Race. It’s kind of a taboo word these days, you know? It divides a group of people, maybe even a group of friends. It tells people how to vote, and causes a stir in religion. It is not to be spoken about, yet it weaves its way into daily activities: deciding who will say what, and who will be still.
I look at race much in the same way I look at feminism. The issue is far from over. Yes, in most places in this country, it has been tucked away from the human eye. Laws have been put in place. The younger generations have been taught there is a politically correct way to speak, vote and behave. People have fought the good fight for the freedoms we enjoy today, the freedom that people may not have had a few decades ago.
But now the racial war surges beneath us, hidden from news cameras and public outings. It is spoken in hushed tones about a new President who does not look like one we have ever had before. It is the fake smile plastered on a face greeting a different race across a counter. It is the laughable token photo on a university’s website – not because the university is actually diverse, but must appear this way. These quiet feelings raging in our country’s citizens boil quietly at most, but rear their ugly head when you least expect, and serve as a reminder that our country still divides itself based on the color of skin.
I find my own take on race challenging and sometimes aggravating. I desire to be racially tolerant, and I believe I am. I have friends of many races, and I utterly detest derogatory slang terms. But what does my inner-self proclaim about race?
It seems most people’s views on race are determined by their habitat, as I find my own. I grew up in what is basically an all-black community. These people have been my parent’s friends for years, and have always treated my brother and I with respect. I played a lot of recreational sports offered by my community, which often resulted in me being one of the only white kids (and girl) on the team. I never really saw a difference in them and myself; we were all kids wearing the same oversized “Dupont Midget League” t-shirts.
My schooling was much different than my community. I attended private school from kindergarten through twelfth grade, and very few classmates appeared in anything other than Caucasian. I would not necessarily say this shaped my opinions or race, but rather gave me a lack of experiences with people of different races.
Towards the end of my high school years and into the beginning of college, a series of events happened which shaped my beliefs on race in some way. I was inappropriately touched on two different occasions while working at the mall, both by two black guys. Another time, I was leaving work late one night around Christmas-time, and a black man chased me across the parking garage asking me for money and pinning me against a car. Several other instances occurred in which I was treated inappropriately. Of course it would seem racist to write “and these all happened by black men”, but then again, that is the truth.
After the recent death of Senator Robert C. Byrd, there was a lot of clamoring on West Virginia and across the country that a former KKK Klansmen did not deserve such high honors. Of course, we West Virginians backed up our beloved senator, knowing that upon his arrival into public office and exposure to more of the world, he renounced his mistakes of the past. Senator Byrd believed in the Constitution most of all, and sought to uphold in it every way, including the freedom and justice given to every American, without judge of color. However, he was circumstance of his environment; raised in a tiny coal town, where race was a permanent, loud dividing stick. It did not take him long to realize the error of his ways, but he often spoke of the regret he carried.
Now I ask myself what I can take away from the late Senator Byrd’s experience. Like Byrd, I have went away from my community for higher education, and returned a more understanding and tolerant person. But I still hold these memories with me, and it some ways these memories have produced a slight fear. And from this fear stems what I assume is my own minute version of racism.
I am not sure how to overcome these negative feelings I hold onto. Like I said, I will befriend anyone, and I do not consider racial intolerance a prevalent issue in my life. But, if I find a bit of fear in my heart when I see men of one color in the mall, and not when I see another color, then don’t I have some version of racism in my own life?
Then there is another side of this whole debate. I live in a world where we are encouraged to say what we want, when we want to, except when it comes to race. If someone attacks me in public, but do not share the same race as me, what is the appropriate reaction? I have learned that walking away is best, for fear of being called a racist. So now this invisible dividing stick rears its ugly head again: this time telling me I have no defense against another race.
And this happens – time after time – people fear to speak up, fear to tell someone to stop. I’ve done it. I’ve let someone get away with touching me inappropriately in the mall because I was scared of the consequences of speaking up.
It is this version of racism that over takes our lives, and continues to divide our country by color of skin.
This issues swirls around my head from day to day, unsure of how to pose the appropriate questions, and provide appropriate answers. Last week, former coworkers calling President Obama the n-word, and making lynching jokes angered me. But this week I was verbally attacked by two black girls in a supermarket, and found myself unable to speak up because I didn’t want to be racist (then I went home and grumbled about their lack of respect and used phrases like “that’s just how they are”).
So here I sit. Maybe a bit racist, maybe a little more tolerant than my parent’s generation - and not liking this about myself.
I want to be in a place in my life where color does not matter, love over powers past experiences and environment-induced feelings.
How do we rid ourselves of the indivisible dividing stick?
