Experiencing a Cultural Wake-Up Call: Confronting Snobbery and Embracing Diversity

What happens when a wedding reception turns your world upside down? Join me, Carmen Cauthen, as I recall a pivotal moment that forced me to confront my own snobbery. Growing up in a world of lavish celebrations, I was unprepared for the humble affair of canned fruit cocktails and white bread sandwiches. This experience was not just a cultural shock but a wake-up call that made me rethink the messy mix of America's cultural melting pot. Through this lens, I explore how deeply ingrained socioeconomic traditions can shape our perceptions and the way we judge those different from us.

Journey with me through the intersection of race, culture, and socioeconomic status, as I share personal stories from my upbringing in a middle-class Black family. Dressing well was more than vanity; it was a shield against the racial profiling that was rampant in desegregated spaces. 

From nostalgic family road trips to Expo 67 to the cautious discernment we practiced during times of racial tension, these experiences reveal how past lessons continue to inform our present interactions. Reflect on the importance of trust, self-awareness, and safety, and see how these themes echo in every choice we make today.

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Carmen Wimberley Cauthen is an author, speaker, and lover of history, Black history in particular. As a truth teller, she delights in finding the hidden truths about the lives of people who made a difference - whether they were unknown icons or regular everyday people.

To Learn more of Carmen:
www.carmencauthen.com
www.researchandresource.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
unseen, unheard.
We've lived like that far toolong.
I'm carmen coffin and this isquiet, no more.
So I'm back and I realizedsomething today.

(00:23):
When I was on my way to record,I thought I was having a
conversation and I thought about.
There was a time when I realizedthat I am a snob.
People are not going to tellyou that they're a snob, but I

(00:48):
have recognized that I wasraised in a certain
socioeconomic tradition of lifeand that doesn't necessarily
translate to what everybody elsedoes.
The first time I realized it, Iwas pregnant with my first
child and my husband had beeninvited to a wedding reception.
We had been invited to awedding reception of some of his

(01:12):
, some of the folks he workedwith.
It was in another town and so Igot dressed, we got, he got
dressed and we drove there, andwhen we got there at the
appointed time, the receptionwas in a little small club.
To me it was in a warehousedistrict and to me it was in a

(01:37):
hole in the wall.
That's the only way I knew tothink of it at the time, way I
knew to think of it at the time,and you know, I grew up going
to receptions in the church hallor at a hotel, big weddings
with, you know lots of folks init, or you know a reception at a

(01:58):
country club or something likethat and the first thing that
happened was the writing roomweren't there yet, which was
okay, you know you take pictures, but there was nothing set up,
nothing.
People started putting tablesout.
If I remember correctly I don'tthink there were tablecloths,

(02:22):
and then there was no caterer.
There were tablecloths and thenthere was no caterer.
So I saw people put out bigpans and the first thing that I
saw somebody open was theindustrial size can of fruit
cocktail.
Now, I'm accustomed to freshfruit.
I'd never even seen cans offruit cocktail that big.

(02:48):
I didn't know they made them,it just never crossed my mind.
And then they dumped it all ina big steamer pan and set it on
the table and that was the fruitfor the reception.
That was the first inkling I hadthat I was not like everybody

(03:09):
else and that there was adifferent concept of what you do
at a wedding reception or howyou serve.
I don't even remember what theother food was.
I feel like there weresandwiches made out of white
bread and maybe some ham or someturkey and cheese and cut up

(03:32):
into quarters or something likethat.
And I'm not saying thatanything was wrong, it was just
different and it made mereevaluate me, because everybody
else was comfortable with this.
There were no chairs,everything it was all standing.
And you know, if you've everbeen pregnant, you know that you

(03:53):
only want to stand for acertain period of time.
Your back starts to hurt.
You're you want, you're justdone.
You want to sit down, um.
And so I realized that I, carmenCoffin, um, had some things I
needed to work on, and you knowwe talk in America about um,

(04:15):
this, this space is a meltingpot.
When you come to America, it'sa melting pot, is a melting pot.
When you come to America, it'sa melting pot.
But have you ever seen crayonsmelt?
It's just a glob.
That's not what we are.
We are a place where peoplebring their cultures and their
backgrounds, even people whowere enslaved.

(04:39):
They didn't.
Somebody put them on a ship andwhat they grew up with or what
they were accustomed to, thatdidn't disappear.
We all have our customs andtraditions, from whatever space
our families came from, and soI've recognized that I grew up

(05:01):
very middle class.
I grew up in some spaces withamounts of money that other
people didn't have, and some ofmy traditions are very let me
not say nuanced, they're verypronounced.

