Have you ever looked hatred in the eye? Well, I have, and I can tell you that looking at hatred is not a pretty thing. When you look at hated, at first, it hides, and you really are not sure if it is what you think it is. But as you begin to untangle its obscurity, when you realize what you’re looking at, then it begins to swell. It swells and then suddenly, it POPS! right in your face, and leaves you with nightmares and insecurities, and that weird feeling that you just can’t seem to shake, even after time (which is supposed to heal everything) has passed. When I was six years old I looked hatred in the eye, not by choice of course, but by chance, and when I did, I knew what it felt like to be hunted down, strung up, and lit afire with fear, anger, and despair. Looking hatred in the eye taught me what I was and what I was not, what I could be and what I could not, and most importantly, who really loved me, and who didn’t give a damn.
It was the summer of 1993 when my mother and I ventured to the local IGA grocery store in Cheviot, OH. We lived in what was known as “Westwood”, but we often traveled around the corner to Cheviot to shop. The evening was hot, and we had no air-conditioning. We were riding in Mom’s little, red Ford, Escort with black paneling and gray interior. About six years later, this same little car caught on fire at Northgate Mall; a faulty ignition switch was the blame, (a recall we had scheduled to get fixed the following week but never made it to). The car was destroyed, but it was good while it lasted. We had a lot of fun times in that car, a lot of special memories that didn’t go up in smoke with it. Memories like that summer evening at the IGA grocery store.
I remember hanging my hand out of the window and letting it float as the humid wind rushed past. Mom pulled up into a parking spot right in front of the door, and I scrambled to get my seat belt off, (grocery shopping was so much fun!). Mom was engaged in the regular “getting out of the car routine“: rolling up the windows, turning the radio off, etc. when a strange feeling came over me. The same feeling must have come over her too, because she had stopped doing what she was doing and was looking intently at me. For about three seconds, we just stared at each other, and then, as if a force of gravity, or some other type of overpowering attraction had caught a hold on us, we turned our heads to look out of the driver’s side window at the very same time.
Answering our faces were three other faces looking back at us. To be perfectly honest, I cannot remember if it was three or four, but the important thing is that they were there, and they were real. They were young white men, I would say about 20-25 years of age, all sitting in an old, dusty, red pick up truck. An old Ford model, if I’m not mistaken. This is where I get confused on the number of them. You see, there was definitely three sitting in the cab of the truck, the three I noticed most, but for some reason, I seem to have a vague remembrance of a fourth one sitting in the bed of the truck, staring just as intently as his fellows in the front. There is something else I have to add about the faces of these young men. These faces were not nice faces. In fact, these faces were void of any emotion as far as I could see. I had never seen a face like this before. If you could image the face one would make upon being surprised or in disbelief about something, minus the mouth hanging open; that would be it exactly. I cannot remember how long we all sat there staring at each other because during this event, it was as if time stood still. The world stopped all around us, no sounds, no surroundings, just a clear view of those three (or four) men who viewed us back. I wonder if mom felt the same thing.
I was snapped back into reality when my mother broke the silence by saying, “Come on”. We got out of the car and went inside the IGA, and did not think a second thought about the weird encounter we had just experienced in the car. We shopped for about thirty minutes, getting bread and eggs and milk and candy just for fun. It took about another thirty minutes to get checked out, seeing as a register was down, and the lines were long. We were relieved when we finally emerged from the store with our brown paper bags, and I was even more pleased to see that someone had placed something white under our windshield wiper for us to find upon returning. I ran to the car, exclaiming, “Look Mommy, look. We got something on our car”, and gracefully pulled the “something white” from under the wiper. It was a card, and when I flipped it over, I was met with a message that I will never forget as long as I live.
I found myself looking at a graphic of a Ku Klux Klan knight in full attire riding atop a horse donned in its own white robe. There also were words on the card, bold lettered words, arranged in the most threatening message that I have ever read. The card said: YOU HAVE BEEN OFFICIALLY WARNED BY THE KNIGHTS OF THE KU KLUX KLAN. DON'T MAKE OUR NEXT VISIT BE A BUSINESS CALL! I nearly died right there on the pavement, in front of the IGA grocery store. My eyes began to well up with tears, and I turned to my mother to show her what we had received. I could not even open my mouth to say anything, and I felt as if someone had physically punched me as hard as they could in the gut. My heart was racing a mile a minute, and I realized that I was scared. My mother took the card from me, saw what it was, and was immediately filled with daring anger. The dusty, red pick up truck that we had seen earlier was gone, and we did not need anyone to tell us that its riders had left this for us. Mom began to yell, “Come back you punks! You cowards! You just want to intimidate me cause’ I’m a woman, If you’re so bad, if you’re really bold men, then you woulda’ given me this to my face! Come on back, Show yourselves!” Her declaration was enough to send me into a frenzy. Why was she telling them to come back? Didn’t she know that they could hurt us, maybe even lynch us right in front of this damn IGA grocery store? I was crying by this time, and tried to make my way into the car to escape humiliation and possible death. After mom finished letting out all that she needed to, she got in the car, and we both cried as she drove home. My tears were from fear, mom’s were from anger, and all together, they were from despair.
When we got home, dad called from work and mom told him what had happened that day. He was distraught and angered like never before. He was out of town driving a CSX train to Cumberland, KY and was not there to protect his girls. He told us to not go back there again, and we never did. After dad’s call, mom sat down with me to talk. She ended up frightening me even more with her explanations of the KKK, hatred, and slain black folks. And she told me to never forget it. We never did come to an understanding of why we were treated the way we were that day, why us black folks had to be hated because of the color of our skin. We didn’t have to even do anything in particular, except be black in the wrong place at the wrong time I guess. I figured that to some, being black was like the ultimate crime, and we had committed it. I was afraid to be black for a very long time, but instead of wishing that I was something else like Pecola Breedlove in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, I decided to embrace myself and my color. I learned that I was black, and that meant something. It meant that I could not be a mother to white baby dolls anymore. I threw away all of my white Barbies, and replaced them with black ones. Hell, even Santa knew I should nurture my own. He brought me five new black baby dolls for Christmas that very same year. And even though I was not exactly sure who loved me, there was no mistaking who didn’t love me. Men and horses in white sheets didn’t give a damn about me.
For years after this incident, I would take this “business card” to school to show my schoolmates when we mentioned the Civil Rights Movement and barely touched on slavery. I vowed never to lose it, and I did just that for many years until one day, I woke up and realized that I had no idea where the card was anymore. It was truly upsetting to come to the realization that I had lost this piece of history, my history, our history. This was solid evidence of America’s history of hatred that I would probably never see again. My KKK card would never again be able to tell its story, and I wondered if a part of history was lost along with it, just like the historic realities that some hoped would dissipate with the burning of slave papers. But, I remembered what mom told me, she said, “Never forget”. And so I remember. Even without the card, this story will never be forgotten. I will remember this story until the end of time, and for as long as I live, with all the breath within me, I will explain to others how it is not a pretty thing to look hatred in the eyes.