Don't Burst My Bubble

My neighbor down the road has this bumper sticker. Every time I drive past I wonder what it really means. People around here say the Confederate flag represents their southern heritage. I won't even go into what is so wrong about that. Whatever. But what does "Git-R-Done" mean? Get what done?

A friend of a friend who doesn't live near here had the word NIG written in her lawn the other day. Let's just pause to let that soak in. I can't type something like that so casually.


It was written in Roundup- the weed killer formerly packaged and known as Agent Orange and sprayed in the Vietnam war to defoliate the forests to make it easier to drop bombs.

When I heard about this hate crime committed to my friends' dear friend I felt sick. I tried to forget about it, but felt its heavy weight for a few days. I'm' still feeling it. Just writing about it.

How scary. How scary to look out your window in the morning and catch sight of that word. It happened to my friends' friend. It could happen to us one day. To my little family.

Most of the time around here I don't think much about being a conspicuous family. Sure, there are local businesses I just know we'd never go into as an interracial family (the gun shop nearby is a great example of that. just judging from the amount of confederate flag bumper stickers in the parking lot.) But overall, I don't feel stared at a lot. Even though we're in a very rural area we have two universities nearby which help.


But after hearing about what happened to my friend I felt this uncontrollable urge to put my family into a bubble. To keep us safe. We are so conspicuous. I have no idea if the people who drive around with Confederate flag stickers are actively racists or not. I don't know if they would ever in a million years write the word NIG in someone's lawn. I don't know if they know a black girl lives here.



Having been white all my life I've never really had to consider what it would be like to have someone write the word NIG in my yard. What a perfect example of white privilege. Would I call the police? Would I tell the newspaper? Would I just keep quiet out of fear? Would I just pack up the family and never look back? But where would I go? Where is different? Where isn't populated with haters?

For me, the moments that I'm aware of how conspicuous our interracial family is are rare. When I do feel aware of it- stared at or people uncomfortably averting their gazes- that's when I stand back and look at our family. How we don't blend in. How we will never blend in. And how huge just that one detail about our family is.

**This is part of a blog symposium that Claudia is holding. If you want to read what others are saying about their experience as a conspicuous family then hop over there. It's all good stuff.