Walking in Memphis

The evening before

My brother John was flying in from Des Moines to attend Walter's funeral, and I had to pick him up at the airport at 4 PM. I had never been to the Memphis airport, but I looked up the route in Rand McNally (I didn't have a smartphone or GPS) and drove through the Friday afternoon rush hour traffic. When I arrived at the airport, John's wife called me to tell me that John had left his cellphone in Iowa, but I managed to find him anyway, near the exit. We collected his bags, and I drove him back to the motel.

When we got to the motel, John asked about getting something to eat, and I mentioned that Walter's favorite pizza place was just up the street. John said it sounded great, and we walked up the street to the pizzeria. The inside had rustic dark brown rough wood paneling, and the walls were covered with sports memorabilia from local youth leagues. We ordered a medium house specialty pizza and got caught up with each other as we ate. I told John that I wanted to stop at Walter's mother's house to ask her about the funeral arrangements and offered to take him with me. John was excited about the opportunity, so we went together.

That turned out to be a mistake. My family grew up in very white parts of the country--upstate New York and southwest Iowa. The few Black people they met, they latched onto, and they drew two conclusions: that most or all Black people were like the Black people they had met, and that they were doing a praiseworthy favor by socializing with them and doing things for them--in other words, the White Savior Complex.

John is an outgoing person, so I had to sit and listen as John described his stereotypes as though they were factual, and I watched Walter's mother as she gave John looks of pity, and I figured that she was rolling her eyes internally. One of John's other tendencies is to listen for a person's name and a few limited facts about them and then talk knowledgeably about them as if he knew them personally. I listened to him as he confused the names of people I had described to him, and Walter's mother and I gently corrected him. If we were sitting at a table, I would have kicked him under the table. (And he probably would have said loudly, "Why are you kicking me?") Instead, we were sitting on couches, and all I could do was look at John pleadingly; he didn't notice.

Finally, the conversation turned to Walter, and John said, "I officiated my son's wedding last summer." I started looking for a rock to crawl under because I knew what was coming next. Walter's mother said to John, "So you're a minister!" John replied, "No, I was officiating the wedding because my son was getting married to his boyfriend." Walter's mother, clearly uncomfortable, said, "Okay then." Although she knew about the nature of the relationship between Walter and me, she didn't like it being thrown in her face because she believed it was wrong, and out of respect for Walter, I respected her wishes. I came out of my shocked daze, changed the subject to funeral arrangements, and the rest of the evening went well.