Like One of the Family

by Alice Childress

  The man was all upset about savin’ folks in India. He told all about how they worshipped false gods and shouted and hollered over sacrificing a goat as an offering. He was some distressed and told how his heart bled for the poor ignorant folks. The way he carried on it was enough to draw tears from a turnip. He got to warmin’ up to his subject and tellin’ of the many far-off places the missionaries have to go, and it struck me all of a sudden that he wasn’t the least bit disturbed about raisin’ funds for missionaries here at home, because there’s a whole heap of savin’ to be done right here under our very noses.

  The kind of dim-minded, cruel human beings who will shoot a man down for voting certainly needs to be saved, those who go ’round preachin’ they’re superior because their skins have a certain tint need to be saved, adults who threaten to spill the blood of little children because they seek to find an education in the public schools, don’t they need enlightenment? Oh, there are plenty of missions right here that need to be carried out. Everybody is busy these days talking about “equal” education, but I honestly question whether “equal” education is good enough as it now stands. The Important thing is what we are teaching! All eyes are turned toward the “poor little Negro child” doing without the things the white children have, and nobody seems to question what is happening to the white child in the way of education, and their parents seem to smugly assume that they are getting the very best of everything. Doesn’t it strike you as wrong that these children should be taught arrogance, scorn for others, darkness of ignorance instead of the light of knowledge, the nasty art of ridicule, slander, and yes, even violence? Some of these poor miseducated folks even believe they are being “patriotic” and “American” when they bomb homes, scare little children and murder men and women. A parent who willingly goes along with the idea of a poisonous education for his child has had a poisonous education himself.

  … Oh Marge, of course I know that! Anybody that speaks up about these things kind of loud is going to get some of the same treatment from those who hold M.I.V. degrees. That means Master of Ignorance and Violence. But as the man said, “Missions aren’t easy, but we must carry on.”

  Well, the mission is right here in front of our eyes and we need millions of missionaries right this minute to spread the light and bring joy to the hearts of the people, and anybody that undertakes the job should bear in mind that we got to move another step beyond “equal” education and start preachin’ the doctrine of enlightened education for each and every child throughout this land. Anyhow that’s what I think about that.

  SO MUCH FOR NOTHING

  HEY MARGE! Turn on your T.V. set…. No girl, I’m not off my trolley. Mrs. Tanner told me that the Twilight Movie has got a grand set of dishes for sale, so I rushed right over so I can take a look. There, that’s it! Well, you don’t have to watch the movie. My Lord! I don’t think I want to watch it, either. Wouldn’t that kill you? Everytime you turn on the set, there’s some fool picture about a African leadin’ the white man through the jungle…. No, there’s nothin’ wrong with leadin’ him, but them guides are always takin’ them somewhere to take the gold from some tribe or somethin’…. Sure, they make it look all right by makin’ their chief a wicked man that is scarin’ his people to death…. Oh honey, you don’t have to look at this because I can tell you how it will end…. Well, the white men will kill the chief and his medicine man, take all the gold and head back for civilization with the pretty white woman who has been queen of the jungle ever since she was dropped from a aeroplane when she was three years old…. Yes, sure, they all like that!

  Hold on, Marge. Here, you take the pencil and paper, and I’ll tell you what to write. Here comes the man with the dishes! My goodness, but that table is really set up, ain’t it? … He sure can talk fast…. Put that down! A set of “Wild Moosehead Dinnerware.” Sure is plenty of it, although I must say I’m not too fond of having a moose grinnin’ up at me out of my dinner plate. Oh well, I guess you could cover him up with the mashed potatoes. I’ve seen the set enough now, I wish he’d get around to sayin’ how much it costs. Here we go! … Not forty-nine dollars and fifty cents, not thirty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents, not thirty-five dollars and thirty-three cents, but … here it is … he’s holdin’ up a sign now … it’s, it’s … thirty-three dollars and ninety-nine cents. Write that quick! Ain’t that somethin’, look at the stuff they’re gonna give to the first hundred people that call: a free tablecloth, napkins, glasses, complete set of silverware, ashtrays and one week’s supply of frozen food. Hold on, Marge, there’s somethin’ else: a extra bonus—one bowl of wax fruit to enhance the table. Oh my, and mercy do! … You gettin’ the telephone number? … All right, be calm, he’s repeatin’ it for you…. Okay, we can turn off the set now.

