The other day while on a walk, I was passed by a runner. “Hi, Ruth,” the runner called. She was well past me before the voice and the figure resolved into recognition.
“Hi, Vanessa,” I called, my delayed response dissolving in air. For the next mile or so, I thought about Vanessa, a former high school track star, a former student, too, whose rambunctious energy was a joy and a challenge for her teachers.
Then I continued to think about running. Wishing I could still run, though I never ran like Vanessa. And because the person running was someone I knew, it took a minute to hit, here was a black person running. Vanessa is African-American, and as the tragic case of Ahmaud Arbery, recently murdered in a Georgia suburb while jogging, has made heartbreakingly clear, simply being black can make you a target. But being black and running, can cost you your life.
Years ago, a friend, an African-American friend, visiting us from the NYC, wanted to go on a run. He visited us often enough to have a route that went from our house and around a Greenfield Community College circuit. In part, the same route Vanessa and I were on now. One time, I suggested a new route that looped around less trafficked country roads, past corn fields, strawberry pick-your-own stands and finally through a suburban-like neighborhood. We drove it, scoped out the mileage and directions. But when we got back, he said gently, “Thanks, I can’t do that.” I didn’t understand.
I admit I struggled to understand, even after he explained about the possible consequences of running while black. It would take years to sink in. Even in his nice running shorts, in a sweatshirt that said NY Fire Department, in a baseball cap with a team insignia. Even if you are a nice-looking man with the remnants of a North Carolina drawl just underneath the huskier New York tone. Even if you are the Deputy Commissioner of a Fire Department, and thus an honored “first responder,” even then that same person may be perceived possibly, just possibly enough, as a threat in some neighborhoods. Whether in Central Park, Greenfield or Georgia, just being black and running can turn deadly.
The character Atticus Finch in “To Kill A Mockingbird,” said, “You never really understand a person until … you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” I’m sure that includes running in it, as well.
Which reminds me of another incident that schooled me in the ways of my own ignorance. I was leading a trip of eighth-grade students to New York City for a play. Coming back, our bus pulled into a diner where we had scheduled a rest stop and dinner. The first one off the bus was Fred, an African American young man. He was in a hurry. Later, back on the bus, Fred looked downcast. His usual ebullience was missing. “What’s wrong?” I asked. He told how he had raced into the diner, stopped at the reception desk and asked where the bathroom was. “We have no bathroom,” he was told. He had believed this after it was repeated by more diner staff with various explanations. Finally, a classmate had shown him the way. But, the damage was done. Fred had been humiliated and pained. Sure, we went back into the diner, and made a fierce complaint.
“Just joking with the young man,” one of the managers had said.
“So, you corrected your cruel joke?” I said, as he shrugged away his culpability. The point is that it didn’t occur to me to be first into the diner, to make sure that all of our students were treated properly. It didn’t occur to me even that there might be a problem. Fred knew. Only his urgency had propelled him first off the bus. Later, his mother related her general wariness when traveling. I was the one who didn’t know. My ignorance was not deliberate, of course. It was/is a kind of naivete, a lack of experience of what it’s like to encounter the world in Fred’s skin. I do keep learning.
The point is to keep learning.
Vanessa is long past me. I picture her loping up the steep hill behind the college with her long strides and easy breath or perhaps she is already circling back and about to catch up with me going the other way. She is one of our familiar local runners. You probably have seen her, waved her by, admired her grace. Stay safe Vanessa. Please. And let us all keep you safe.
Ruth Charney lives in Greenfield.