Unit 1: Selection Vocabulary 3

My grandmother puts her feet in the sink
of the bathroom at Sears
to wash them in the ritual washing for prayer

because she has to pray in the store or miss
the mandatory prayer time for Muslims

Respectable Sears matrons shake their heads and frown
as they notice what my grandmother is doing

They fluster about and flutter their hands and I can see
a clash of civilizations brewing in the Sears bathroom

My grandmother knows one culture —the right one

Standing between the door and the mirror, I can see
at multiple angles, my grandmother and the other shoppers,
all of them decent and goodhearted women, diligent
in cleanliness, grooming, and decorum

Likewise, the speaker in Mohja Kahf’s “My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears” must choose from a host of available options, not the least of which is “a clash of civilizations” or “the great common ground.”

The speaker must reconcile seemingly irreconcilable perspectives: on the one hand, that of the customers, who view the grandmother’s act as “an affront to American porcelain, /a contamination of American Standards,” and on the other hand, that of the grandmother herself, who, “though she speaks no English, /catches their meaning,” takes offense...

For this reason, when one of the matrons protests the grandmother’s perceived breach of bathroom etiquette, the woman turns immediately to the granddaughter to translate the demand, “Tell her she can’t do that.”

In embracing her in-between status, her vision of the world shifts from being singular to plural.

The women are finally able to “lose” their preconceived notions about one another and emerge together onto “common ground.”

Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states.

On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations.

While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo.

In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence.

Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent—and often even vocal—sanction of things as they are.

It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather "nonviolently" in public.