Those people. Them. They.

Mob mentality is viscerally frightening. Even if played out on the flat surface of the television, the sight of people running amok, smashing windows, storefronts, setting buildings, cars, themselves sometimes on fire, is enough to set my fight or flight response into action.

But last summer, I couldn’t flee. I fought.

It wasn’t physical mob mentality. Not a mob in the sense of hundreds or thousands of people pushing and shoving and shouting and cursing for some cause I do or do not agree with. This was an invisible mob, a kind of silent, insidious, but massive wave of mob mentality whose squalid birthplace lay 150 years ago when one person could still own another. And it happened at 4-H.

I was asked to judge the creative writing competition, and so I arrive at the large assembly hall at the Greene County fairgrounds with my stack of writing samples. I sit at my table and I watch as the hall fills with families, the young and the old, brothers and sisters, mothers father grandparents, aunts and uncles, all bright and scrubbed ready to talk about their projects in sewing, cooking, drawing… the list is really dizzying.

And every face is white.

At lunch I chat with a few of the older volunteers. We talk about the buildings, how much closer the community seemed to be back when, how they’ve had a drop off in participation and then I ask about diversity. The woman I am speaking with is gray haired, plump, someone’s grandmother no doubt. She speaks of when things were different—the sense of community, the buildings, rebuilt in 2000 after the tornado had torn down the older ones. There is a lack of community now, she says, and she wouldn’t let her kids roam between buildings today like she did with her son. And then I bite into my overstuffed turkey sandwich and toss out what I think is a pretty obvious question: “How come there is no ethnic diversity here?”

Without missing a beat, without a thought, without a moment’s hesitation she includes me in her worldview: “Because they can’t follow instructions.”

My mind sings with a kind of monotonous high pitched white noise and I feel myself rising somewhere above my body, a near out of body experience. “Who do you mean by ‘they’?”

She sets down her slushy soda cup and looks directly at me. “Black people.”

Now my body rises to meet wherever my conscious mind floated to. I am going to escape. But for once, for some unheard of reason, I have my teeth in place and my jaw is not resting on the floor. “This conversation is over. My son is black.” I take my hemp bag and leave.

Walking around in 100 degree heat I try to find the 4-H director, Alice, a friend of mine. I have to get this woman volunteer fired. It is my sole purpose in life. After a fruitless fifteen minutes I am told Alice is at the commissary—right back where I started. Alice was originally hired as diversity coordinator.  The office used to have eight full time employees.  Now she is the only one left and she works an eighty hour week.  Diversity is dream she had to let go of.  As I march up to the low, flat building, careful to stay on the concrete sidewalk and not step on the grass, the woman appears, coming out. We are destined to pass each other.

As she approaches, her face softens and she lays a hand on my arm. “I’m so sorry dear, did I offend you?”

For once in my life, I am crystal clear and words actually form in real time and not hours later: “No. You did not offend me. What you said was offensive. There’s a difference. Do you judge children?”

“What?”

“Do you judge children?”

“No. I coordinate volunteers.”

“Good, because you should never ever be allowed to judge children. Ever.” I am actually pointing in her face. I know the extra “ever” is melodramatic. Can’t help myself.

“I said I was sorry,” she begins again, taking a step back. “I didn’t know, I couldn’t tell that your son was black—“

“Why? Because I’m white? It doesn’t make any difference what color my son is—what you said is offensive.”

This sends her off in a different direction. “We used to have an all black chapter—“

“You are not worth one more minute of my time.” The words fly out without thought. I have never spoken like this, but when your hand touches a flame, the receptors only go as far as the gray matter in your spine and the flinch response originates there, not in the brain. This is my verbal recoil. Instantaneous, unconscious, and instinctive.

I move past her, and open the door. There stands Alice. She takes one look at my face. “What’s wrong?”

“Who is that woman?” I point and see how my hand shakes.

“Betty Williams.”

I can see the other volunteers eating at the tables. Out of frustration I raise my voice. Loud. “Betty Williams is a fucking racist.”

Forks drop. A few people look up. I, unfortunately and to my horror, burst into tears.

The aftermath of this is unsatisfying. After writing a three page report, after Alice writes her two page report, after an hour and fifteen minute talk with the director of 4-H for the entire state of Ohio, Betty is not fired from her volunteer position. Instead, diversity training will be offered to all volunteers. Better to keep “them” close is the reason.

Since this episode last summer, my son has grown five inches, walks around with 180 pounds of pure muscle, likes to wear a hoodie, is perfecting his version of the teenage stare down, and looks 26, not 13. He has dealt with racist teachers, referees, and yet lives in a town six miles from Wilberforce University—the first college for blacks. Our town has been featured on NOVA as one of the most integrated places to live and a perfect place to raise a multiracial family. My neighbors, both black and white, have similar stories: they grow up here, move away, and return, never finding anything quite like Yellow Springs. My son is fortunate to be raised here, but he does not understand what the rest of the state and country is like. The fairgrounds where 4-H meets are six miles south of my town in Xenia, Ohio.

When I moved several months ago,  a mile from our old home, and just  outside Yellow Springs, I ran around and introduced myself to my neighbors, who are now all white, casually mentioning my youngest daughter is Korean and my son African American, and that he often forgets his house key, so please don’t shoot him if you see him prowling around the house and breaking in through a window. This was offered with a smile and a plate of cookies my son made.

The head of 4-H for the state of Ohio, the man I spoke with for an hour and fifteen minutes is African American. I’ve learned to be direct. I can’t afford to be polite. If I am, chances are I will be made complicit in a worldview set with racism as the default.