Laughing My Socks Off.
By Maxine Jasmin-Green
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From I was tiny, I went every year to my god-mothers house. My god-mother, Auntie Betty, lived in Lytham St Annes, near Blackpool. I went for either a week or two weeks. One week was spent in North Yorkshire at a fabulous place called Scargill House.
The other week was spent with Auntie Betty, at her fabulous house. Staying at hers was like staying in another world, compared to the world I lived in back with my family at home. It was like a chalk and cheese world.
I love telling stories of things either of what I have seen or experienced. Then when the time is right, I tell the story and it’s the telling it usually for the first time, I try to keep a straight face, and before I have finished the listener is laughing and so am I too. And laughing Hard. At the time I maybe won’t think a situation is funny, as it may not be. But like many people who I have told, when I tell a story, it is the Way I tell the story, that captures it all, with my body language, facial expressions, keeping them focused and the punchline, if I get to it. For sometimes I am laughing that much I can’t get to it till we are all laughing, and when I’ve recovered enough, I will give the punchline which is the end of the story. We will all then be laughing over and over and over again!
The Church Auntie Betty went to was very opposite to mine. Everything was in order and seemed very strict in a different way that mine was very strict. It was almost like they were two different religions. For not one person if they were to visit Auntie Betty’s Church once, they would not have returned, and if anyone from my god-mother’s Church if they were to visit, they too would never ever return. They were worlds apart.
My god-mother’s church fascinated me, how some would curtsy to the virgin Mary and baby Jesus, before they sat in their pew. And how every single prayer was read from The Book of Common Prayer, depending on the time of the year, which bit they read. The church I grew up in, there was no prayer book, nor did we call our Pastor a Priest. Now did we have Holy Communion, where the bread tasted like paper, back at my Church we had real bread. But it is not a criticism, it was just many observations.
In my teens, my god-mother took me to a Methodist and a Baptist Church, so I could feel, more at ‘home,’ as she thought they were a bit like my Church.
So, the first Church we went to the Methodist, at the end, after she had introduced me to some of the people, which I hated as a shy person, I hated meeting people I did not know. She would then leave me on my own, as she would go and say, “Hello,” To old friends.
I remember standing at the back of the hall, and an older woman came up to me and said, “Hello, which part of Africa do you come from?” Stunned, I replied, “Birmingham,” She said, “Oh I didn’t know there was a Birmingham in Africa?” I said now in my broadest Birmingham accent, “There isn’t” She said, “Where are you from?” I said, “Birmingham,” She said, “Where is that?” I said, “In the West Midlands,” She not giving up asked, “But WHERE were you born?” I told her where I was born, naming the famous place in the United Kingdom, she said, “I didn’t know that place was in Africa! I said, “It isn’t, it’s in England!” Undeterred, she said, “Where were your parents born?” I told her, now she seemed to be ‘happy,’ and said, “So, you are NOT British, I replied, “Yes I am!” When I went back to my god-mothers home, I told her about the woman, and she said, “I will not be taking you there again!” My god-mother sounds and acts like Penelope Keith and the Queen, she was Very, very posh. Very upper class.
On another occasion she took me to the Baptist Church. And again, at the end, she had introduced me to a person and then went to say, “Hello,” to old friends, I was again on my own at the back, and again an older woman came up to me and said, “You must find it awfully cold,” I said, “It’s the same temperature, in Birmingham,” She said, shocked, “I didn’t know there was a Birmingham in Africa?” I said, “There isn’t.”
She then walked away and soon another woman came up to me and said, “Hello,” I replied and said, “Hello,” Back, shocked she said, “You speak English VERY Good!” I said, “They do in Birmingham!” She said, “I didn’t know there was a Birmingham in Africa?” I said, “There isn’t, its in the West Midlands!”
When I went back home to Auntie Betty’s home I told her about the women, she said, “I will not take you there again.” But what difference would that make? I remember when we were walking through the Ashton gardens in St Annes, and the children was making monkey noise at me, I told my god-mother at the time, that they are, “Making those noises to me,” For she could hear it too, she said, “It is not to you.” For she saw the good in everyone, everyone was good in her eyes and wholesome, but I knew different and it hurt.
But the women at the Churches when I went back to school and told my friends, we laughed and laughed, as it was SO funny, me seeing their utterly shocked faces, as I made fun of them. I couldn’t help it.
Back then, I was the only black person in the whole of Lytham St Annes. And Auntie Betty would introduce me to SO many people each year that I went back, and they would always remember me but I never remembered them. One year when she was shocked that I couldn’t remember such and such a person, I explained, “It’s easy for them to remember me, as I stand out, but for me to remember everyone, everyone is white, it felt like I had met seven to eight hundred people before I was fifteen. But slowly as I got older, I would remember individuals.
I have been reminded this week, there is nothing new under the sun. xXx
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Hi Celticman ...
