“This is a Nice Place”

We took our toddler trick-or-treating around one block of Concord Rd. We took a stroller and walked from our house. One house was busy with adults sitting on a porch passing out candy. A woman asked me where we lived. I said we walked from our house around the corner on Concord Rd. She said, “Yeah, well this is a nice place, this neighborhood.” I told her I knew that because we live here. Maybe she misheard and thought I said we were from Concord, NC but when I corrected that miscommunication, she just muttered, “Oh…” and trailed off. The message I got was that a young family of color can’t possibly live in this neighborhood. Surely, we are from elsewhere. And that elsewhere is where we belong. Some white people on “this side of the tracks” in Davidson sure police those boundaries of whiteness and belongingness. This woman put a damper on an otherwise fun Halloween night out with my husband and kid.