Recently, I have made mention of the fact that my email has never been more flooded with personal messages than when I posted twice on racial issues. Make that twice in one week. There are too many to count. In fact, I don’t have a count, but I am saving them for when I can read them and then I sit down, uninterrupted, to totally focus on what they have to say. Sometimes, I respond back immediately. Other times, I just take it in. People need to talk, uninterrupted. So, dear readers, be patient with me as I navigate this because it all comes at the worst possible time of year for my job since students come back to school on Monday.
But, this morning, The Cuban (who is not Cuban at all and no matter how often I tell people that they seem to be surprised but it’s a family joke that has just caught with all our friends) sent me an email. We live together so he could have just as easily told me this. This is one way we’re alike: when we write something down it becomes real in the sense that we are making sense of it. It’s how we both explore things and creatively get it out of us. When I wrote that first post and had gotten the bare bones of it out I kept talking about it to him everywhere we went. The market, the store, the bank. Saturday mornings are full and he finally told me that we had to go home so I could finish writing (and possibly so I would shut up about it to him!).
I’m not surprised to see his writing because he has shared that with me since we first met. Every week we write a checklist of 6 things that we commit to in our relationship. Three are for me and three are for him. It’s posted on our refrigerator and we take turns each week writing them out and we know there is something powerful in our list. It’s kind of like marriage vows that we write and keep fresh in our minds except we’re not married and we are perfectly fine with it this way.
This was my first checklist to him. We stack new ones on top of the previous list until the fridge magnet can’t hold them any more. And it’s the only one that either of us felt comfortable sharing with the whole internet.
I’m making no comment on this essay he wrote to me and he agreed that I may share it on my blog, but I offer it as part of the series on racism because this nastiness is, unfortunately, never far away from us.
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I live with a truly incredible woman.
She is a mixed woman. Meaning she has a Black father and a White mother.
Lately, she has stirred up a serious cauldron of crap because she has the unique experience of seeing a lot of things from a multitude of different ways.
The Internet, it seems, has heard her voice and began a much needed discussion about race.
Me? I’m a White Boy with Blue-Eyes and, by all rights that some would grant me, should have the world by its tail.
But you know what? That is so far from the truth. By proxy, being around Kelly, I have started to see things from a different standard than the way I was “brought up”.
I’m not suggesting my parents were racist when I was a kid and I don’t believe they are now, either. If anything, they were the opposite. My father is a minister and taught me that every person is the same in God’s Eyes. His only issue with me being with Kelly is that we aren’t married and, as a minister, his concern is there and not what color Kelly is.
My School didn’t lead me to believe that any one student is better than another simply because of how dark their skin was.
But I was raised as a Midwesterner and the overlaying tones of my up-bringing were that Whites somehow trumped Blacks. There were jokes we all laughed at but my parents would be disappointed to hear those jokes coming from me. Around other friends, there were comments that ended in elbow-in-the-ribs guffaws about racist jokes.
I remember my first few weeks in US Navy Boot Camp. I was in a division of 80 guys. More than half were black. There were 5 individuals who all came to the Navy from an apparently rough part of Philadelphia. They nicknamed themselves the “Philly 5”. I was scared of them because they were mean and tough. They liked to portray this image of being rough and from the ghetto. Since I had very little dealings up to this point in my life with anyone of color, the stereotypical black gangster from the ‘hood that I had seen on television that they personified frightened me. One night as I was standing “Junior Officer Of The Deck” Watch (meaning everyone else was sleeping and I was guarding them against an unseen enemy) (and, by the way, was nicknamed JOOD, pronounced as JUDE which elicited calls of “Hey Jude… don’t make it bad… take a sad song and make it betterererrrr”) I saw one of the Philly 5 crying silently as he looked at a picture of what appeared to be his mom and siblings.
I stopped in my tracks and silently slipped away thinking Wow, he’s just like me.
