Ozark Xenophobia

(Xenophobia: fear of the stranger, the foreigner, or the outsider)

This Ozark Boy did a shameful thing, He grew by the knowledge of what he did.

One of my classmates at Twin Springs (my rural one-room school) lost his pocketknife. He claimed that it had been stolen, and his suspicion came to rest upon a boy who had recently enrolled. It took almost no persuading for all of us to “know” that the new boy was the thief. After all, we didn’t know him, and he spoke with what we considered a city accent. We weren’t intending him physical harm, but the truth is that we had become a sort of juvenile “lynch mob.”

We took our accusations to Mr. Inman, a man I consider to be one of the two best teachers I was privileged to have. He listened. Then he calmly, but firmly, told us what a great injustice we were committing. “Accusing someone of being a thief when you have no proof is wrong and mean,” he said. “I don’t want to hear that again.”

I don’t know what happened to that knife, but that boy (whose name I can’t remember) almost certainly didn’t steal it. It was more than likely just lost. To this day, I see our schoolboy actions as emblematic of all-too-inclined-to-evil human nature. I hope that boy never discovered what we did. I still feel shame for my part in it. And now I know this: what we were doing was a lot worse than swiping a knife.

Mr. Inman taught me that.