Yes sad in many ways. It was strange that these women thought they were clever, but they were not as clever as they thought. But to be fair to them, and most of the people in St Annns most of them had never in their lives seen a black person in the flesh. They and I would have only seen Sidney Poitier on the telly in a positive way, for other black people in films the black people always died first and usually in a negative way, they were shown. Everyone is sterotyped. When I was offered the chance to visit Jamaica when I was 13 I said no because my image of Jamaica was a tiny island in my books at school, an island was 3 yards wide with one palm tree in the middle! Also on that island the women wore grass skirts and were topless, that was my steriotype of Jamaica! Funny now. but there was no internet back then, the thought of going there and forced to be topless and wear a grass skirt on a tiny island terrified me.
It wasn't because they were in Church, it was just they had a chance to see a different person for the very first time in their lives, I was cornered, so if I was in a different building long enough without my god-mother next to me they would have been able to be brave and ask a question to someone they were curious about but never had the chance to speak to or ask questions. So I am not knocking them for being in the Church. I didn't feel offended, but was shocked and we did find it very funny later on for I always had something very funny to say after I had been to Auntie Betty's. As she was SO strict.
Thank You SO much for my Cherry. I am Very grateful. 
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Wonderful piece. So sorry you
Wonderful piece. So sorry you have to go through this, so glad you could find respite in laughter, and hope the news hasn't been too triggering of bad memories. My mum's a Brummie and I love Birmingham - so much incredible art and architecture, lovely people and a really creative city. I hope you are more welcomed there and face less racism than you did in the church. *Raises my cup of tea in a 'cheers' to a fellow Brummie**
* OK, I'm only half Brummie but I'm spiritually from Birmingham, spent a lot of my formative years there with grandma and grandad, am writing about Birmingham in my novel, and it's the place where most of those I most love live. Hope you don't mind me claiming myself as a Brummie.
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Hi Ciadish .....
Lovely to hear from you. Thank you SO much for your Fab Comments. The first time I left the UK was when I was 19 and I went to Germany. I was very nervous to go I went with the Church (not the Church I grew up in that was an all black Church) this Church was very mixed. A work colleague reassured me that Germans would love us and they did! I didn't expect that, everyone was lovely and made us all feel very welcome not how I had expected Germany to be. For everyone is steriotyped.
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So many stupid people. I'm
So many stupid people. I'm sorry you were reminded of those memories this week. I think if you grow up in a multicultural area, you don't really appreciate how it's not always like that elsewhere. When I moved from London to the country it was a great shock to see people doing some of the things you've described. It's a little less so nowadays, but it's still there, and it still makes me angry
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Hi insertponceyfre.....
Thank you for your Valued Comments. People do sometimes say silly things. It must have been very embarrassing for the person(s) who were asked questions about their background, those questions with others around. I was lucky I was on my own 1 on 1 when I was asked. I went to a mixed infants school, Junior, and secondary schools all were very mixed with black, white and asians kids.
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Schools were very mixed in
Schools were very mixed in London too. Where my eldest son went to primary school it was an undiluted sea of blonde hair, and then when my youngest was about 9 (2002) a boy joined his class from an african country while his dad was seconded to a nearby US airbase, and I could hear some of the other mothers talking about house prices going down. I was astonished!
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What people don't always
What people don't always realise there is good and bad in all cultures.It is True, you can't tell a book by its cover. Thank you for your Valued Comments.
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Really Cool Piece M/J/G.....
Seen it, lived in it, deal with it, yet still learning how to encounter it....... Sometimes surprised & many times not surprised....
A view from a white guy.....
I lead a multi ethnic, multilingual, mixed everything team... In a very structured, steeped in tradition setting that kept its self incestuous and suffered result wise from it.... (u got the picture)*
My Crew:
I recruited them, trained them, I cry with them, I eat with them, over come challenges, take risk, suffer together, laugh together, some came w/ stellar credentials but the doors never opened because of who they are, what they look like, or passed over in the bureaucracy-never seen- judged on the spelling of their names, etc.
In an observation setting:
Sometimes I observe from a distance interactions with the general public, or, a group of people that perceive themselves as a higher class or having special privileges or rights..... It never ceases to amaze me the responses, actions, interactions, reactions and unconscious biased reactions-even body language..... (& then there's the shocking filth of a few)
In which puts me in position of defending my team... not for being qualified and the professional work they do and the risk they encounter... But for who they are.....
I'm totally all in, calling it out in public & the work place...... (Not preaching, don't misunderstand me)
If my crew F's up, makes a mistake, breaks something, unruly +++ I can deal with it....
But when I have to defend them for who they are as a person, stereotyped-judged &/or treated less than .... I'm gonna throw down, as we say, all in* = literally take no shit in this area....
You eloquently told the story and in a family church setting, very relatable and well done......
Respect*
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Hi Kris ........
Thank you for your Valued Comments.
