Bughawk
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With the election of our first biracial president there has been a lot of talk about race and racism. It was inevitable and in some senses hopefully will lead to some better understanding between people of all races.
I want to tell you two stories that have marked key turning points in my life when it comes to my understanding of racism. The first came many years ago soon after I had taken my current job. There was an African American man working in my department that I quickly became friends with. We both had grown up in the south, and even for a period of time lived in the same area. He was quite a bit older than me, married and had two children. Over a period of time of talking and swapping stories I thought we were good friends, good enough friends that race was not an issue in our relationship. I was wrong.
One day I said something in passing about stepping and fetching, which I felt was innocuous. My friend’s demeanor changed completely and he asked me to step into his office. When I did he told me in no uncertain terms he found my comment to be racist and offensive and did not appreciate it. I was taken aback because I thought we were friends and I could kid around with him. We were friends, but there were some things that were not funny to him.
He went on to tell me about how he had to deal with racism all of his life. Growing up in North Carolina in the 1940’s and 50’s, living with segregation. How he dealt with racism in the army while he trained to become a paratrooper. How he had to confront racism when he entered college and graduate school and even was told he was pretty smart even if he was a n$^^#r. How when he arrived in our town and one morning looked out of his bedroom window and saw a dead raccoon hanging from a tree by a roped tied in a hangman’s noose. How he had been confronted by a man in the local supermarket who told him to keep his n$^^#r kids away from his kids. When he told the man his son was an infant, there was no apology, just a comment about how the man had gotten the wrong n$^^#r. Here was a man who had served his country in the army, gone to college and graduate school and earned not only a BS, but also an MS and Ph.D. A man was a good citizen, a father and a role model for many people, who still felt the sting of a racist comment.
What I learned from that time I spent with my friend, and I should say we are still very dear friends to this day, was our experiences shape us and that each of us has a different sensitivity for the things that we find to be offensive and harmful. I realized that even when we know someone well, we don’t know them as well as we thought and to take liberties with our relationship is not a good thing to do.
The second story was one my mom told me. She moved about 8 years ago into a new house. It is a very nice upper middle class neighborhood in a town in southeastern Virginia. Her immediate neighbors are African American; very nice people who had grown up in the area, but had lived in the north for many years. They had returned to the area because they wanted to be close to family and friends. After a few weeks, mom had become friends with her neighbors and enjoyed their company.
One day mom was planning on going out of town for a few weeks, so she wanted someone to come in and water her plants and just check the house over while she was gone. Naturally she went next door to the neighbor’s house to ask the neighbor lady if she would be willing to watch the house and water the plants. Mom had a key for her and information about where she was going, how to contact her in case of an emergency and when she would return. When she asked the neighbor lady if she would not mind helping her out, the reaction my mom got was quite surprising to her. Basically the lady was shocked that a white person would trust her with the key to her house and felt comfortable enough with a “Black” person having that responsibility. After some conversation, my mom came to realize this was one of the first times in this woman’s life where this lady had interacted with a white person in such away that race was not part of the relationship.
The point of that story is that racism is not limited to white people. My mother’s neighbor had a difficult time with a white person trusting her and seeing her as an equal and a neighbor and even more as a true friend. BTW – 8 years on my mom and her neighbors are very close friends.
Why go through all of this you ask? Racism is not a simple thing we can just describe with a few words or phrases. It is a deep seated set of emotions, beliefs and worldviews that develop in all of us as the result of our experiences. What one person may find as a joke and harmless can evoke visceral negative feelings in another. We all do not see the world the same way, nor do we all have the benefit of knowing how others do. Even when we think we understand another person, we will find out we only have begun to truly know them.
It is my hope that as all the members of this online community come to know one another better in our posts we will be sensitive to the fact what we say and how we say it matters. Also, when we offend each other, it is my hope we will have the ability to forgive and allow ourselves to be forgiven. Positive relationships need work, a lot of forgiveness, sensitivity and a time to grow, but if you allow them to grow, they are more valuable than gold.
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pax vobiscum +
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