  He sounds like a regular Santa Claus! Marge, I just can’t believe my ears! … No, wait a minute. Don’t call the number yet. I smell a rat on that Moosehead offer…. Honey, I’ve lived long enough to find out that nobody is givin’ anybody somethin’ for nothin’! … That’s a natural fact! Now it would be somethin’ else if he was my nephew or brother or some kind of relative. It would even be different if I had saved his life one time or loaned his mother a thousand dollars or somethin’. But nobody’s gonna tell me that some business firm is gonna hand me five or six hundred dollars worth of stuff for thirty-three dollars and ninety-nine cents! … Yes indeed, you got to work for each and every thing you get, and anybody that think different, well, they still believe In fairy tales.

  THE BENEVOLENT CLUB

  MARGE, SOMETIMES I can get so mad at my own folks that I could just scream…. Honey, I went over to Ruth’s last night to talk about startin’ up a benevolent social club for the church. Well, Clarice was there and you know that she don’t allow nobody to call her a Negro. That is a fact. She is an Afro-American! And also Betty was present, and she says she is colored, and not no Negro or Afro-American.

  Anyway, we made plans to give lectures and social teas and such. Next thing we went on to discuss what folks we would benefit through this benevolent society. You know, like people who have lost their homes because of tryin’ to get their children into school and families of men that have been killed or run out of town. Well, during the talkin’ Ruth made a crack, “If all those bombings had taken place in the West Indies, the people wouldn’t have taken it.” You know how airish she can be!

  Since she is from the West Indies everybody else got quiet for a minute and then the conversation loped along kind of casual sort of. In a few minutes Betty says, “It’s a strange thing, everything is so fine in the West Indies, but they keep comin’ over here.”

  At that I chimed in to play peacemaker, “I guess Ruth came from the West Indies for the same reason that I came here from South Carolina.”

  With that, Clarice gives us all a sharp look and comes up with, “All I can say is that if they had bombed them folks on the Gold Coast in Africa, them African leaders would have seen to it that somethin’ more was done besides not eatin’ oranges or doin’ without soda pop.”

  Marge! By this time I could see this club fallin’ apart before we could get it named hardly. Well, there we were about to bust up this club, so I took the floor. “Ladies,” I said, “why is it that every time our folks get bombed or mobbed we got to get to arguin’ amongst ourselves? Yes, we do. I noticed lately that some of our papers have been havin’ a merry old time cloudin’ up the Issue. Why do we waste time like that, meanwhile callin’ the Klan nothin’ but ‘dastardly and shameful’? I even read where somebody said, ‘This bombin’ has got to stop because it plays into the hands of the Russians and makes bad propaganda which they can use,’

  “Now there must be many a brave man turnin’ in his grave when he hears that. Imagine! We can’t work up no more passion about our murdered dead than to call it ‘bad propaganda’! I suppose that if we was real chummy with all the countries in the world then it would be all right to kill our people! Yes, indeed,” I went on, “here we
sit makin’ a big fuss about who we are and who is better than the next one while that is the very kind of thinkin’ that was turned on the people we’re tryin’ to help. So I propose, ladies, that we use our funds to help all these brave folk that are in distress, and that we ask every Afro-American, colored, black and Negro organization (in other words anybody that may get lynched) to help us do it.” I had the floor and I held it: “We must also ask any white folks who are ashamed and fightin’ mad about what’s happenin’ to also put their time and money in it, too.”

