The Encounter

She is a beautiful little African-American baby girl, hair in pigtails, milk chocolate skin and big brown eyes that don't miss anything. She sees me as we approach each other, and she smiles at me. She is too young to know she is supposed to hate me.

But her mother is not too young. Too young to drive, maybe, but not too young to hate.

"Whatchoo lookin' at?" the young woman says as our eyes meet briefly. We walk in opposite directions on the sidewalk. She catches my eye as I notice her little girl.

It is a spring day, sun blazing in celebration of winter's end. I am going to class from the Marta station. Mother and daughter are going to the Marta station. They wear matching yellow outfits, the ebony skin of their arms a striking contrast to the bright yellow cloth. Were I an artist, I would beg to paint them.

What disturbs me most is the ferocity of the words spoken. The mean look knitted across the brow feels like an accusation. The eyes of mother and daughter are identical, except the mother's eyes flash anger while the daughter's eyes hold curiosity.

Should I apologize for the sins of my ancestors, who never owned a single slave? Should I explain that my own ancestors - Native American Indians upon whose soil we stand - suffered similar injustices and indignities as her own?

As women we both struggle in a male-dominated world. Surely there are similarities between our individual struggles; similarities among the adversities. Why can't we discuss those similarities and hardships? Do our diversities create an abyss too wide to cross?

I cannot see the world through African-American eyes, nor can she view the world through mine. But surely we can find some common ground upon which to see eye to eye.

I empathize with her anger. I know oppression. Each of us holding the other responsible removes the burden of guilt from the shoulders of our common oppressors: those members of beauracratic society who suppress the strength of women united: those oppressors who prefer women remain divided by our diversities rather than find strength in our unity, lest we overcome the oppression we tolerate.

I yearn to let her know I wish for her child to grow up happy and healthy, that she be a good student and daughter and that she aspire to be a doctor or lawyer, a musician or actress or even a politician. Even if the child does not aspire to the lofty and noble ambitions I desire for every child, I hope and pray she grows up and, in some way, changes things within her own community.

I do not blame this woman for her anger. Her anger is justified, just as my confusion concerning her anger is justified. Maybe she also takes classes and things did not go well today. Maybe she works and it was not a good work day. Maybe she encountered narrow-minded people at some beauracratic institution. Maybe one of these explanations, maybe more than one, prompted her to lash out at the first person she saw.

No, I do not blame this woman for her anger; nor will I shoulder responsibility for it. I am not the cause of her anger, nor am I a simple solution. It is a problem thousands of years old, which cannot be resolved during this ten-second encounter.

By exhibiting her hostility toward me, she is perpetuating the hostility felt between minorities since time immemorial.

By remaining silent, I continue participation in the oppression experienced by minorities since recorded history. Neither of us is capable in this situation of finding a bridge for the gap between us as women or as races. I cannot help but think there must be a way for us to accomplish this.

I have never received such a hostile reaction to my sincere admiration of a child. It stuns me and prevents me from speaking. Should something similar happen again, I will engage in some sort of response. I want to understand. I want to bridge the gap of that anger. I want to take steps toward establishing the unity we as women need to combat the oppression we experience daily.

I look behind me after mother and child have passed. The little girl looks back over her mother's shoulder. She smiles and waves. I return her wave.

She is too young to know she is supposed to hate me.

But she will learn.