Anecdote on Racism

"Have you ever experienced racism?"

This has always been a hard question for me to answer because I can't recall a time where someone got directly into my face and proceeded to tear me down with racial bigotry. I was born in Virginia in probably the whitest city in that state. I lived in a house on a hill/mountain somewhere where my closest neighbors' house was across the street and hidden behind tall trees. The first elementary school I attended was mostly (if not all) white and I remember being really nervous on my first day. Not because I thought they were going to hate me because of the color of my skin. I was nervous because I thought nobody would like me because I was too quiet or not fun enough. At that time, I wasn't thinking about race at all. Yes, I knew the color of my skin was different from theirs, but that's it. No racial connotation clouded my thoughts.

Why yes, I hated naps, too. (Now? Not so much...)

Fast forward to Texas. I'm in first grade at a school where the school body is more diverse: white, latino and black students littered the halls and could be found in my classroom. I had a male teacher that was absolutely great. He passed out candy to all the students who participated and did well in his class. I can't recall if it was the first or second day of his class, but I get called up to the front of the class and handed a yard stick. I'm asked to read a sentence off of a giant notepad (just like all of the other students). I read the sentence and hand the yard stick back to my teacher. As soon as I'm done, ooohs and ahhhs came from the mouths of my peers and my teacher was just AMAZED. Why? Because I read the sentence quickly with no problem at all. The students before me read the words slower and took longer to pronounce the words correctly. I got loads of candy that day for reading a sentence. Looking back, I was proud of myself because either Virginia has a faster learning rate or all the reading I did when I was younger really paid off. I never really considered that maybe all the fuss I had received from reading a sentence was because a young black girl knew how to read so well. I had a white teacher and he taught a class of urban kids, so maybe I was his first black pupil that seemed to catch on so well. Who knows? That's a question I won't ever have the answer to.

No matter who it's coming from.

Fast forward to adolescence. I went to a middle school in a suburb populated mostly by blacks and latinos. This is when I first heard one of my black peers call another of my black peers a 'nigga'. I knew this word from my history courses, but I never thought that I would actually witness a black person saying this to another black person. But it happened and it hasn't stopped. I loathe that word. I was a pretty quiet girl, but I made sure to let everyone know that if they were going to bother calling me that word, then they didn't need to speak to me at all. Resentment began to grow in my heart for my own race (for the first time ever) because how DARE they take a word that was used to subjugate, demean and terrorize our ancestors not even 200 years ago and try and flip it into a word of camaraderie. Screw that. This isn't a word we should try or WANT to 'reclaim.' It should've been a word that got buried in the English dictionary after the Civil War was won. We didn't HAVE to keep that word, a word that originally was used to describe an ignorant person. So when you're 'reclaiming' that word, what you're really doing is calling your friend, brother, sister ignorant. So I don't care what color you are, you call me 'nigger/nigga' and it's over.


Fast forward to high school. I was back at a prestigious public school where I was studying Business Management. My schedule was too busy for any extracurriculars (even though the school didn't have sports, so it didn't really matter), so I went home every night. Sometimes, I would even ride out with my mom to her job. I have a mother who has always worked industrial jobs. She didn't go to college, but she wants to take classes someday. At these jobs, she had to work with people from very different backgrounds. I love my mother and I understand the life she's had to lead, so at one time I didn't care about my mother's prejudice against Latino workers. I used to be one of 'those' that thought illegal immigrants shouldn't be allowed to cross the border (please remember I was living in Texas at this time). They were 'stealing' away the jobs my mom tried so hard to find, so my mother's enemy was my own enemy. My mother (after working with them for years) thought Latinos were lazy and didn't really come to work to actually work. She said she saw them steal, lie and 'gang up' on people who didn't look like them or speak their language. For a time, I believed her. But then I was revisited by words from Dr. King and Malcolm X and I realized that I was being prejudice against a group of people all because my mother worked with certain individuals that weren't exactly agreeable. I realized I was being racist against Latinos and that knowledge hit me HARD. Why was I doing that? I was doing to Latinos what Americans did to my ancestors decades ago. I wasn't any better and I was ignorant, and I LOATHE ignorance. From listening to my mother I realized my mistakes and I haven't done it since. I can only hope that my mom will recognize her mistakes and prejudices as well.

This is NOT what I meant.

Fast forward to present day. As I said in the beginning, I can't really say if I've ever had racism directed towards me. Indirectly? Maybe, but I've been blind to it. Something my mother always got on me about when I was younger was looking down while I walked. I didn't see the problem. I could see the ground below me, so I wouldn't have to worry about ever tripping. That's a good thing, right? Of course, up until you run into that wall that wasn't there before because you refused to look up. Was my downcast gaze a learned behavior? Maybe. I didn't like looking into people's eyes. Besides pleasantries, I was silent whenever I met someone new and to this day, I pitch my voice two octaves higher when speaking to someone I don't really know. I'm short, I look four years younger than I really am (someone just remarked I look like I was 16 a few days ago). Add all of this up, and what do you have? A very submissive person. No, a very submissive black woman. Somehow throughout my years, I conditioned myself to be/appear nonthreatening. That's why I've never been in a fight or had a run-in with the police. How did I get this way? Learning? Listening to my mom? Always being polite to my elders? All of these ethics instilled in me created a woman that elicits no 'danger'. Even when I walk around in stores, I have yet to feel that haunting presence of someone keeping an eye on me, watching my every move. Maybe I'm oblivious to their antics (my mom certainly isn't. She always calls them out when we go shopping together). Or maybe I just refuse to believe that someone would be racist against me. Me? Little ole' me who'd never hurt a fly? Why, that just can't BE! But then I realize that 'Ignorance is bliss', so I better start paying attention before someone calls me 'ignorant', or worse, 'nigger'. After all, they mean the same thing, right?

These categories won't solve anything, people.

The issue of racism continues to rear its ugly head in this country, but we get people on being 'politically correct' so much that the issue is never officially addressed. That is why Trayvon Martin is such an important topic, why people can't seem to stop talking about him. We can't stop because we won't. Same goes for people who'd prefer to be called Black Americans than African Americans (last I checked, I wasn't born in an African country and given American citizenship. I'm American, born and raised, and I just so happen to be black). It's 2013 and the time is now to truly figure out what to do about this problem that is more evident in these United States than probably any other country. Why? Because this country was born, built and raised on racism. Racism is so ingrained into the fabric of this Union that I wouldn't be surprised if the whole quilt fell apart if we tried to extract it. But that's okay, because we can sew it back together with what SHOULD be the backbone of this nation: Love and acceptance.