Fast forward many years later… I pulled into a convenience store at about midnight in a Southern State. I saw a sign on the gas pump that said “PrePay after dark”. It was about midnight and I had already flipped the switch to pump when I noticed the sign. I looked towards the man inside the store and he gave me the “thumbs-up” and the pump started. My car greedily drank in the gas and I walked inside to get some late-night treats. You see, I was traveling with a team of guys and was headed back to a hotel for the evening.
Seconds later, a car pulled in to the pump next to me. The driver did the exact same thing I did. Opened his gas cap, inserted the nozzle, flipped the pump switch and waited for the fuel to begin flowing.
By this time I was inside with a bag of sunflower seeds and a soda and standing at the counter.
The guy behind the counter pressed the “Talk” button on the intercom to the pumps and said “Sir, you will have to PrePay before you can pump gas.”
What the guy didn’t realize was that the driver of the 2nd car and I had left work at the same time. I had gotten there only moments before my Second-In-Command of our team, Brian, had arrived. Brian and his friends, my teammates, were black. And this prick behind the counter was going to force Brian to come into the store and pay before pumping gas even though only moments… moments before had let me start pumping while I perused the candy aisle without so much as showing an ID.
I remember being embarrassed because the guys I worked with 12 to 14 hours a day and the guys who, quite honestly, made my paycheck for me were so rudely treated that I got a lump in my throat and couldn’t even stand up for them the way I should have.
That day made me realize that people are treated differently. Call it what you want; upbringing, culture, racism… But I knew I wanted no part in it from then on.
I wish, I truly wish, it had ended there a few years ago.
But, at work, just yesterday I was dealing with a man who quickly informed me he was 71 years old. He and I quickly built a rapport and were actually enjoying doing business with each other when I noticed that he was driving a Toyota Avalon. I commented on how nice a car he had and he began to tell me the story about how he had come to be driving that particular car. He had dealt with many Toyota Dealers until he had talked to our local dealer. This particular dealer is a friend of mine who is an extraordinary man and who happens to be Black. When I realized who he had bought his car from I said “Oh, wow! He’s a great guy!”
The older gentleman said this, and I quote, “Yeah. He’s fine… for a Black. I like ’em… but I’d rather own ’em.”
I am not making that up.
The worst part is this… it caught me so off guard that I didn’t respond. I didn’t check him. I didn’t put him on point. I just stood there. Flabbergasted…
In light of all that Kelly and her commenters have been talking about in the last week, I just stood there.
I am ashamed of myself for that. I know Kelly wouldn’t have been struck dumb. She would have had a response. But, not me. I just took it silently…
I walked away from the encounter very humbled. I tell myself I am open-minded and accepting. I am not racist. I am not bigoted. I live with a Black woman for God’s sake! I… I have a handle on this issue.
But I let a person walk away from me with his own integrity in place after trampling all over my own.
{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
Sometimes, that’s all you can do (i.e. “do nothing”) because your brain can’t wrap itself around the fact that people REALLY live this way…and they’re proud of themselves.
I’ve had people – friends even – say the most racist mess to me or around me, and because of what was said all I can do is respond with really nervous laughter. Once I am alone, however, I either cry or royally beat myself up because as a Black woman, I didn’t start beating people up or get indignant.
I have learned throughout my (short) life that people’s overall general actions speak better than their words. I had to learn the difference between being the token black friend and being a genuine friend. I had to learn (and deal with) the difference between being hired for my skills or because they didn’t have enough Black females in the division. I had to learn that doing nothing when people act crazy (whether it’s racially related or not) doesn’t make me a bad person….it makes me human.
I don’t know whether I would have been able to shut up around the old dude though. I may have had to trip him on his way out or something.
He’s right. We white folks are bestowed with that invisible backpack of white privilege early and often; it’s insidious and we often don’t even know it’s there. It’s what we call “normal.” It takes a conscious decision to take it off and to stand with our brothers and sisters who do not live in a world in which pre-pay after dark is unknown, shopping without being monitored is practically a right, and innate intelligence is assumed.
We must plan ahead, rehearse responses to various types of racist statements, and learn to navigate the world differently. It’s hard to do because we are forced to see the truth the cozy, little, Kool-Aid-colored world in which we were raised. But we must do it.
