wouldn't it be"? She put her hands ....both hands through the window and said, "Look, I saw what you were driving and you just wouldn't fit in here." Now I am mad and defensive. she continued, " My rings cost more than that car of yours."
I only buy clothes at Richs or Macys and you are just not the type who we need greeting our clients". I set my jaw and looked down at my shoes that were not overrun. I looked at her spiked heels and every hair in place and the real fur jacket hung in the corner. I saw no other person in the place but an empty desk and her desk. The place smelled of cinnamon and delicate flowers were in vases. Fresh flowers.
I took a deep breath and killed any chance I may have had at getting a job by saying,
" I notice you have a two carat diamond wedding ring on so you must be married". She said , " Yes and my husband did not want me to work outside the home but I was soooo bored now that the children are in school". She laughed a little and said, " There are just so many charity functions one can attend". I had had it !!! I said, "Lady, why are you taking jobs away from people who really need the work"? Why are you sitting here judging my car and clothes when you probably have a maid that you pay too little for and think you are better than me? I want to know because you are a stuck up bored housewife taking food out of the mouth of babies when holding a job that clearly could go to someone who really needs it." To work outside the home is fine but when people like you make judgements on people like me YOU.. not me needs to be put in their place and that place is not sitting behind a desk filing your nails like the Carol Burnett charachter Miss Wiggins. You are wrong and don't have a clue. Hope you sleep well knowing there are people who needs jobs and you are taking it from them. " I stood there and waited for a response. Her face went to a bright red from a whiter shade of pale and she slammed the window. As I exited the door with resume in hand I said boldly, " I am too good to work here". You are right I wouldn't fit in, I have wayyy too much class for this place." As I approached my old green Chrysler, I prayed, " Please let this car start just this once on first try". Amazingly it did.
I found a job that day at Philco Ford and they did not have an opening but they made one when I broke down and told the hiring supervisor just how badly I needed that job.I was crying when I went in and talked to Bill Fore, a gruff old Ed Asner type character, that I found out was just a teddy bear of a guy. I went to work in the office pool and in four months was the office supervisor. I had a job and some income and I did not let that pretender of a human make me feel worthless. I feel life shapes who we are and why we are the way we are. I did not feel sorry for myself. I felt angry with her and her WHITE privilege. I could only imagine how she made any person of color feel. I wonder back then how many people of color would have talked back to that person or maybe they would have had the good sense to just ignore her and consider the source without getting her told off to no avail. I think again, No..she made me more determined to find a job and beg if I had to because people like her would never ever understand being poor. I also thought that even being poor I did have some white privilege because a black woman would have been arrested for upsetting that poor rich soul or worse accused of trying to steal the ashtrays. I say that because that is how those people of the Romney set think. They think we want to be poor even if we have to steal it. Zimmerman thought that way I am quite sure....living in a gated community and being brought up in racist attitude. So, even in judging economic conditions , there still is a little white privilege, but very little.
They would kill themselves if they had to eat Ketchup sandwiches or as we called them, " meatless hamburgers".
I was not surprised when Mitt Romney made that comment. I had already seen that type up close. I guess all of this came to mind because I have to go to the VA today where the VILLAGES is and it reaks of people like that. I hope I don't run into any of those 01 percenters as I am a lot stronger and not as nice as I was back then.
My whole point is, those people are clueless and we are valuable people, no matter what our circumstances. Heart means more than money in the longrun.