Although the Police’s smash hit “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” was about a school girl’s fantasy about her teacher, the point of standing too close to someone can have the same connotation along with several others.
Seinfeld did a skit on the “close talker” which was so darn funny because we could all relate to that situation. The person gets within inches of our face, usually with bad breath, and relates something that is really not private at all, so there is no need to be that close. We don’t like it!
Sometimes we use the expression,” Get out of my face!” when someone is hassling us. I wonder how a person who is just learning the English language would take the meaning of that expression? Is someone actually violating the distance between them, or is the person getting too close in a figurative/ verbal way?
Without really having to define the exact distance, we all are more comfortable with our personal space. I like that term because no one likes to be intruded upon.
But how do we learn what is too close? Watching our dogs eating, I notice that if one of them gets too near the other’s food bowl, a growl or bark is expressed. Immediately, the invasive dog knows to back off. The same thing holds true when one dog has a chew bone. Don’t stand so close to me! What do we as humans do when another gets too close? What are our ways to alert the space invader? Have you tried growling? Probably not, but heck, if it works for a dog . . .?
Personal Space of Blacks and Whites
Now to the actual point of this blog; the boomerang is ready to return to its target. White people often will say.
“Why are those African-Americans so angry? Why do they seemingly overreact to incidents like police brutality? Why are they so sensitive? White people of today had nothing to do with slavery.”
African-Americans’ personal space was invaded by slavery, by discrimination, and by segregation.
Consider that you have a wound on your forearm caused by a bad burn. The wound is just in the process of healing. If someone gets within three feet of the injury, you will definitely pull back to avoid contact or even growl at the person to stay away. The intruder will not, at first, understand your overreaction saying either aloud or to himself, “What the hell is wrong with you?” Once the invader of space truly understands that “what the hell is wrong with you” is your injured arm, he will give you a safe amount of room and not only understand but sympathize with what happened to you.
Even though white people today are not, for the most part, guilty of slavery, discrimination, and segregation, it is absolutely important that white people know of the wounds that African-Americans have suffered in order to understand their sensitivity. Equally important, African-Americans must express themselves alerting white people to not get so close to their wounds without resorting to measures that only exacerbate the situation.
Again, our book, Black and White Like You and Me, is the catalyst to a conversation between the races. Let’s learn to stand a little bit closer to each other. I promise that I won’t bite!
