With the media and bloggers focus on Don Imus and his statements to the Rutgers female basket ball team. It has got me thinking about my own feelings about racism and sexism as well. I was born and for the most part raised in the south. And I didn’t even know what racism was until I was a teenager. Not really surprising when you consider that between the ages of 3 and 12 I never even saw someone who wasn’t white. I was in the Methodist Children's Home in Jackson, MS from 1967 to 1976. I can only assume that because it was a private religious institution they were not required to take children of color. Of course this was the south in the late 60’s to early 70’s so even if they were required or not they could have simply refused to accept any one other than Caucasians.
At any rate in 1976 I was reunited with my mother and we moved to Athens, GA. That’s were I meet Anthony and we quickly became friends. Some of my fondest memories are playing with Anthony in the fields behind the apartment where I lived. Not to mention going over to his house for dinner. Man could his mom cook. Eventually we moved to San Jose, CA and I lost touch with Anthony. To be honest I was an odd and sickly kid and I never really fit in. I was somewhat relieved that we moved to Mississippi to be near my mother’s family when I was a teenager of 15. Rather you believe it or not that was when I had my first brush with racism. Coming from California and having previously been best friends with Anthony I thought nothing of hanging with the black kids from school. Besides most of the white kids who went to the Methodist church we attended and at high school were pretty damn snotty to me. That was when my mother came to me and said I was associating with the wrong people. My own mother, who didn’t have a problem when I was friends with Anthony as a child. The woman who taught me that all people were the same no matter what and should be treated with respect. Was telling me that my friends were unacceptable because of the color of their skin. Needless to say I was shocked.
For those of you who have never lived in the south, most of the racism there isn't a calculating hatred as most people think, it's just the way things are. Most white people in the south are good people and they really don't actively think about racism. They work right along side of black people with no problems. But when it comes down to it they see black people or any person of color, Hispanic or whatever as something other, as somehow less than a white person. It's not something they normally articulate or even think about. But it's always there.
Those who rant and rave about blacks, Jews or Hispanics or any other minority are easy to spot like skinheads or the aryan nation. They're generally who people think of when they think of racists. But the most insidious and in my opinion the most dangerous kind of racism is unconscious racism. The person who doesn't really think of themselves as racist. But every once in awhile it slips out. They don't consciously make the decision to pass over the more qualified black candidate for a job, but they do anyway.
I'm pretty sure that Don Imus or Micheal Richards don't think of themselves as racist. They may even be appalled at what they said once they’ve had a chance to think about it. But that doesn't change the fact that they are racist. Just because they don't plot and scheme to put down the black man, or rant and rave about white power doesn't mean that in the back of there minds that they don't see people of a different color than themselves as something other, somehow less than themselves and people like them.
And in my opinion that’s why it can't be tolerated. Because if you let it go that means that nothing changes. That means that once again it slips back into the subconscious to hide. Possibly to come back again in a much uglier form at a later time. In conclusion I’d like to leave you with these words by someone much wiser than myself.
I travel from country to country with this sense of
oneness. I have trained my mind for decades, so when I
meet people from different cultures there are no
barriers. I am convinced that despite different
cultures and different political and economic systems,
we are all basically the same. The more people I meet,
the stronger my conviction becomes that the oneness of
humanity, founded on understanding and respect, is a
realistic and viable basis for our conduct.Wherever I go, this is what I speak about. I believe
that the practice of compassion and love–a genuine
sense of brotherhood and sisterhood–is the universal
religion. It does not matter whether you are Buddhist
or Christian, Moslem or Hindu, or whether you practice
a religion at all. What matters is your feeling of
oneness with humankind.
-- Dalai Lama (1935- )
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"I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do." Robert A. Heinlein
