Prejudice and Pumpkin Pie

By TAD BARTIMUS

Like the Pilgrims, I am a minority immigrant washed up on alien shores. My very presence here, far from where I was born, causes friction and discord. As the Pilgrims were to the Wampanoag Indians, I am an outsider with different skin, barely tolerated, hardly ever included.

Here, as at Plymouth Rock, the children of white Europeans and aboriginals talk different, eat different foods, sing different songs. We learn the hard way about each other's attitudes and mores, even when we're reaching out. Our values are not the same, our learning curve painful. Like the Algonkian- speaking peoples forever changed by the arrival of the First Colony, my indigenous neighbors blame my white European ancestors for the bad things that befell their race: loss of religion, language, lifestyle, land, heritage, art and bloodline through conquest and assimilation.

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful that I live in a multi-cultural place where I'm forced to struggle against my own prejudice, my own dark thoughts, my own racism.

They don't say this to me directly, but I am aware of their feelings. They, in turn, know that I refuse to accept personal guilt for what happened, that I try my best to leave a light footprint, to honor their ways. I want us to co- exist, side-by-side. But I have a history of betrayal to overcome; they are wary. Eventually, they may like and accept me as a person. But I'll always be white.

What hangs us up is prejudice, our own as well as each other's. Like the Pilgrims, the Wampanoag, and everybody else on this earth, my neighbors and I are raised to believe certain things, behave in certain ways. We each have our creed, our culture. I grew up white bread; they didn't. When we co-mingle we bump against one another, offending, insulting, making snap judgments. Sometimes it's deliberate; more likely it's accidental, maybe even the result of our own insecurities. Despite best intentions, the slights and hurts are real; misunderstanding builds.

When one of us drives a little too close, forcing the other to the edge of the narrow road, we feel an angry rush, then think a racist thought. When there's a party we often don't invite each other; when we show up, we're awkward. Our encounters are often marked by frustration, irritation, and "oh, what the hell."

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful that I live in a multi-cultural place where I'm forced to struggle against my own prejudice, my own dark thoughts, my own racism. Thankful that I struggle to love rather than hate, embrace rather than hit. Thankful that I struggle to be a better person.

I'm thankful for that guy on the road who never smiles back; for the woman whose truck took out my fence and just kept going; thankful to the child who hides behind her dad because this white woman bending down to talk softly to her is so strange. By living here, I cannot be an armchair iconoclast. I'm forced to walk the talk; at the ballpark, the school, the post office, in church. I'm thankful that every time a racist thought pops into my head I berate myself: Work on it! Work on it!

Like the Pilgrims in Indian Country, I am fortunate that my generous neighbors offer me food for the soul as well as the table. On this Thanksgiving, I agree with the Colony's leader, Edward Winslow, when he wrote of that first one in 1621:

"And although it be not always so plentiful as it was this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty."

P.S. I'm also thankful for pumpkin pie.

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