For folks like me who grew up in (White) rural America, a story in today’s Washington Post strikes a chord: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/11/midwest-changing-demographics-black-lives-matter-protests/?
As I kid, I knew of one Black family in my hometown: the Covington’s. The dad, Curt, was the custodian at my elementary school, and he and his wife attended the Catholic church in town. My family often sat alongside the Covington’s, who regularly occupied the back pew at mass. Dad wouldn’t let us sit anywhere near the front of the church; he believed that people who positioned themselves there did so more out of show—”See, here I am, front and center!”—than devotion. Come to think of it, my parents began their slow ascent to the front pews at St. John the Baptist only in their later years, as Dad became harder of hearing (and refused to spend money on a hearing aid) and Mom’s disability meant she had to be maneuvered from her wheelchair into the pew and have the Eucharist brought to her seat.
The Covington kids were older than I, so I never really talked to them, ate lunch at their table at school, or visited their house. So while a hint of diversity came to my hometown, my world—and the worlds of many others in a farming community of roughly 7,000—remained monochromatic.
When I was in junior high, a brown family from Saudi Arabia moved to town to run one of the local motels. Khamal was in my class and a nice guy, though I can’t say that our paths crossed more than occasionally. He was shy, especially around girls; at least, that’s how I perceived Khamal growing up. Now, I wonder just how out of place he must have felt, from the color of his skin to his culture to his Islamic faith.
That was about it for black and brown diversity in my community in Central Illinois. When I ventured to larger towns like Bloomington or Decatur or Champaign with my parents or friends, I’d see people who looked different than me and sometimes talked differently, too. But I didn’t “know” them, and I certainly had no idea what kind of lives they led or challenges they met on a daily basis. In fact, it wasn’t until I left home at age 17 that I came to know people whose lives were nothing like mine (on some counts) and more like mine than I’d been led to believe growing up.
Even today, according to the most recent census, 94% of people in my hometown are White, 4% are Hispanic, 1% are Black, and another 1% fall under “other.” During more recent visits home, I have noticed a slightly wider spectrum—but not enough to shake things up significantly. What I do see is greater poverty, a wider divide between landowners, business owners, and educated professionals and those who earn hourly wages in a shrinking local economy.
Cancer Hits the Streets 