Week13

Recently, I went to an antique fair in a very small town called Cameron. It was a hot day walking around all of the dusty things looking for treasures exhausted me. I drank fresh-squeezed lemonade and made small talk with the vendors. The day was pleasant and peaceful until I arrived at one stretch of tables set off to the back of an open lot.

There I found pieces of history that is hard to remember. There were original signs that read "colored only" or "white entrance." having only seen these things in textbooks, being able to look at and touch the real object that expressed the Jim Crow sentiment and caused pain was surreal. It was strange to look at the little cast-iron signs lying on the table and try to comprehend all that it stood for not-so-long ago.

I combed the tables and saw photographs of the klu klux klan, framed no less and hooded figurines. Nearby was another table crowded with glass objects fashioned as derogatory African Americans, painted jet black with oversized ears and lips and wearing head scarves. I think they are called "mammies." Glancing from the signs to the photographs to the mammies, I was overcome with a feeling of nausea. I left.

I continue to reflect on the experience. Should I have bought those things and brought them to a museum? I believe it is very important to know and understand the weight of that period of history, but I wish that it were immobilized in a museum, relegated to few hundred years in history and blocked by glass walls.

I still don't understand the South.