My brother César and I went to a Goldsmith’s store to buy an expensive perfume for his girlfriend.
A middle-aged lady with a gentle French accent approached us and provided information about a dozen brands of perfume to choose from. César bought the one his girlfriend likes the most, and we were ready to leave the store.
Another perfume expert came closer, examined my brother’s phenotype carefully and said, “It seems like you have been in Florida recently, haven’t you?”
César replied yes at the same time he pointed to his T-shirt design which read Florida.
The lady continued to inspect my brother’s dark skin, black hair and beard. César’s broken accent in English revealed to the lady that he was a foreigner, perhaps from the Middle East.
Based on the lady’s attitude and body language, my brother and I knew immediately what was going through her mind.
She was witch-hunting from her comfortable workplace, trying to spot anyone who looked like the image she had of a terrorist.
She was playing patriot and soldier at the same time, doing her part from the perfume place in the war against terrorism.
The lady continued to request information from my brother.
“Did you come with your family? Where else have you been in the U.S.? New York? What are you doing in Memphis?”
At this point during the mini-trial presided by an adamant fragrance-judge, I decided to intervene in the conversation and end the lady’s bigotry.
For the first time since I arrived to the Goldsmith’s store with César, I mentioned the words “my brother” in order to call attention to our kinship. I was interested in her reaction because, differently from my brother, I am a whitish-, blue-green-eyed guy who resembles a European more than César.
I told the lady, “My brother has been in Miami and New York many times. Last Sunday (Sept. 9), he came to Memphis, where I reside, to visit with my wife and me for a week.”
I continued volunteering information to make the lady realize how prejudice had already made her convict someone in her mind.
“My brother’s daughter is right now in New York City with her mom (my brother’s ex-wife),” I said, “while César is enjoying Memphis with me, spending a few minutes at this store and buying expensive perfumes from you, Ma’am.
“We all are from Ecuador, South America, you know?”
While the lady’s demeanor changed, she gave us a wide smile and said, “Oh, Ecuador, yeah, Ecuador!”
I could see her trying to locate Ecuador on an imaginary world map.
She added: “You speak, uh, Portuguese, right?”
“No,” I said, “Spanish.”
“That’s right. Spanish. Yeah,” she replied. “Well, y’all have a wonderful day, and thank you for shopping with us,” was her cheerful goodbye.
César and I left the store in silence, both immersed in our own minds. Once we got to the car, we shared thoughts on the incident.
I said, “I would have liked the lady to know that we also condemned attacks on the World Trade Center and that we were horrified and disturbed by the events that occurred on Sept. 11.”
The lady was unaware that the same day that the planes destroyed the World Trade Center, my brother’s 7-year-old daughter and her mom had planned to visit the towers in the early morning to “see New York from the top.”
But things got delayed at home and they did not leave for the towers on time; this usually happens when someone travels with a kid.
Later, frozen in front of the TV, they were unable to accept that the towers were no more.
I mentioned to my brother that the perfume lady showed us how irrational people could be when both anger and ignorance command their judgment.
“What is going to happen next?” César asked.
“I am not sure,” I replied. “Perhaps people like the perfume lady will start lynching anyone who looks, according to their standards, like a terrorist — including people with colorful skin, different accents, different clothing or whoever bought a box-cutter during the past month. ... The hijackers used box-cutters as weapons, remember?”
I started the car and drove it through the streets of Memphis while thinking how revenge could take control of everyone’s emotions and actions. I told myself: If anger blinds us all, we can make horrible mistakes.
I love America and its people. It is home for me now.
I am also wounded by what happened in New York.
Many cars with red, white and blue ribbons passed around us.
“Oh s---!” I yelled. “I have a box-cutter in my office!”
My brother and I laughed hard, very hard. Then we continued with our silence.
César is back in Ecuador with his daughter, Ariane. As for the question of what César was doing in Memphis: César is a medical doctor, specializing in human genetics and cancer research.
He came to Memphis to visit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a world-famous institution dedicated to saving the lives of tens of thousands of kids with catastrophic diseases.
I just wonder if the perfume lady at Goldsmith’s knows that Amos Jacob, a Lebanese-Syrian American who became a celebrity and a millionaire during the 1950s, founded the hospital in 1962.
The name Amos Jacob is virtually unknown to most people.
However, many remember Danny Thomas, the great comedian.
Amos and Danny were one and the same. He changed his name to succeed as a star in Hollywood.
Today, the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities — also known as ALSAC, the fund-raising arm of St. Jude — keep alive Amos Jacob’s dream:
“He who denies his heritage has no heritage.”
“No child should die in the dawn of life.”
“Those who work for the good are as those who do the good.”
