more on racism in New Mexico, in Gallup

My daughter and I spent about ten days in New Mexico her first year at college. On her way back east, she stopped in Omaha for New Year's with her dad. My sister was teaching in Gallup that year. We spent a week in Gallup, just hanging out loving one another including my niece who might have been the cutest, more charismatic toddler that has ever lived. Seriously, she was one awesomely adorable kid.

For anyone reading who does not know this, Gallup, NM is in the heart of a massive Navajo reservation that sprawls across a large chunk of westernmost New Mexico and goes on deep into Arizona. And if you don't know much about Indians in America, it pretty much goes without saying that if you are living in the heart of a huge chunk of Indian country, you are in a poor region.

The day after Christmas, I headed straight to Walmart, to buy my sister some kitchen stuff.  Watching her prepare Christmas dinner with inadequate kitchen stuff had hurt me. And I had money at the time.

As I mentioned, in a previous post, the Walmart  kitchen department in Gallup NM was picked over the day after Christmas.  I have always thought kitchen stuff does not count as presents but that kitchen department was stripped clean, which suggested to me that poor people consider a new cheap frying pan gift worthy.  I did not consider some cheesey pots and pans gift worthy. Just a nice thing to do for my sister.

The point is that I went to Walmart the day after Xmas. It was mobbed. Everyone in Gallup and most of the rez were there to return  stuff they got that they didn't want and to try to score after-Christmas mark downs.

I picked up whatever I saw that I thought my sister could use. The stuff was such poor quality. A crappy pan is better than no pan. When I went to check out, there was one very long line and then, as a cashier became available, someone from the single line would advance to a cash register. But as soon as I got in line, and a cashier saw me, the only non-Navajo in line, the cashier waved me over, indicating that it was my turn even though I was not at the front of the line.

That's what life was like in Gallup, NM in December 1998. All the Navajo took it as a given that it was okay to waive a white person to the head of the line.  All the whites did too. And the cashiers looked white.  I imagine in a place as poor as Gallup, a job at Walmart is seen as a good job. Jobs would be scarce in such a place.

I refused my privilege and waited my turn.  No one around me seemed to notice. I was repeatedly offered a chance, by one cashier after another, to jump to the front of the line. What? White people odn't have to wait in line?!  When it was my actual turn, I ended up being waited on by the woman who had waived me out of turn. I told her I thought that her behavior was outrageous and she did not seem to understand why I thought she had done anything wrong. Racism seemed the norm to her, I guess.

White people get waived to the head of the line? That's normal? That's apartheid.

I later regretted buying that crap at Walmart because we went to Santa Fe for a few days and could have gone to Target and bought better stuff. But by then, my sisterly kindness budget had been depleted.