This text is very well written. It is structured and organized into three parts which reflect three different time periods. Paley opens with a story about her Mother and Sister traveling from New York to Virginia (1927) to visit her brother at school. She describes their journey on the bus, and their blatant confrontation with racism. It was interesting to see this perspective from a white family’s point of view; let alone a white family-in this time period- who had these views. Paley further explains that her Mother and Sister sat at the back of the bus, and was then asked-by the driver- to move to the front which was reserved for white people. She describes how her Mother refused. In these days, it was rare for a white person to even fathom sitting at the back of the bus. The law was simply, black people in the back, and white people in the front.
In part two Paley describes her own similar experience riding the bus. She was traveling from New York to Miami and came in contact with a black woman and her child. This woman was obviously exhausted and on top of that, carrying a baby. Paley naturally offers the woman her seat, but the woman looks at her with sadness and says no- that would be crossing the white/black boundary. Paley then offers to hold the woman’s baby to give her somewhat of a break, when she does- a white man sternly tells her “Lady, I wouldn’t have touched that thing with a meat hook”. When I read this statement I was appalled. It really shows how black people were dehumanized and discriminated against (and still are today). It shows how common it was for people to be openly racist- as if that was the norm.
This work is interesting and heartbreaking. It is odd reading these confrontations of discrimination and racism from an anti-racist white person’s point of view.