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Sanctity Denied: A Pasadena Story of Race and Silence

Sanctity

It was pre-pandemic when I stood in the checkout line at Ralph’s Market on Lake Avenue in Pasadena.

         I stood behind a dark skinned Black man, (lower class, he appeared to be) clutching proudly his 4-6 month old baby girl.

         In front of him stood an upper, middle-class White man (so he appeared to be) in a white shirt, tie, dress slacks and polished leather shoes.

         He turned around and casually studied the Black man and his child.

         “She’s slobbering a lot”, he said to the father, who apologetically explained that the baby was teething.  The man continued, “She must be in pain.”

         The father answered that his baby cried or fussed a lot about it,…especially when she was tired.

         The White stranger placed his rolled up newspaper under his arm, freeing his hands.  He then grasped the infant’s jaw, and inserted his forefinger and his middle finger into her mouth and started messaging her gums, while cooing, “I bet that feels good! doesn’t it? doesn’t it?”

         After about 5 strokes, he removed his fingers, wiped them on the baby’s bib, turned around and stepped forward in line.  The father wore on his face, the combination of a blush and a grin.  He seemed pleased! “a White man thought enough about his baby’s discomfort that he took the time to massage her gums in an attempt to make her feel better!”  This is what his face said…the father’s!

         The White people who witnessed this, looked away so as not to own the responsibility of acting against this obscenity.

         I released my white-knuckle grip on my grocery basket, excused myself and abruptly pushed through the line of people behind me.

         I had to get out of there.  I couldn’t breathe.  I left my grocery-filled basket in the line.

         I made it to my car, I sat until my breathing normalized and my stiffened body relaxed.

         My mind went back to the 1950’s where in Las Vegas the Black singer/actress, Dorothy Dandridge, was staying in a luxurious White hotel, that her promoters had fought to gain her residency.

         The Black actress dipped her toes in the hotel’s swimming pool before she was quickly restrained.

         White bathers witnessed this, and quickly got out of the pool and even left the patio area.  The next day the pool was drained.

         This 4-6 month old Black infant’s mouth (inside of Ralph’s) did not have the sanctity of a hotel’s swimming pool, in Nevada.

         The chlorinated pool could not protect the White adults from the pollution and contamination caused by the Black woman’s toes.  The pool had to be drained.

         My mind then went to what would have happened to that Black man in Ralph’s had he inserted his fingers into the mouth of a White infant – a girl-held in the arms of her father in a supermarket checkout line.

         As a witness to what was done by this White man, a stranger at that, to this Black infant, had I spoken up, I would have wounded that Black father, beyond ever healing.  I did what was best for him and for me.

         I walked away in silence.

                                                                Lora Harrington-Pride

                                                                8/4/25

*To see Lora's latest writings, see her Return to Writing post.