Recently, my husband and I wanted to break from our normal routine and add another restaurant to those we would frequent in the District.  Named for Zora Neale Hurston’s hometown, Eatonville was established in 2009 and is near Busboys and Poets on 14th and U Streets.  The restaurants are strategically placed near each other as a way to bring Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes back to the table so to speak.  They drifted apart after an argument arose over copyright privileges to a collaborative work, Mule Bone.

Brightly colored and beautifully decorated, Eatonville had me at the door.  When we entered, I was met and greeted by the words of Hurston:

“Sometimes, I feel discriminated against but it does not make me angry.  It merely astonishes me.  How can anyone deny themselves the pleasure of my company.  It is beyond me.”

As soon as we were seated, I rushed to my bag to find a scrap of paper and a pen.  I was not able to see the words but John had a good view so I asked him to read them to me.  I was more interested in the words on the wall than the menu at this point.  I had already been fed and I wanted to take a plate of her words home with me.

Hurston’s take on discrimination reminds me that it is but a matter of perspective.  It’s all about how you look at it.  Her words do not apologize for the practice of social exclusion and denial.  She makes no excuses for those who practice prejudice or stereotyping neither does she find the reason for it within herself.  Hurston does not make light of it but she also does not blame the person being discriminated against.  It is not her, his or my loss but that of the person who chooses to discriminate.

And because she has a healthy sense of self, she is not angered but amazed that a person would deny themselves such a pleasure.  She does not allow how she is treated by others to determine her self- perception.  For Hurston, when it comes to discrimination, she’s not the problem and she doesn’t have the problem.  It is my prayer today that we would begin to look at discrimination through the lens that her words provide.  Can you see it?