Poll Closed

For about a month in February, I had a poll on my blog that allowed people to vote on their likely reaction to something that I saw while driving to a town visit in Allendale, SC via highway 301. I wrote a charged reaction about my experience at the store in a previous blog entry. I suppose I put the poll up because I questioned my own reaction of entering the store, and giving the benefit of the doubt, even though I had a horribly uneasy feeling about the sign on the door, which seemed to have clearly racist tones to me.

In my opinion, after looking at the poll results, though only with 17 respondents, it seems that most people would rather choose to rationalize, and minimize, pretty racial language and signals in order to fit it into a worldview they would rather support. People would rather think the best unless absolutely forced to do otherwise, which is absolutely a great trait. Unfortunately this can be neglectful. There are signals of intolerance in our communities. I am not saying this to suggest anyone move with fear, but rather to encourage us to be more cognizant of the signals our own communities are sending out to others. If those messages are not ones we want to send out then let’s take responsibility to change those. Maybe someone who answered the poll is surprised to realize that most people that answered the poll that are of color, though not exclusively, read the sign and visualized clearly concerning and racial implications. Whether you personally agree with those reactions or not is less of the point.

Clearly I fall into the less that 1/3 of the respondents that were offended--even more than that, I was intimidated after my visit to the gas station. If you want to know more about my experience read the Jan. 30th entry.

The Original Poll and Results
On a convenience store door in a rural South Carolina community there is a handwritten sign posted: "If you have to pull your pants up, don't come inside". Do you find this offensive?
No, I wouldn't think anything of it. 4 (23%)
I'd think the sign was a little weird, but I wouldn't be offended. It's pretty much a "shirt and shoes required" type of sign. 9 (52%)
I would be offended. 4 (23%)
I would call the NAACP. 1 (5%)