If you've read this blog, you know a couple years back I was attacked by some "white" asshole in a very nice brand hotel for not being "white" enough. He assumed, wrongly, that I was Hispanic in descent. It wasn't that it was the first time. I went to Clemson after getting out of the military. Clemson was an oasis, but 15 minutes back then in any direction and I learned, very unpleasantly, that as "white" as I had always been treated all over the USA, I wasn't "white" enough for some people. It was a rude awakening, and yet none of those experiences came close to this "white", supposed-self identified CEO of a company, self identified graduate of the University of Wisconsin, screaming at me in a drunken stupor that I had no Rights in the country I was raised in, that I served in a war, that I was a various number of Hispanic slurs AND NOT A LICK Hispanic. Yes, it bothers me still. I can't imagine what it would be like to fear some random asshole acting like that to me daily. While I was at Clemson, late 90s and early 2000s after serving my country, yeah, I never imagined. But over the years, I've met men like him. Way more than anyone should ever have to, but I would stand there stunned as the on-lookers at the hotel did.
A racist schmuck screaming bloody epithets. Inciting. Hurtful. Cruel. Just based on the color of someone's skin tone. I'm a light olive. I look Italian, Slavic, Polish, Hungarian. No joke. I should I'm descendant of at least two of those. Yes, that is me being smart-ass-ish, but I grew up "white", or so I thought. And no one was changing that in the Deep South, but he wasn't Southern and we weren't in the Deep South. We were in Michigan, at a higher end hotel, both I presume for work. It was a really rude awakening.
I had to process. It was devastating. At the same time, one of my former friends, beautiful, blonde, blue eyed, 1970's stereotype of "All American" ran a DNA test. She decided she wanted to know about her ancestors. There were blanks in her family tree and she was hoping that a DNA test would fill those gaps. Imagine how she reacted when the blanks traced back to a black slave who was so "high yella" (yeah I didn't know what it meant till I came South but it's just a rude way of saying "white" enough black to pass for "white")....Are you picturing a Cheryl Ladd look-alike? Maybe more like Farrah? Somewhere between. That'd be about right. Her DNA came back 1/8+ African American. So what, right? Two grandparents had "black" blood. It was 2018, yet she went ballistic. That might even be an understatement. She was ill, pissed, angry to the point of accusing the DNA companies of lying. Like yeah, they would lie. They don't even know her. Our friendship was destroyed by this revelation. She was "white". Well, by visual, absolutely. But one thing most people don't know about the falling out, was it was shortly after I had been attacked and she said to me that I couldn't possibly understand how "important", HOW IMPORTANT, it is to be "WHITE". How fucking important is it? Like that statement in itself screamed "white privilege", superiority, how she viewed herself in reality better than anyone that she perceived as less white and suddenly I saw her for what she was. A bigot, a racist, and the worst kind. Nice to your face while sub-consciously believing down to her core she was better just based on the color and heredity of her skin.
The silence in that conversation could have choked both angels and demons alike. I grew up "white". Slavic, Polish, Italian, Eastern European, Hungarian,...I grew up with people that looked just like me. In the Deep South, she had grown up that if you looked like me you were either "black passing for white" (her words in another forthcoming spew of shit) or Native. "My people", the Natives she presumed, were mistreated-ish, but now they have casinos and money so it all "evens out". Tell that to the Navajo Nation...."eye roll". But I'm not any of those, so it all just made me more angry and more ridden with guilt. I'm not "white" but I lived where I could assume I'm "white" so I'm "white" until I meet someone, worse a friend, who just threw it in my face that I'm not "white" and therefore "obviously" I would take the non-white position??? Wow. Not "white enough" and i "already knew that". That experience in Grand Rapids Michigan had happened before. But not really. Only in South Carolina. Never anywhere else in the USA until the racist f*s crawled out from their rocks. Everywhere else in this country, no. She thought that was the norm, ALL MY LIFE, EVERYWHERE in the USA, because it was normal in her minute little world of 25 miles radius around where she was born and raised. Just another day in paradise in her mind. I had no reason to be upset with her, afterall, she had treated me "white" and not allowed anyone like this asshole in Michigan to treat me as less than "white". But I was "less than white" in her opinion. We had never discussed it. I assumed it didn't matter. I assumed that it wasn't even an issue to be discussed. She assumed I wasn't "white" and knew I wasn't "white" and therefore there was no discussion necessary.
