FacingRacismLR

Enemies Out of Allies
An Anonymous Story by Ari Hurwitz
40
I would say some things are better in the country. There has been some improvement, but it
seems like everything wants to take a step backwards now. When I was in my 20s, I had got a
job at US Steel, working basically as a laborer, but I was going to school for electrical, to be an
electrician, you know. US Steel is as big as the city of Muncie. So I’m all the way on the other
side of the mill one day and this electrical foreman walked up on me as I was sweeping out a
tunnel. He was white. We got talking about electricity and he said, “How the hell you know
that stuff and you sweepin’ the damn tunnel?” He got my name and badge number.
It was a couple or so months later, my foreman tells me this electrical foreman wants to see
me and I was like, “WHAT?” So I went over there and he said, “I’m gonna start you out as a
janitor over here, but there’s postings that come up and when one come up, you sign it.” At
the time, there was only one other black electrician who I knew of that worked at US Steel,
and that’s a big plant.
So I was the janitor, time goes on and a posting comes up and I signed the damn thing, along
with other people. They didn’t know I was going to school, see, it’s an all-white department.
They all laughed, “Look at this dumb-ass janitor signing.” Nobody could pass the test for the
job though. Well, I passed the test. It was a major uproar, “Oh no, this can’t be!” I was still in
my 20s. These people, they in their 40s-50s. . .and I’m black. They said, “You gotta retest.”
When they set up this retest they set up a motor controller and you got to this one part
where this DC motor would accelerate, and all of a sudden you hear a explosion and the
motor would try to reverse itself. Nobody had seen nothing like that before. So I sit down
and I’m basically going through wire per wire. It was like a compound motor and they had
reversed it by accident, even they had no idea, total freak of nature. I caught it and fixed it and
I started it up. Everybody said, “What the hell, this black guy, the damn janitor?”
So they sent me up to the Headquarters. That first electrical foreman apologized to me. He
said, “These guys are so upset, they even got the union in, they making me send you up to be
re-tested again.” At Headquarters, the guy couldn’t find nothing wrong. It was racism that
motivated that, any other guy they would have said, “Fine, fine.”
But I got the job. I guess by me bein’ young and me bein’ black, they did not like that and
every day was like a test. I did learn. We had what we called electricians’ helpers and they all
older than me. I said to myself, “Fuck, I ain’t telling them what to do, them guys white and in
they 40s and 50s.”
So they tolerated me, a couple guys accepted it. There was always the bunch to stay away
from, you know, don’t hang around over there ‘cause they’ll do something to ya. The biggest
plus that I had there—it was by luck—I enjoyed playing chess. Gary, Indiana had a chess club
at that time. I went down to play chess, all white guys. One guy there, he also worked at US
Steel and he also was in the electrical part of it and he knew me. We kinda made friends and he
had balls, didn’t nobody mess with him. So when we kinda buddied up, they kinda like, ”Well,
that’s so and so friend, don’t mess with him.” He kinda had my back, was my bodyguard.
So lucky for me I played chess. He knew the places that I needed to be and where not to be.
In fact, a lot of times I would let him lead the way even though I was the electrician and he
was the helper. He was older. I say, “Who cares, fuck, people think he the electrician and I’m
following him.”
So everything, it worked good like that and I didn’t mind it. He would lead the way because
he knew the attitude of some of those other folks. He’d play the role. You have some good
relationships like that and nowadays, yeah, you still do.
The police though, this is the main problem. The police are killing the good for blacks and
whites, makin’ all that counterproductive. Earlier in my life, I had this experience with the
police, too, back then. Actually, it was a white guy who wanted to kill me and a white guy
who saved my ass. I had a girlfriend and we were driving down the highway, heading toward
Michigan City and, all of a sudden, it seemed like my car went airborne. A guy had hit us from
the back, white guy.