I've just picked up Inga Muscio's latest book, Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil (thanks Win Chesson for the rec!) and I stumbled upon a paragraph early on that struck me. She writes:

"One starts to wonder why exactly it just so happens that almost every US street, building, and landmark that isn't named after Rosa Parks, Pocahontas, Cesar Chavez, or Martin Luther King Jr. is named after a white person."

While not directly related to her point, it immediately pressed play in my brain and a recent memory flashed in my thoughts over and over and over again.

It happened just before I left Chapel Hill. Recently the Chapel Hill Town Council put forth a measure to rename the artery that goes from downtown Chapel Hill to I-40. The road had for years been known as "Airport Road" as it passed right by, no surprise, an airport.

UNC is again planning to expand - this time by building a new campus right over the old Airport. So it makes sense that the name for the road might not be so appropriate anymore. In a gesture of good faith, the Town Council proposed the name be changed to "Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd." Good faith measure. Appropriate time to change the name. Simple, right?

Wrong. A small ruckus ensued that led to public hearings and much squawking about the change. Eventually the Town Council won out and the name was officially changed - but resentment lingered.

That's where my memory comes in. Me and a friend were standing on campus talking to another friend about her new apartment. Asked where she lived, she told us that she lived "just down Airport Road." At that point I corrected her and said "Oh you mean Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.?" With a slight chuckle, she gave a knowing smirk and said "No - I live down Airport Road."

Jackass that I am, I didn't realize quite how heinous that comment was at the time. What - really - was her damn problem? Muscio's point is well taken - a handful of People of Color's names litter a tiny number of streets and buildings, while oodles of White peoples' names litter the country to "honor their memories." Any old white person deserves to be remembered. But not - indeed - any old person of color.

The fact that is name has become slapped on the names of streets in towns across America does not mean Martin Luther King Jr. should not be honored in Chapel Hill. It's thanks to his efforts that we can continue to say with some confidence that Chapel Hill is the liberal bastion of the South. It would be irresponsible of the town, then, to not recognize that reality.

In any case, I should have questioned the woman's motives. It was such a blatant moment of hey-you're-white-you-understand-what-I-mean "buddy-buddy" racism. In the South it happens quite frequently - but even here in California people assume that as a white person I'm going to "understand" when they make a heinously racist remark. Sometimes you have to look hard - the remarks are often cloaked under the veil of seemingly non-debatable issues like crime, poverty, or drug use - or, as in my case - the name of a road. If you're properly attuned, though, you can begin to clearly see the web of comments that buttress American racism.

In the end - I was the real jerk. I said nothing. Her racism left unchecked, she would undoubtedly repeat the line time and time again in the future - reassuring the white people of Chapel Hill that she really understood.