What started to change? My own views. The one experience was the catalyst and the other the push forward. Did I have my own sub-conscious issues? My grandparents were racist, but by 1960's standards quite progressive. Times do dictate appropriate. As we grow, what was appropriate is considered inappropriate as we consider others' feelings and equality. I know most people don't self analyze like I do. But I look at everything that happens to me as a learning experience. I take the Buddhist, Taoist view, that each experience is an opportunity to see something in myself. I wanted to understand, maybe release myself, from my own racism. Most "white" people see racism as they are blatant racists or they are not. They either use racial epithets or they don't. They refuse other races or they don't. They hate or they don't. But life isn't really black or white, is it? Puns intended. Life is a hue of everything, and each of us harbor what we grew up with whether we want to acknowledge it. Whether we recognize it or not. Suddenly I had to think about my view of the world. I'm not racist. I would've stood up and defended a woman in my position with some jerk screaming racist insults at her, whether I knew her or not. I call people on that behavior, both in my past and to this day. I don't allow that behavior in my presence. I'm not racist. Yet, neither was my blond bimbo friend either in her own eyes. Deep breath.
So I asked my friend, the one who had arranged to get off work early to help me with my young boys, who treated them like her own, who's son is like my own. My fair skinned "black" friend. She let me off the hook. I could've taken it. She told me that because I was "ambiguous' looking it was just how some people were. I'm still "white" enough was the basic message, but I didn't want what I wanted to hear. I wanted her view. Her view? She prays everyday for her son. That he won't be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That he won't move too fast or too slow and spook at cop at what should be a normal traffic stop. How everyday she knows her son is an amazing educated young man, but how she worries he might be driving the wrong car, look at the wrong person, lean over the wrong direction. What. The. Fuck. Suddenly, I was a bit guilt ridden. I hadn't gone through this. I worried about wrong decisions my sons might make. That I might not have been the best parent. She worried about those things too, but she had this other worry that I didn't even imagine, let alone think about daily.
Over the last two years, I've cut off a lot of my "white" friends. I was so shocked as I discussed these things with some how they would tell me that "of course" I would be "sympathetic" because i wasn't "white" enough. Or how, "those" people ask for it. Or how I was obviously stepping out of my "zone". Sigh..And I'm not racist, but somehow I seemed to have a LOT of racist friends...
But that wasn't the worst of it. Suddenly, I realized that I had two women that were like family. Helped me with my boys. One was Aunt and one was not. The two both gave so much I could never repay either. Yet, the Aunt was the "white" one and the one that was not? Was not. I'm not saying one was more or less than the other. In fact, quite the opposite. They were both so good to me and my boys. They were both my sisters and my sons' aunts. They both earned that. So it hit me like a ton of bricks. Why was one "Aunt" and the other was not? It was my own, bit of sub-conscious racism. Both are family. I just didn't openly acknowledge my non-white friend was an aunt to my sons and a sister to me. They, both of these women, deserved the same level of respect. I had just been inconsistent in applying that respect.
What's the take away? If you are "white" America and you think you aren't "racist" because you aren't blatant, you aren't screaming at other races, you smile, you are polite, you do your "best" to be a "good" person? That doesn't mean you aren't racist. What means you aren't racist is you self analyze. You recognize you have no non-white friends and you make the effort to change that. We all work with multiple races, so you can. You don't roll your eyes when you see a couple kids of another race. You don't assume too brown, isn't it nice they are Native, brag how Native you are when you look "whiter" than bread. You simply start to acknowledge we fail no matter how "non-racist" we are. I'm not saying go out there and kiss ass. I'm saying the Indian couple whose wife wears the full garb and with the Hindi dot on her forehead aren't weird and why did they move into your neighborhood isn't a problem for you. I'm saying the asshole neighbor who you drink beer with twice a week who's bitching they moved in? You tell him to shut the hell up nicely once and then if he keeps saying shitty things? You quit drinking beer with him until he realizes he's being an asshole. If he never realizes he's an asshole? You go over to the Hindi neighbors with a fruit basket because you looked up that food baskets are considered respectful and you are making the effort, no matter what that asshole you thought was a good guy says. And when he asks you? You tell him flat out. Nice neighbors. Different? Yeah, you suppose, but you like diversity and how amazing the wife's stuffed grape leaves are. It's not enough you are not blatantly racist. You have to try to overcome the underlying racism that we all have, the underlying racism so many of us allow by inaction.
Here's my way. I am so sorry to one of my best friends, a sister, that my sons didn't call her Aunt. She earned that. I just had underlying racist beliefs, ones that should never have endured. I'm not using them as an excuse for my guilty conscience. I know it was wrong. I'm sorry it took me this long to know it, and that it took even longer to grow a pair and admit it. I cannot correct it. My sons are grown. I'm just glad that I did everything to teach them that I wasn't perfect and that skin hue was never a reason to judge anyone, whether capabilities, intelligence or friendship. I just wasn't completely consistent with my message. Fortunately for me, they knew I was wrong before I did.
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