  Honey, one little lady that I hadn’t seen before jumped up and told me, “I don’t want any white people to have anything to do with it! After all, white people are the ones who are mistreatin’ us!” I do hate anybody to take me for a fool so I answered her, “You don’t think that I’m plannin’ to invite no lynch mob to help us, do you? …” “No,” she says, “but I’ve been around them, and I don’t like their ways and some of them are rude and uppity and think they know everything and …”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “When have you been around white people?” Then she sashayed out to the middle of the room and began to really wind up: “I have been around them when we was raisin’ funds for the nursery school, when we was tryin’ to get some colored elected at votin’ time, at the parent-teachers, when we held Brotherhood Week, at the children’s recital, also where I work….”

  Clarice hollered out, “Well, I guess she’s really been around ’em, Mildred!” At that I took the floor back again while I could still get it: “Yes, and I want you all to remember that every one of us is better off when white folks (never mind the faults) would rather be with us in these things than stayin’ at home never givin’ a care or joinin’ with mobs and murderers! We need all the white friends we can get and the fewer the enemies the better!” “Well,” she adds, “I’m not gonna be givin’ into them on everything and lettin’ them run everything their way!”

  “Well, I guess not,” I said, “but we deal with that when we come to it, but for the time bein’ I’m still gonna ask you ladies that we vote to include Afro-Americans, colored, Negro, white, Chinese, Japanese and every kind of American there is to join hands with us and help make everything peaceful and friendly.”

  No, Marge, they didn’t settle down real quiet, and I’m sorry to say that a few more cracks were passed about “some people always do more talkin’ than workin’,” and “I swore I’d never join another club,” and things of that nature. However, I’m pleased to report that they voted the way I asked them. Yes, I feel real good about that.

  ALL ABOUT MISS TUBMAN

  MARGE, this is Saturday afternoon and you must not be short with these children. They deserve to have a party…. Well, there are only nine of them. I didn’t think you’d feel imposed on, and I would’ve naturally invited them to my apartment, but since I just waxed my floors I thought yours would be better…. After all, I did bring the refreshments, and it isn’t like you don’t know these kids…. Well, they belong to Mrs. Gordon on the top floor, the super in the basement, Mrs. Mack on the ground floor rear, and those two over there are little visitors from Virginia—Jimmy and Janey. They’re twins, ain’t they cute?

  Now, Marge, if you will dish up the popcorn, peanuts, ice cream and cake, I’ll tell them a story. Now, children, let us all say together: “Thank you, Miss Marge!”

  Bobby, don’t throw your grape skins on the floor, it’s not nice. Gertrude, don’t squeeze that glass ornament on the table or it will bust. Everybody sit down quiet ’cause we can all sing together, but we cannot talk together. Billy and Mabel! You will kindly stop smackin’ each other on the knee before it turns into a bloody-nose fight! Quiet! … The first one that hollers or screams will get sent out of here fast as greased lightnin’! Place all feet on the floor and fold hands neatly in your laps. Now I’m goin’ to tell you a story about Miss Harriet Tubman…. Put your hands down, children…. I know that you don’t know anything about her, and that’s why I’m tellin’ you the story! Your school books say precious-little about Negro history, and I’m not goin’ to have you kids goin’ through life thinkin’ that colored people don’t have a history! … Another thing, pay attention to what I say because I did not go all the way to the one-hundred-and-thirty-fifth-street library and get the story in order to have you all whisperin’ through every blessed word I say!

  Once upon a long, long time ago and to be exact it was durin’ the days of slavery … Jimmy, I’m surprised that you don’t know what slavery is, I’m glad at the same time…. Slavery is buyin’ people and puttin’ them to work for you free…. No, there was no law against it…. That’s right, Sylvia, the person who owned slaves could beat them or sell their children or kill them and it would be all right with the law. So, you can see what a terrible, monstrous thing it was…. Now, I have lost track of the story! Oh, yes! Once upon a time, way back in slavery days there was a little girl, she was born in Bucktown, Maryland.

