Reply #85: Example of entitlement to the extreme

[Brewman_Jax]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88708253

From the article: One night, Noone was painting her fingernails when her great-grandmother said, "You know, there was a time we couldn't wear no fingernail polish."

To explain, Powell told a story from when she was a girl. Around 1910, Powell lived on a plantation in Lowndes County, Ala., where "she would wash and iron for this white woman."

"One day the lady had thrown away some of her old perfume and nail polish that had dried up. So took it home and added some ingredients to the nail polish that made it pliable," Noone says. "Well, when Sunday came, she got all dressed up and painted her nails and put on that perfume and went to church.

"On Monday, she went to the general store, and when she was ready to check out, the white owner asked her, 'What are you doing with your nails painted up like a white woman?' He proceeded to pick up a pair of pliers and he pulled out my grandmama's nails out of its bed one by one."

Noone, 65, says she often wondered as a child why her great-grandmother's nails were so deformed.

"Every time I look at enamel red finger polish, I have a flashback, and I see red," Noone says. "I still have that anger inside of me that someone would have that control over one person just because they wanted to feel like a woman."


Writer's Note: Because of the racial caste system that has been in place for centuries, whites not only have an unearned sense of power, but also control. Even in the 21st Century. I have friends that have a band (5 guys, 2 black, 3 white), and earlier this month, they played a festival in Tennessee, roughly 35 miles NW of Chattanooga. Severe boonies, where most people of color would fear for their safety (me, too!) even in the present. The story continues--after threading their way along the mountain road, they stopped at a gas station to take a break. The clerk, an older white woman, was outside near the door smoking. The van and the car park and 2 of band members, both black, step out of the van. The clerk got a shocked look on her face, dropped the cigarette, ran inside and put up the CLOSED sign. Now, the rest of the entourage is white (the remaining band members, 2 wives, and the manager) but that obviously didn't matter. There's no doubt if the first people seen by the clerk out of the van or cars were white, there'd be no problem. A white person would NEVER disrespect another white person, esp. in the presence of black people. If nothing else, just to show who runs the place and who doesn't.