Race- An Overdue Topic
Everyone Agreed We Weren’t Racists
I do remember distinctly and out loud that my family weren’t racists. I was actually quite proud of that becauseI have always been in love with human diversity.
We were not racists. We did not come from people who owned slaves. Our family were not members of any supremacist organizations. We watched The Cosby Show and we listened to Charley Pride. We were clearly not racists.
It was truly a relief.
It was such a relief that I accepted so many racial microaggressions, and as long as it fell short of burning a cross on somebody’s lawn, we could pat ourselves on the back and call ourselves good guys.tr54
I’m so white actually that we’re twenty posts deep in this series, and I’m just now bringing it up.
Race in my grandparents’ house
When I was growing up, everyone I encountered looked an awful lot like me. On the rare occasion that we would run into someone of color in the grocery store we would just keep a wide berth and Grandma would clutch me a little closer (all while reciting how we weren’t racists).
When I was little, I remember that a black family moved in down the street and they had a little girl about my age. I was so excited when I first heard my family bring them up.
I asked if I could play with her, and I was just told that it “wouldn’t be a good idea.” We never had a playdate.
My family got into a feud with the Hispanic family down the street. For not being racists, my family sure had some unsavory beliefs about “those people.”
When Grandma was performing how not racist she was she loved to point out that when she had worked at IBM she worked with black women, so she couldn’t be racist. It wasn’t her fault that there was so much wrong with them. She loved to sneer as she described how everything they did was wrong and how magnanimous she had been to work alongside them anyway.
Whenever they showed interested in anything outside of American borders, negative assessments were attributed to nonwhite populations.
Mom
If you had asked Mom, she would have told you that Grandma and Grandpa were racists but that she wasn’t. She had even had a Hispanic boyfriend once. She was less racist than my grandparents, but she also made sure that we knew that it would be an issue if we dated outside our race. She discouraged friendships outside of our race. She did not put us into diverse groups.
Mom was fascinated by people though. She had learned 3 language other than English in High School. She wanted to become a linguist. You could tell that she never stopped grieving that dream.
Mom loved PBS and we watched a lot of ethnographies, and she had a distinct love of Native Americans. Even my grandparents would admit that Native Americans got screwed. That love was not strong enough for her to choose them over her high school mascot though.
We loved watching Dances with Wolves, and you could tell a deep part of her wished she had been in that world. Me too. I loved they way they treated each other, the sense they made of the world, and how they transformed John Dunbar into someone of substance. The language of the movie (which has its own issues) was so beautiful and I wanted so badly to make the Sioux words.
She read the Clan of the Cave Bear series and devoured any books like them.
Rodney King
I can remember being so confused when the Rodney King beating happened, because I had been taught my whole life that we weren’t racists, but my family never- not for a single second- considered that police brutality is a constant threat against people of color.
My family listed off reasons that the man being brutalized by four other men was wrong. They made so many assumptions and assertions that were based on nothing more than the white devaluation of minorities.
I was appalled, and it was also incredibly apparent that I was not allowed to dissent. Taking his side only ignited a flurry of reasons that he did not matter. They were not horrified that this force was used against an American citizen.
OJ Simpson
I was in high school when OJ Simpson was on trial. It was the focus of the news absolutely every day. I learned so much about what my family believed. They believed that it was fine that the police did not follow procedure and absolutely did violate his rights. My family would have been livid if any of those rights had been overlooked for someone they considered a full citizen.
I still feel the trial was more about the interaction between race and money than the truth.
Anthropology
I was lucky enough to have a high school with a social science program. I took Psychology first, and realized that my thirst for understanding people had just been ignited.
In anthropology, I feel absolutely in love with each culture presented to me. I loved the diversity. I loved that there were other explanations for this world than the ones I had been given. If those explanations made just as much sense to them, and our explanations meant to those around me, then maybe our way wasn’t right. At the very least it wasn’t the ONLY right answer and that was enough for me.
I’m certain that early on I fetishized the exotic, but I was as infatuated in what it freed in me as I was in the people I learned about.
Not racist is not enough
I have set out, quite on purpose, to make my children antiracist. It is not sufficient to say we aren’t racists while we fail to oppose systems of oppression. It is not ok to stay silent while accepting privileges that aren’t extended to everyone. We fight to make sure everyone gets a seat at the table. We look to understand the colonial processes that have lead to where we are now. We study history, and face it’s ugly truths.
Even with all of this, I understand that I am still racist. I understand that because of how privilege works, it can be unseen by those who benefit from it. I know that racism pervades our speech, and our public spaces. I will work my entire life to do better, to know better, and to be better.
Better requires our honesty about who we are.
Even being in love with other cultures, it was still a very long road from growing up racist to today.
When I was in high school I became a repository for jokes, and had pretty good delivery. I discovered that my ability to tell jokes frequently elevated me in public situations. I stopped being a target once people started laughing and that might be the only reason I was never doused in pig’s blood.
I can still remember many of the jokes I told back then. I remember people bringing others to me, to have me tell these jokes to their friends. It gave me so much social capital.
Today, I would be ashamed to repeat these jokes in front of my kids, and I repeated them for years not only derived a sense of self-worth from them, but this was also how I got people to like me. Writing about it now is like being punched in the gut.
I sincerely apologize to anyone I have hurt through my racist behavior over the years. It may be understandable, but it is still inexcusable, and I am sorry.
Survivor Literacy 
What do you think?