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Occasionally, I had to travel into 'town' to meet with clients. On those days, I would usually go in early and stop by a local gym where, for a fee, I could take a shower. This was a common practice for our rural community, and by doing this I felt a deep sense of affinity towards others who were in the same boat as me, and even a sense of pride. As I was getting dressed, some white men came into the locker room; they were at the gym for more than a shower, they were there to get some exercise. They looked like they lived in town and were regular members of this particular gym. But for some reason, I saw them very differently that morning.
I felt very aware of the fact that I was there only to shower, and I feared that they too knew I was from the reservation and was there because I had no running water at home.
I feared they were looking down on me with contempt and disgust (even though they did nothing to indicate such an attitude). I had this urge to tell them angrily that I probably had a better education than they did (I graduated from UCLA) and that I probably earned a higher hourly rate than they did. These thoughts surprised and shocked me. I had never before felt such intense feelings of insecurity and fear of being judged over the color of my skin. After they left the room my emotions subsided, and I was left to myself, pondering where those emotions had come from and not knowing what I was supposed to do with them. These men never spoke to me, nor I to them. This entire ordeal was played out only in my mind but served to drive a wedge into my heart and caused me to begin to emotionally isolate myself from the dominant society, an isolation that took me years to overcome. But it also opened a door for me to begin to understand an aspect of Racial Reconciliation that I had never considered before.
Looking back on that day, I think my entire emotional upheaval could have been avoided had I just remembered the lesson that I learned years ago in a bible study during college. Occasionally, as a group, we would go around the city to give sandwiches to the homeless people we met. We saw in scripture that Jesus loved and cared for the least in his culture, he healed people who were sick and became friends with 'tax-collectors and sinners', even spending time in their homes. This challenged us to look for ways to love those in need around us. But these interactions generally felt very awkward to me. I did not know what to say or how to start a conversation with them.
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