I don’t comment often. But this piece made me cry. I know that feeling.
I know I should say something/do something in those instances. What I don’t know is what that something is.
That’s the part of the conversation I’d love to see/hear/be part of.
When I was in Chicago in July during the NEA’s Representative Assembly (RA), I was witness to something completely unbelievable to me. On the one hand I believe I handled one part very well, but on the other, I should have done more. I’ll explain below.
We are at the McCormack center (a huge convention center for those not familiar with Chicago) and on one level, there is a McDonald’s. The NEA-RA is an assembly of almost 10,000 educators who come together once a year to decide on NEA policy. The McDonald’s was very busy most of the time with lines running out of the door.
The job of one of the employees was to have the line break into two smaller lines as it snaked its way inside of McDonald’s. A white man (I won’t entertain the term gentleman) was about two people in front of me. The person right in front of me was an African American woman.
The white man was not paying attention and thus, missed the directive from the employee to start the break in the line. Both the woman and I heard the directive, waited for a minute or so, and the African American woman went to go into the other line.
The white man saw this and started into a tirade on the African American woman, accusing her of cutting in the line. She apologized and went to stand back in front of me.
The man continued & when the woman in front me responded, very politely, she told him that she was not trying to cause any problems & that it was obvious that he was more hungry than she was.
He then uttered a phrase that I honestly thought I would never hear in this day & age. He told her, “not to get uppity with him.”
Seriously, I had to look around & check & make sure I was still in the 21st century.
He turned around at that point & the line had moved enough so that he could place his order.
I remember thinking to myself, I, as a white woman, need to go say something to that ignorant son of a bitch. Instead, I placed my hand on the woman in front of me and I apologized to her. I also said, “y’know, you just can’t fix stupid.”
We both laughed & I stood solidly next to her as we waited for our order.
However, I truly wish that I would have given that man a piece of my mind. That is what I regret.
How heartbreaking that this still happens in 2011. Those of you who read this may laugh at my naïveté; I so desperately want to perpetuate the land of happy and multiculturalism and let’s all be friends and have drinks but I don’t see the world as so many others do, and (obviously) I don’t have these same experiences. I live with blinders on, fat, dumb, and happy and now, ashamed. Someone please tell me how not to raise my girls to turn into these fucktards? How can I strengthen my courage of conviction to stand up against this bullshit?
This is so powerful. And I think it’s a good illustration of how white people can be allies (in light of the question of whether white people talking about race means they are swooping in on someone else’s narrative). I think this is what we can do . . . share our own stories. Talk about the ugly and the TRUTH that we want to brush under the rug and deny.
I’m loving the conversation you are prodding, Kelly!
Wow.
You know, you really can’t fix stupid. There really are people out there who assume that skin color somehow impacts a person’s abilities, intelligence, and worth. And these truths, more than most, make me want to rip a sapling from the earth and lay about me until I’ve smashed all the morons and given the human race a slightly better chance at not destroying itself.
Like Kelly, I’m “mixed.” In my case, the mix is half Scottish “hilljack” and half Mexi-Spaniard. I like to say I’m “Hickspanic.” I travel in a world where, depending on the composition of the crowd with which I’m mingling, I’m “that swarthy white girl,” “Hawaiian,” “Injun,” “Kinda olivey, maybe Italian, what are you?” or, (gods of sea and sky help me) “from onna them islands, right?”
Yet often I notice that my white friends (whom I love dearly) often take the time to emphasize my “whiteness.” “Well, your MOM is Mexican, but, I mean, you grew up in Ohio,” I had a friend tell me once. “You’re WHITE.” She said this in a very earnest tone of voice, gripping my forearm in the way Markie Post might grip the forearm of a friend in a Lifetime® – Television for Idiots™ movie with a name like “Mother, May I Sleep with Peligro? The Claire Jackson Story.”
She’s my friend, but I told her she was full of mierda. Which I then translated for her benefit.