  Her childhood was not like yours, there was no school … and I’ll thank you children not to grin when I say that because when you’re not allowed to go to school, you soon know what a good thing it is to have one to go to. Well, anyway, she was not allowed to go simply because slave children had no rights, and furthermore it was against the law for them to learn how to read or write, much less count…. Yes, Bobby, some folks managed to learn anyhow, but they had to keep it a secret or else they would get a beatin’! … Who would beat them? … The slavemaster. Don’t you kids understand nothin’?

  … Look, Sylvia, I don’t care if your schoolbook does say that the master took care of slaves and would be kind to them. I’m tellin’ you different, I’m tellin’ you what’s true…. No, everything that is in your book is not true…. Well, you tell that teacher that your Aunt Mildred says it ain’t so! … Are you goin’ to let me tell this story?

  Harriet spent her little-girl years workin’ out in the fields plantin’ and ploughin’ and doin’ all manner of hard work…. No, she could not go up to a cop and tell him about it! … Billy, I have explained already how slaves had no rights, and I’m not goin’ to keep goin’ over the same thing all the time!

  Now, the overseer was very cruel…. Janey! Don’t be interrupting … Oh, well, if you don’t know what a overseer is, I guess I’ll have to tell you. A overseer was a man hired by the slavemaster to see that the slaves did a lot of work and to also beat them if they didn’t do everything the master wanted them to do.

  One day the overseer hit Harriet in the head with a piece of iron because she tried to stop him from beatin’ another slave. He hurt her real bad and for a time it looked like she wouldn’t live. All winter long she was sick-unto-death, and she didn’t have no hospital bed or doctors or trained nurses, but she lay on a heap of rags while her mother tried to nurse her back to health as best she could.

  … Barbara, are you out of your mind? … No, Superman and Batman did not go after the overseer! I am tryin’ to tell you kids a real story ’bout real, live people, if you will let me! There was no men flyin’ through the air and swoopin’ down on no overseers…. No, she did not have a ray-gun! Listen to what I’m sayin’, please!

  She did get back her health, except for one thing. Her poor head was so hurt that she was left with sleepin’ sickness…. By that I mean, several times a day she would drop off to sleep for a minute or two without even knowin’ it, and this sickness stayed with her for the rest of her life and she had a large scar on her head.

  … Yes, indeed, she hated slavemasters, and her heart was troubled not only for herself but for all the rest of her people who were in bondage…. That’s slavery! Some years later she told a friend, “I had seen their tears and sighs, and I had heard their groans, and I would give every drop of blood in my veins to free them.” It became her burnin’ desire to set them free.

  Now, there was a thing talked about in those days that was called the “underground railroad,” and it was her dream to ride it to freedom…. No, children, it was not a subway o
r any other kind of train that you could see and neither was it no fairytale. It was a string of human bein’s, black and white folks who met the slaves and secretly took them from house to house, over field and hill and meadow, through the forests and streams, across rivers, always followin’ the North star in the sky, on toward freedom in the Northland.

  … Kenny, what do you mean by sayin’, “Miss Mildred sure makes up good stories!” Didn’t I tell you that every bit of this is true! … I cannot help it if it is not in your school book! Didn’t I explain that to you! That’s why I’m tellin’ the doggone story! The reason you won’t find it in your dag-nabbit book is because … You’re right, Marge, I must not lose my temper and get to usin’ bad language in front of these little ones. Children, forget that I said dag-nabbit and doggone and don’t any of you ever let Aunt Mildred hear you sayin’ words like that ’cause it’s ugliness and also rude.

  … Janey, you can ask enough questions to keep a soul tongue-tied! … If you children will be patient, I will be able to tell you all about Miss Tubman because you are guessin’, but I know! One night Harriet ran away and kept goin’ until she got out of slaveland and arrived in Pennsylvania. She found many friends in the new land, but she was not completely happy because it made her sad to think of her brothers and sisters and friends still sufferin’, and she made up her mind that she would free them also, so she looked around to find a way to go back down South and bring her friends up to freeland.