Live, grow, learn, love. Life is a journey.
It was not apparent to me that I was racist for a long time. I grew up a rural Yankee. I certainly had prejudices but the racial ones were of little concern. I was 16 before I saw a black person in person. Our totally white school district hired a black high school football coach who had two children who went to school at the same time I was in High School.
I was more prejudiced against southern whites than I was against blacks. To me a southern drawl was proof of ignorance and racism. There was a bit of bigotry in my home town but it was Scottish/English Protestants vs. French Catholics.
Can you guess what U.S. states might have had such a conflict. We had no blacks, Asians or Hispanics to be prejudiced about. We did have some proud mixed race white/native Americans but they were respected not reviled. We used to love to go to the Indian Store and a lot of things were given fake Indian names.
When I turned 18 I left that bubble and moved to Florida and lived in a dorm room across the hall from a Cracker who had the Confederate Battle Flag on his wall and was three doors down from a guy from Brooklyn who tried to look like John Shaft. Cracker and I did not hit is off. It is hard for a Southern Drawl and a Down East Yankee to effectively communicate. You see in that land I was a Damn Yankee.
My first racist thoughts about black people were sympathetic. I felt bad for those southern black people, they had their own school in that city, Bethune-Cookman but they mostly lived in the poor section of town. This was before I learned of Redlining.
I am far from color blind. At first it was hair and eye color. My mother always said my eyes were hazel not brown and her and my sister's hair would lighten to light brown in the summer sun. We had three red haired Scottish boys on my high school soccer team. Scottish, joke, their ancestors moved to this continent before there was a USA (my paternal grandmother was from Nova Scotia).
My latest prejudice is Asians. I try to puzzle out the Japanese from the Koreans and the mish mash of Chinese. Where I work we have a lot of Vietnamese but maybe they are Hmong.
College was a trip. Taking a Chemistry lecture from a very dark skinned man from Rhodesia (who spoke like British Royalty) or an Aeronautics class led by someone who looked like Gandhi with mostly white southern boys, with a lone girl, one or two black students and a few Iranians and Yankees. I think the Iranian revolution was during my Junior year.
Mostly I try not be be prejudice and try not to discriminate. I value diversity, I revel in diversity, I find differences intriguing.
I am not a very good ally to the oppressed or disadvantaged. I might lend a hand but I mostly try to stay out of the way. Few attempted good deeds go unpunished. The oppressed and disadvantaged will need to fight their own battles.
I know that I am hugely privileged and with that comes some responsibility but I get to choose how I fulfill the responsibility.
TEK