People who do this sort of thing seem to be saying, “Hey, it’s okay, we know you’re REALLY one of US. Stop holding onto that sombrero and those weird candy skulls that creep everyone out and put on this shirt I got on sale at American Apparel!”
I love them, but sometimes I want to grab them and say, “Not so very long ago, my people would’ve fed your heart to my angry sun god for such insolence.”
When they do this, when they deny me my heritage, and my race, and the TRUTH of who I am, it’s almost as bad as the idiots who always told me they wanted things “SPIC and span” when I worked for them as a lowly cleaner, or the people who, overhearing me speaking Spanish into the phone, pull away or give me a look that says, “I am reevaluating both our relationship and the possibility that you have a knife secreted on your person.” They’re the weird inverse of the people who called me “The Big Scary Mexican” when I was a kid (people who were often friends with my fairer sisters, who were, in turn, in no hurry to inform them that we were siblings, lest they get kicked out of Snooty McRacist’s Happytime White Power Club).
Hell, they could be members of my own family.
But my larger point is, racism remains not only relevant, but rampant. For every awesome person like the Cuban or the commenters here, there’s a gaggle of tiny-brained thugs actively spreading hate and nincompoopery because they can’t see past their own fear/hate/discomfort/curiosity – in EITHER direction.
So, I just want to say, “Thank you!” to both Kelly and the Cuban, for keeping this discussion fresh and lively. It’s an uphill battle, but if enough of us keep working to combat this sort of nonsense – if we speak up, or reach out to people we see victimized, or (and, really, this is just a suggestion) feed the beating hearts of those who oppose us to the fiery smoking mirror that is Tezcatlipoca, we will win the day.
Ha! Too funny! “I am reevaluating both our relationship and the possibility that you have a knife secreted on your person” is the funniest thing I’ve read today. LOL!
Tee-hee! Thanks!
The sad part? Chances are, I DO have a knife. But I’m not telling THEM that.
I could not love your attitude enough. I need to call on my own bloodthirsty ancestors at moments like that! Whether that means calling on mighty Thor to smite them, setting off a car bomb, or just out-drinking them, I can’t decide right now, but the power of our foreparents is an awesome and mighty thing.
Yes! I love it! Embracing one’s foreparents as a source of power is indeed the way to go. Personally, I’d go with the Thor route, if only to see the look on the racist’s face when they realize Wagner wasn’t the official spokesperson for the Norse pantheon.
Kelly, you have clearly found a good, good, man. His thoughtfulness is just lovely and I’m so sorry had a dumbstruck moment when confronted with the ugly. It’s so hard to shake off the surprise and react in time.
In those kind of situations, I usually find myself coming up with the absolutely perfect thing to say – about 1/2 an hour after it would do any good. I’ve figured out a generic: “I’m sorry, but it’s just not OK to say that, that is really offensive and harmful.” when I am too shocked by someone’s racism and my stomach is turning over and I can’t come up with something else that would be more witty or stinging or specific. Wish I didn’t need to be fore-armed against racism (& sexism & anti-semitism & homophobia & able-ism &…) but this is the world we still live in. Sigh.
When I told my grandmother (who just turned 90) that we were adopting from Ethiopia (5+ years ago), she said to me “so they’ll be black?” I was prepared for this comment as my grandfather has been extremely racist and to be honest–my mom was also a bit racist when I was growing up. I remember her using the “n” word quite often and it always made me super uncomfortable.
My mom and grandmother have been nothing short of amazing with my kids and I think for so many people, you have to get to know people who fit a particular stereotype in order to really know how destructive and based in zero fact stereotypes are.
Just this weekend we were at my grandmother’s 90th birthday party and one of my Uncles’ sisters’ husbands–who is an asshole on top of being a bigot–said he was a new republican and that he had been a life-long democrat until the democrats elected a “n” word. (I can’t even type the word–I just cannot–its a word I don’t say). He said something along the lines of how he’d vote for Hitler before an “n”.
