Diversity Writing Contest Walking In Shoes Of A Minority

I tried to make myself small, sitting on the church pew with my eyes focused on the floor. The bright sunlight streaming through open windows mocked me, illuminating my pale self. I didn’t dare look around. I knew I’d see only dark faces, dark eyes, black hair all in contrast to me. Why had I even come?

Struggling to keep my composure, I reflected on how I’d reached this point. My husband and I had moved to South Carolina and bought a house on an acre of land near Rock Hill a few months earlier. We didn’t realize until after the sale that we’d be living on an Indian reservation.

Uncomfortable at first, I decided the best policy would be to keep to myself and let “them” keep to themselves. After all, that had been my attitude toward blacks and Latinos when growing up in central Arkansas.

To my initial dismay, our first visitor to the little South Carolina rancher was a Catawba Indian. He seemed to know no racial boundaries as he helped us arrange furniture, invited us for a meal, offered us a ride to church.

It was impossible to maintain my keep-to-yourself standard with friends like Jimmy Oxendine, his wife, and their five children. Within weeks we’d even joined their church, a congregational mix of Anglo and Native American.

However, my attitude wasn’t completely adjusted; one obstacle remained. At the death of Jimmy’s elderly father, I drove up into the North Carolina mountains with several members of our church. We discovered the tiny country chapel to be packed. Friends and loved ones had come early to pay their respects.

What surprised - and scared - me was that I saw no other whites in the congregation. All mourners and ministers were either African American or Catawba Indian. My light features would allow me no anonymity; I would stand out like a single white lily in a multi-colored flower bed.

In that moment I knew the meaning of minority: alone, different, vulnerable, a curiosity. Making matters worse was that the crowd prevented me from sitting by the friends I’d ridden with. An usher guided me to an empty seat on a pew filled with dark faces.

And so I sat, staring at the floor and hoping to remain detached, but the woman next to me would have none of it. Whether she understood my fear or misinterpreted it to be grief for the deceased, she put an arm around me and whispered:

“Honey, it’ll be all right.”

With that touch, I found the courage to face her. A gentle smile told me my minority status didn’t matter. To her, I was a friend who’d come to honor the late Mr. Oxendine, just like all the others here. I relaxed and let her warmth - and the sunshine - flow over me.

In the next couple of hours I cried, laughed, and “amen”-ed with her as we heard preacher after preacher extol the virtues of a good man.

Together she and I sang the songs of the faith, worshipping the God who’d made us so different, yet so much alike.