In the late 60's as a white woman who darkened her skin, Grace Halsell moved into Harlem and then down South in order to understand a tiny piece of what it was like to live as a black person in that time. The honesty about her transformation ideologically, emotionally, physically, and spiritually is grating but so necessary.
I read this book a couple of months ago and there were so many parts that hit me square in the chest. The reality that a lot of what she experienced has not changed, or has just morphed into some other equally terrible existence quite frankly buried me in feelings of powerlessness. Besides praying, I'm still figuring out what to do with it.
I woke up today, thinking about this one theme that the author kept running into during her experience, the tendency for those in the majority or in power or with means, to enjoy holding the ability to help others above those whom we see as below us. And what it's like to be on the other end.
"April 17, 1968
I drove to Virginia to meet Sarah Patton Boyle, who lives alone in a small apartment. In her Desegregated Heart, she writes of being a well-bred, gentile, Southern white who took on the mass of Negro people to love, and of her disillusionment in learning that for all of her ideals, her aspirations, and fondest hopes she attained little satisfaction or spiritual sustenance.
Her experience was somewhat similar to one that I had in Korea. My heart had bled for the mass of Koreans. Later I saw that I could not love 'a people' out of my egotistical 'pity' for their poverty or their plight. But I have never felt that I loved the mass of black people, or the mass of white people, nor have I ever been an activist, a do-gooder. And I am not my brother's keeper.
Since I chanced to think how I would be treated, if I were black, I have begun to change. I see fat, rich women in the Watergate Health Club who pay hundreds of dollars to lose one pound, contrasted vividly with Rebecca, the black cleanup woman, who holds down two jobs, gets her exercise naturally and probably has the best figure in the spa.
I began to see how hard most black women like Rebecca must work. And then I began to fear: can I stand up to that kind of pace? How many hours will I have to work? If I used my status as a white and became a cash-stand operator or a telephone operator I'd be a slow learner. I have learned most everything in life slowly, but because I functioned as a white, others have great patience with me. My slow speech, my slow motions are considered quite charming. But as a black girl will I be considered 'just a little dumb'?..." pgs 19-20
"Harlem....
Moore is a totally black Negro: not one of the modern pretty boys, but Negroid all the way, the lips, the nose, and the eyes. He is about forty-five years old, rather short, balding, study, almost pudgy.
'You can't walk there, with those feet,' he tells me when he learns I am on the way to Harlem Hospital. He goes for his car while I pay my bill. I hobble out to find him sitting in a robin's-egg blue, late-model Cadillac convertible. I sit silently as he drives down St. Nicholas Avenue. At the red light on 135th, he studies me, and senses my aloneness. He knows I am in need, although he cannot immediately pinpoint what my needs are.
The red light is brief, but it is long enough for his words: 'I will help you.'
The words are so simple, somehow so sharp-edged--for the good can hurt as much as the bad, sometimes more--that I want to shout, that is not fair! I came here to know you for what you are, you beast, you black, black, black man! And you are ugly to me. You are a nigger. And you feel sorry for me. You are pitying me, you are, Christ in heaven, you are loving me! It's not supposed to be like that! You're telling me you don't care if you ever see me again, but that you will help me, that you will help me no matter what my trouble, no matter what I've done. You are my friend? God, how I need you, how I want you.
My face is buried in my hands; the tears are coming. And I feel helpless and stripped naked, stripped bare of those myths I've worn like crown jewels--that white is right, that black is wrong. Moore takes the scales away, he alone, and he does it with four words: I will help you. Help me? How often can one help another? How often does one try?
'It's nothing to be ashamed of to run out of money...,' he tells me, presuming that I need money (or might need money before I find a job). He will loan me money, he wants to see me out of my dark miserable hotel room, and he offers to help me find an apartment! No talk of my snooping around in closets, looking for untruths ! 'I'm not including myself in any of this,' he makes plain. He is doing it simply because he wants to help me, 'whether I ever see you again or not, it doesn't matter.'
I have opened the car door to get out and go into the hospital. 'But why? Why? Why would you do this? Why would you want to help me this way?'
'I can't explain it myself,' he says, adding: 'But you must have done something right--someplace, sometime.'"
pgs 63-64
- Grace Halsell
from: http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Sister-Anniversary-Grace-Halsell/dp/0967401305/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1386791433&sr=1-2&keywords=soul+sister
Halsel, Grace. Soul Sister. Washington, D.C.: Crossroads International Publishing, 1999.
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