I wasn’t there when he said it–I was entertaining my black children and it’s a good thing I didn’t–because I would have hit him, no doubt. My mom told him to shut the fuck up and if he wanted to talk like that he had to leave–she didn’t care who he was. I am still sick to my stomach over this.
It just blows my mine how systemic this racist ideology is. I see it in teachers who continue to expect less of their kids or make excuses for them because of the color of their skin–and refuse to hold them to the same high standards they would others.
Thank you both for the conversation. I am hoping as my amazing children grow, we move to a place beyond tolerance to understanding and acceptance.
TC, thanks for sharing this.
I strive to speak up on such (fortunately rare) occasions, whether it’s racism or homophobia or use of the R word. It takes presence of mind and courage that I don’t always have at the ready, even just to break into another person’s train of speech and gently say, “That makes me very uncomfortable.”
“Click” moments are everywhere. You just have to recognize them when they happen.
I am from Southern California and have never heard that type of talk–of course I don’t talk much to 70-year old men. I am a person who speaks out, so I am sure of what I would do–that is such a totally vile thing to say; I cannot imagine hearing it.
I thank you for telling this story because it is reminding people that may not see overt racism in their own neighborhoods about what is still happening and that we are nowhere near a “post-racial” society.
I am STUPEFIED!
I think I would have assumed the 71 yr. old was talking about owning the car. My brain couldn’t begin to comprehend what he was saying.
I catch myself thinking generalizing thoughts about others and am frustrated I can be so ignorant at times.
Awareness comes first on the journey to tolerance – tolerance of others and self.
When I first stepped foot in the States in June of 1996, I was stunned that the Mississippi Burning mindset wasn’t gone and done with. I saw glimpses of it everywhere and was truly amazed.
In my own experiences here as an immigrant, I am still truly saddened by the way I was treated differently in the USCIS offices. Everyone is in there, lined up on plastic chairs like cattle. It is a grim place. Even when they changed it in 2002 and you could walk in with an appointment, it was harsh. Metal detectors, officers with guns, TB posters everywhere and a rank smell with doom in the air. No one looking anyone else in the eye. People standing were ordered to sit somewhere, anywhere.
Every time I was called on (and of course my name was butchered), the demeanour changed in them and I was very obviously treated differently, just because of the colour of my skin. I felt ashamed for those who were not treated the same: the curt tones, precise words and demanding looks. But interestingly, I was even looked upon differently by those of S. American decent. I felt trapped, somewhere in the middle.
It’s a sad day (in 2011) when you have to come prepared with an answer. It shouldn’t have to be that way. Admittedly, I have to catch myself from staring at black men, but my stare isn’t racist-based…it’s more of a “well hello!” ogle. Hahaha!
I think part of the difficulty in standing up to situations like these is that they come so unexpectedly, and each one is so unique. I had a woman at the grocery store fawn over my then-infant daughter and then ask, “So, is she a crack baby?” It was out of left field and I was speechless. I literally turned my back to her and walked away. Other times, though, I just say something, anything, to let them know that what they just said was not OK, that just because we’re both white, we do not play for the same team.
It takes practice. Sometimes we do better than others. I’d put money on next time, that you’ll do better.
In solidarity.
~a
Oh, you, the not Cuban — Bossy loves you and loves how you Get It. Also betting that having wrote this down somehow solidified something that won’t stand silence next time. XO
That’s my problem. I am just so astonished they would even think that was ok to say, I don’t know what to say.. I’m one of those that thinks of something witty and stinging an hour or more AFTER the person is gone!lol I know many of you have been hit with it all your lives, but some of us haven’t. I was raised by a father from NOLA, who decided, as a kid, that being racist was stupid, and unscientific (he’s an engineer), and unchristian, so he raised us that there was absolutely no difference in races. He has welcomed my friends and boyfriends no matter the color.. and my son in law is his current favorite, with his cornrows and tats.. (he’s a former california gang member). So… what is there to say?? They’re not going to change, and I’m not fast enough to zing them.. what can you say to an idiot? I’m seriously asking, so when I see these things, I have something practiced!!
