“You ain’t no better than anyone else, and there ain’t no one else any better than you.”
I heard that several times from my father growing up. I know that’s incorrect usage of the English language, but he got his message across. It’s hard to remember the specific incidences where and why he said it. (That was many years ago. It’s getting harder to even remember things that happened last week.) Probably I was talking about someone in a way I shouldn’t have, or maybe someone had said something they shouldn’t about me. Whatever the case, Daddy had a specific point to make. You don’t look down on the people around you, but you don’t let yourself feel intimidated by anyone, either.
Those were not just words from my father, L.F. McPhail. It showed in the way he treated others around him. I grew up on the farm at a time when they didn’t have all the automatic machinery that is used today. Farming back then was very labor intensive. Many African-Americans helped on the farm, especially during tobacco barning time. I never heard Daddy belittle anyone because of their race. Now if he thought you weren’t doing your job, you would hear from him. We all — especially me — would hear from him. But his response would be based on what you were doing, or not doing, not who you were, or the color of your skin.
I also saw how he lived out what he believed. I can remember him helping out people in his community financially, and with his time, in their time of need, no matter what the race. A few years before he passed away, Daddy told me about when I was real young, Aunt Lona had given him $50 for Christmas. Back then, around 1960, $50 was quite a sum. He told me that we really needed the money to help with our Christmas that year. But a minority family in the community had just lost their home in a fire. So he went and gave them the money. “It was hard,” Daddy told me. “We really could have used the money. But they needed it more.”
I was reminded of that several times after his death, when folks of all races would tell me how much they missed my Daddy, and would share how much they thought of him when he was alive. They knew he meant it when he said, “You ain’t no better than anyone else, and there ain’t no one else any better than you.”
L.F. McPhail was not perfect. He surely would not be considered “woke,” whatever that is, by today’s culture police. He didn’t always use the politically correct language that is so often used as a measuring stick in today’s society. And some of his opinions about race were based on the culture and the times in which he was raised. (Over the years, I saw his language and his opinions changing.) But I saw how he treated people around him with respect, no matter who or what they were. And isn’t how you actually treat people the important thing?
There will always be some cultural differences and personal preferences. That’s OK, because that is what makes us unique. But that is no excuse for racism, and for not doing what we should to eliminate it. Sadly, today, it seems like whether you use the correct terminology, belong to the appropriate group, or express the correct amount of outrage determines if you are a racist or not.
The reality is that it still comes down to how you actually treat people, no matter who they are. Because “you ain’t no better than anyone else, and there ain’t no one else any better than you.”