It Is important to Stress I was not knocking the Church, for the Church is very important to me. If I had never seen a Blue Person, and I had a chance to speak to one, and I was an adult and the Blue Person was small, I too might have asked the Blue Person the same questions if I ever got to meet one! so it's the same sort of thing. Then when I was about 14 the film Roots came out, it was shown over a few Sundays, then we all heard words, none of us of any, colour or culture, black white & Asian had ever heard before!! Then a white lad who had always been very nice to me, he had an older friend at our school he was about two years older, I didn't know his name but had seen him a few times, he WAS a very bad Influence on him and he listened to him and my friend he started to call me names that he had seen and heard from the film Roots. My younger brother I had told him, and he with his multi cultural friends, white black and asian beat him up not bad just roughed him up abit. The next day the lad came up to me in the playground and said I am really sorry, It wont happen again, and I said, OK no problem. I remember seeing him about 20 years later, when I was doing a craft fare he came up to me with his lovely wife and we chatted.
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evolution, social,emotional & spiritual....
Understand MJ = not knocking the church..... For me the church setting makes clear sense, as you described the story, and social setting, captured in time, encounters, actions & reactions..... ( as several times a year I'm a church goer & participant for events, the whole church thing brought a smile to me as I can see it) (:-).... -really relatable-...
From my experience & reading this = addressing the race, bias, discrimination issue; as we grow up & older its like a social evolution- group/society wise, and an emotional maturity issue as an individual(s) i.e. as to how we see people, as people for what they truly are..(?)... So simple, yet so deep rooted and complicated....
Often color/ethnicity tagged & categorized, in a sense, in a blink of an eye.... Realizing some people don't mature, stay naive, cant or wont evolve, on a humanization level......
I don't have all the answers.....
Flipped around in another place & time;
..... I spent an extended (+) period of time in a place & time where I and a few others were the only white people; in a conflict zone & post conflict zone. The conflict was started by another group of white people. Even though we had close contacts, ethnic, local people there, loyal, trained, like our own people of creed & profession + supplied supported them; it was hard on them and hard on us 'a few white folk' in remote regions, with desperate-poverty stricken-struggling people with allot of weapons as they saw only us as white people trained-up with allot of weapons...
I.D, ing uniforms, trying to assess which side you were on was a distant 2nd priority because they were totally conditioned to shoot 1st, ask questions later..... it was the way they survived..... and I was just another white guy...
In a deeper sense, being white; I was a suspect for everything = the worlds problems, conflict, food supply and prices, broken political promises, new strains of flu, school books that were viewed as actually propaganda, bla, bla, bla +++++........ & in a hot conflict zone with things like; type 4 malaria ++ running ramped & supply cuts in common medicines we take for granted.. = it was all white people's fault.... And it all came to a head when I was tasked to go in and negotiate with so called rebel leader(s), that were actually freedom fighters...
I had to stay on the out skirts of a village to show I was being disciplined & not yet accepted by leaders. I wasn't included in most of the Klan meetings. I spent my free time re-routing an irrigation network for crops w/ some other farmers (allot of digging & stone masonry work uff)... washing clothes with the woman at the river, drawing pictures & telling stories at the school on the chalk board..... & I brought 2 Frisbee's..... so my only real friends were kids, they had never seen anything fly like that before and that turned into a cool sport for them....
The negotiations were brutal, raw, tribal, even though they disagreed internally with each other, they all hated me at first...... Said it many times up front, from a white industrialized country, representing white industrialized thugs, stealing their natural resources, poisoning & enslaving their people...
There were allot of sleepless nights in my tent, in tropical down pours. I swore I was gonna go back and slap some of my university professors and track down those idiots that authorized those Intelligence reports as they got all wrong.....
Of course I had to take a look at my self + the culture I come from......
I learned.... when they looked at me, they couldn't see the difference between good & bad, justice or injustice..... they had to learn it based on who I am, (if) they could understand what I represent, I had to work 100% harder to prove it.....
At first they only saw another white guy in military garb & kit, in their once peaceful home land, now a conflict zone & it wasn't get'n any better at that time....
It wasn't what I saw in the mirror....
It's what I learned to see through their eyes......
Some years later, an International Peace organization ask me to come back at the request of the rebel commanders, freedom fighters, now political parties..... and help negotiate an upgrade to the truce-peace agreement..... I was still just the white guy from a industrialized country, but my counter part said "at least he can see us, we dont have to agree with him or his people on everything".
And he has Frisbee's..... that nick name stuck with the locals = Frisbee = my new name.......
Drawing a circle around this.... it was kinda like a church for me....I needed that upfront, slap in the face, those cold shower shock - spiritual awakening moments.............. Now I can laugh at it.....
Yes, its what I read in your eloquent story MJ. More so, for me, its what I see & reflections in what you have written that come back to me....
I see those same lessons & interactions in my crew.... In the sense I keep re-learning the same lessons in different ways, about how different we are, but really all the same......
That's like a church for me.... And I relate to your church experience....
Didn't mean to ramble...... Just say'n....
Keep up the work Ms. Maxine......
Peace, love, smiles & cheers for the holidays..
Kris*
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