I hate that “too flabberghasted to even address it” moment, and it seems like I have way too many of them! I mean, we’ve all experienced those “thought of the perfect response way too late” moments, but when I come face to face with racist garbage, it’s multiplied by a thousand. I just kind of gape at the offender with my mind racing:
“Um … wow.”
-oh, great, racist B.S., and I thought this person and I could be friends
-did they even just say that? maybe I misunderstood
-how dare they think I would agree just because I’m white too; we are NOT on the same team!
-who even just comes out and SAYS stupid stuff like that? Who even thinks that way?
-say something! think! THINK!
-should I try to deflect it with a joke that makes my feelings clear, or blast him?
-how DARE they think I would AGREE … ARGH!!
-I can’t believe people still think about race that way!
- #&%$^@*(&(!@*#&!!
-oh man, why couldn’t I have calmly said how disgusting that kind of thinking is? the moment, it is passing!
-etc etc for like the next week.
It’s maddening! Why it always catches me flat-footed and astounded is probably the astounding part. You’d think the high school teacher who used The Word in the classroom would have prepared me for a lifetime of disappointment in people! I need a script.
P.S. Love your notes!! So adorable.
I can relate to what he says. I think a lot of times when someone says something so inappropriate; I’m dumbstruck.
As a white girl, I’m just not prepared to hear or respond to such things so I usually don’t say anything.
However, also as a nice girl I’ve been in the same situation with a friend who is such a butthat to service people that I’m dumbstruck and don’t say anything.
It happens, you just have to try your best to have words next time.
I’m sitting here shaking my head over the thought that people still SAY such things. OUT LOUD. I suppose its naive of me to assume that such blatant racism no longer exists. I am not sure I’d know what to say to such a comment either. Like Varda, and like the not Cuban and others, likely an answer would come to me much to late and I’d miss the opportunity. So I suppose I will begin practicing responses to such things and use them at every opportunity.
I love your promise stickies.
A friend was president of the African Student Organization at the University of Pittsburgh. He paid for two to participate at a Black Leadership conference at Harvard. The other student backed out at the last minute and I ended up driving with him to the conference even though I was neither a student nor Black. I was one of only a handful of white people in the full room with a name tag with an Ethiopian name I couldn’t pronounce around my neck. When we were invited to take lunch from the buffet I stepped right in line. Missing my friend, after the lunch talks I went outside to look for him. He had been pulled out of the line because apparently what admission he’d paid for didn’t include lunch. Nobody told me, the white guy.
“That kind of racism” Mocha Momma writes about in “This Is Not Really About Cake” is so tricky. I’m not a racist, so I keep feeling that racism is something out there and not in me. So I get so defensive when discover I’m doing “that kind of racism” meaning doing stuff that disadvantages people of color. White supremacy is such nonsense that it’s shocking when it rears its ugly head. But professional relationships, relationships in general, are complicated enough even not taking race into account. Still problems arise from not taking race into account and I’m trying to learn to be a little less defensive so I can face the real, even if small, stuff.
It would be great if white people could talk more with other white people about race. To say stuff like: “Here’s what I’m doing and why, but dang it I’ve discovered what I’m doing is disadvantaging my Black colleague. What do you do?” So many white people like me are so defensive about being called out as racists, we’re not using our intelligence and creativity to solve everyday problems. I’d like to get over myself.
Race was not talked about in my home as a child. We were taught to treat others as we would want to be treated, to be kind and respectful. My parents (hardly) ever swore in our home and when we’d visit family in Southern MS, my parents would tell us that no matter what my relatives said “we do not speak that way about people of color”. Those were my mom’s words.
Now, after all these years that same woman has taken to occasionally dropping the n word. The first time she said it in front of me I was so shocked I could say anything. The second time, I cringed. The third time, I put my foot down. I told her that she raised us to believe that kind of behavior was unacceptable. It is unacceptable. She doesn’t say it (around me) any more.
Its hard to have the courage to say anything. I’m getting there, but mostly because I’m fed up. I’m fed up with mean and hate and anger for no reason other than someone is different.