Coffee and Epithets: An Update on Race Relations in Cincinnati

Coffee And Epithets

I sit down at Sitwell’s Coffeehouse with an iced latte to read the Friday New York Times. It's Monday. I take old copies of The Times from a guy at our newspaper, The Cincinnati Enquirer, when he leaves them outside his office door too long. I’m a recent California transplant, and The Times is a beautiful message in a bottle when you’re in the Heartland.

The Times headline says “Niger’s Anguish is Reflected in Its Dying Children.” I’ve been following Niger lately. I gave money to Doctors Without Borders, who run field hospitals there (some snide friend said they had a high overhead and were funneling monies donated for the Tsunami relief to Niger already). And I emailed my friend Houman back in my old haunt, San Francisco, about how nervous I am when there are news reports on Niger. I hold my breath anticipating a clumsy reporter and one hard “g.”

“How DO you pronounce it anyway?” Houman, a Persian who stutters in English, wrote. “I have yet to attempt saying that country's name. But I do mispronounce Nigeria all the time.” (He was kidding).

I’m one sip into the miseries of 3.6 million farmers and herders in Niger when I hear “blah blah blah uppity nigger” I lift my eyes to tune in better to that frequency. And again “blah blah blah nigger.”

It’s some distant conversation coming from the bar area of Sitwell’s, piled with pastry and bohemian detritus that draws in Cincinnati’s version of hipster chic. I can overlook the mistake once. But it would be shame on me to let it go a second time.

I program my face to pleasantly stern, and ready myself for something like an adult intervening in child’s play. “Excuse me ma’am,” I say to an older woman in a cheery blue shirt sitting at the bar, talking to a server. “I’m sorry, but I overheard you and I find that word offensive.”

“Oh so do I!” She takes on the cheery look of her shirt. “That wasn’t me that said it. That was my daughter, Lisa, the owner.” She points in the direction of a frazzled, hawkish 40ish blonde tear-assing from the kitchen to the counter and back, spreading around café clutter. “I used to wash their mouths out with soap when they were younger,” the mother assures.

I regroup and redirect my mission to the saloon doors leading to the kitchen, when I hear “Now she’s up here!” Which alerts Lisa Storie, the owner of Sitwell’s, that some strange, and by the look on my face now, agitated woman is in pursuit. She greets me with an O-shaped mouth and blank annoyance.

“Excuse me, I overheard your conversation and I find that word to be offensive,” I say. The feral look in her eyes makes me soon regret my appointment to Ambassador of the Race. Indeed, I am a Negro/African American/Colored Person and I prefer to be called Black, because it just gets to the point and includes every shade and origin in one big group hug. I’ve been to South Africa and the nitpicking about who is Colored and who is Black makes you aware it’s a means of class distinction setup by the Boers, Afrikkaners. It’s demeaning to everyone to use the old Afrikkaner codes, I think, just as it is when Americans say “Nigger.” Especially white people.

“I was just quoting someone else. I’m sorry but you heard it all out of context.” She says dismissively.

She gets me all up on my heels with her faux-apology, so I try reasoning, a little tactic I brought with me from the West Coast.

“But you have to imagine my surprise, I’m sitting over there, reading the paper, when all the sudden the N-word floats over to me. TWICE! From the owner of this place! You’re yelling it out here from the kitchen.” She is unmoved. “You don’t know what that word means to me.” Nothing. And then I do something completely West Coast. I make a kooky analogy. Something about if you’re a news outlet, and you just quote someone saying some offensive shit, you are held liable by the FCC. Even if you’re just repeating something, that doesn’t make it right. She was totally justified in her response of “huh?” at that point. Then she beat me about the face and ears with her own logic.

“Have you ever heard of something called Freedom of Speech?” and “You’re very self righteous!” and “Well we’ll just have to agree to disagree about what can be said and what’s offensive!” I tell her that even her mother agrees with me. “Don’t bring my mother into this!!!!”

I look over to mom, and she's as cheery as ever. There’s a bald chubby man sitting to her right who looks equally as amused. I scan the room of about 10 people, all white, and realize I sound like a shrill, brown tea kettle on boil and imported from somewhere else, that’s for sure. I pick up my paper, my coffee (conveniently in a to-go cup) and begin my farewell.

“Well, if it’s okay to say offensive things then FUCK YOU, LISA!!! FUCK YOU!!!”

I walk out. I tell the first people I see what happened. One old white woman, one old black woman, sitting outside the café waiting for the bus. The white woman says “It’s Negro, right? Well you don’t know what to call them anymore. Down at the Center they gets mad if you call them Colored, I know that.” The black woman says ignore it. Considering the city’s history of race relations—I’m talking about the three days of looting and rioting and curfewing in April 2001 ignited by a white officer shooting an unarmed black man—my grievances were small. My paper just published a survey in which blacks overwhelmingly said there was discrimination here, and in a city that’s 43 percent black, this racial tension colors the everyday character of the city. And here I was feeling wild and ready to throw a trashcan through a storefront window set off by a word.

So I walk back into the coffee shop. They were obviously talking about me, because discussion stops and the owner looks up from the register in angry surprise and I almost say “Excuse me.” Instead I march up and show Lisa my photographer’s press pass. “By the way, I work for the Cincinnati Enquirer. And I plan to tell everyone about this.” (full disclosure: I’m just a summer intern).

I spin on my heels and spring out the front door. I can sense Lisa running up behind me, wiping her hands furiously on her apron. I bring my Times closer to my bosom, and hear a howl. “Half of what’s wrong with Cincinnati is the Enquirer!!!!” I look imploringly into the face of a young black woman I pass on the sidewalk. She’s chubby and baroquely groomed in ringlets and bright colors. “How you doing?!” I ask brusquely, quickly, praying that together we can ignore the swirling chaos brewing behind me. She regards me with cold suspicion.

I’m in tears by the time I reach my beloved black Toyota with the California plates.
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