by Ron McMullin
I was young at the time, working in a factory in the deep south.
I watched two large black men harass a small blonde worker who was working on the line between them.
She was crying. It was impossible to hear what those two guys were saying because of the noise in the factory.
I jumped over the assembly line, charged at the two bastards who were obviously abusing an innocent, hardworking woman.
The two men retreated, our foreman broke up the encounter.
Hero me!
About a week later, I quit the job to take another job as an associate manager in a local dollar store.
The two big, bad men would come to the store to get their checks cashed. I cashed them because I knew who they were and where they worked.
Months later, a 12-year-old white boy came in the store to return some shirts, small, medium, large, about a rack worth.
Obviously they had been shoplifted. I told the boy that I needed a receipt. He said that his mother was in the parking lot in the car.
I went to the parking lot; the shoplifter was the woman whose honor I had defended.
And the two large men?
They were seminary students who had been telling the woman she needed to straighten up her life.
My racism and sexism smacked down on me.
I was crazy dead wrong.
Most times, we always usually are!
***
My name is Ron McMullin, a superintendent, factory manager and motivational nagger.
I can tell you how to be self-employed, but I can’t tell you how to become rich.
I know about being married to a drug addict.
I know about being both a deceitful prick, and a honest fellow.
Honesty always wins.