(05:22):
So there are things that I haveexpectations of.
Like I grew up, you didn't go tochurch dressed just any kind of
way.
In fact, as a Black girl, wedidn't even go shopping dressed
any kind of way.
My mother was alwayswell-dressed when she went out
shopping.
Now, that could be because oncestores were integrated,

(05:48):
desegregated, and if you wereBlack and you went to the store,
if you weren't dressed well,then people would follow you
around the store to make sureyou weren't stealing anything.
That's white people, and Idon't know how much that has
changed today.
And people today don't dress togo shopping necessarily.

(06:09):
Today's formal, more formaldress can be very much dressed
down.
So what does that mean forthose people who are working in
a store, who are employees orwho are the security, who do
they look at first to see whomight steal something?

(06:32):
They watch and they follow youthrough the store.
That's not old, that's new.
That still happens today.
That's new, that still happenstoday.
I don't dress up necessarily togo to the store, but I don't
dress down to go to the storeeither.
I still dress very middle classand I don't necessarily pay

(06:54):
attention to see if somebody isfollowing me around in a store.
I have come to not expect that,but I know that that happened
when I was growing up, and partof that is because my mother was
an educator.
She made decent money.

(07:14):
My father was a pharmacist.
He made decent money and hewould give her money to go shop.
And I remember my mother and mygrandmother refused to shop at
JCPenney's for a long timebecause they did not think that
the things in that store wereworthy of them taking the time
to shop there, and so that's howI learned to shop.

(07:35):
I learned to shop in middleclass stores, in middle-class
stores.
If we were in New York City, wewould go in some of the
higher-end department stores andit was a treat, and if you got
something it was special and youtook care of it.
You didn't let it go.
So those are just things that Ihave learned that I have to

(08:00):
look at for myself, because I'mnever sure whether I'm being a
snob or not, and so I'm justcurious.
Are there things that you haverealized that you have certain
predilections for?
There are only certain placesthat you want to shop.

(08:23):
When I was younger I used tocraft a lot.
I made jewelry and a friend ofmine did floral arrangements and
wreaths and we literallycovered the state doing craft
fairs and selling during thespring and the summer.
And I remember going somewhereand it was in a smaller county,

(08:49):
there probably weren't as manyblack people there, and I needed
to stop and either go to therestroom or get something to
drink and she said we can't gothere, their people don't know
our people.
And I just looked at her likeshe was crazy.
It didn't dawn on me that whatshe was saying was this was a

(09:13):
rural community.
We were two single Black womenand we didn't know what kind of
reception we would get.
And it was important duringthat period of time that was
during the 80s we weren't thatfar out of a racist era that I
would think of then that we weresafe going in places where

(09:37):
there were not people who lookedlike us, who could or would be
willing to serve us, and so wedidn't go in those places.
It was no different than in1967.
When we were growing up, theWorld's Fair was in Montreal,

(10:08):
was called Expo 67.
And so we drove from Raleigh toMontreal.
We stayed in, I think, anapartment.
My grandmother went with us.
We stopped in places likePlymouth and I believe it was
Santa's Village in New Hampshire, and it was my first time

(10:32):
having Canadian bacon.
I just have to throw that inthere because I like Canadian
bacon.
But when we stopped somewhere toget gas, daddy felt like he was
lost and he had gone in thestore to pay for the gas.
And you know, this was a timeperiod when hotels were just

(11:01):
being desegregated.
So generally we would eitherstay at a Holiday Inn, which
mama was more comfortable with,or maybe a Howard Johnson's, but
those were the only hotels thatwe would stay at while we were
on the road.
And when daddy went in and paidfor the gas and came back out,
I don't know if he was lookingat a map or what, but I do

(11:21):
remember that a white man toldhim we could just follow him and
he would lead us back to thehighway.
And he got in the car and hetold mama that and she was like
no, us back to the highway.
And he got in the car and hetold mama that and she was like
no, you, you don't know this man, you don't know where he's
going to take us or if we'regoing to survive to get out of
there.
And um, you know that that wasanother learning experience for

(11:41):
me, that I couldn't trusteverybody, even if they were
nice and compassionate or seemto be.
I had to consider otherramifications Am I going to be
safe with this person?
Am I to trust that they aregoing to do what they say?
And those are things that wehave to do with all of our

(12:03):
relationships.
But those were important at thattime because we didn't know if
we would be safe.
We just had to discern in everyarea of life shopping,
traveling, all types of thingsWere we safe and are there other

(12:29):
ways for us to look at howwe're doing things?
And so I learned to bediscerning and to recognize
things in myself that might bemake me not safe or make me a
victim of something, and sothose are things that we don't

(12:53):
necessarily think about aboutourselves.
We think about them about otherpeople.
But you know, we have to startto learn to check those things
in ourselves, and in the processof doing that, we have to be
quiet.
No more You've been listeningto Quiet no More, where I share

(13:19):
my journey, so you can be quiet.