Yes, we’re all guilty.
I‘m a racist. You didn’t read that wrong. I am a racist.
And, not because I don’t believe everyone deserves a fair chance. And, not because I say derogatory things about people. And, not because I blatantly use my skin color to hoist myself up. But, because we are all a little bit racist. And those shouting loudest have the most to learn about growing as a person.
I grew up where, pretty much, everyone was white. I don’t think I met a non-white person until I was in 5th grade when a kid moved to Bushnell from Chicago. He was black. I’d never had a black friend before but he found me super weird, because I was, and I found out later that he found me nice because I didn’t touch his hair. But I hated having my hair touched too so, I got it.
He only stayed a year and then moved to the next town over and I continued to not interact with anyone that was not white until college. I say not white because this is my earliest memory of where I can say I was a little racist. To me, I was the same as a Mexican or an Asian person because they weren’t NOT white just a bit more tan. But they weren’t black. So, I remember seeing them as the same as me. Maybe just the innocence or naïveté of a child but still a bit racist...why were just black people different? I have no idea. I just remember thinking it.
My sister became best friends with Jasmine in college. They (along with Yasmil) were inseparable. Jasmine is black, Yasmil is Dominican. Meeting these two ladies, I realized I had a lot to learn. They came from different backgrounds than us, had same same but different families but they clicked with my favorite human. So, I got to know them. And their families. And loved learning about them and where they were from. Turns out they had all the same goals, same ambitions and same problems as us. But not really realizing that before getting to know them made me a bit racist.
My sister, Leslie and I started bringing people home for Bushnell weekends. We’d take our friends on farm tours, meat locker tours, play softball, drink at the Jenny Wren, go on hay rack rides, shoot guns (only 1 year, it scared people too much), and just introduce them to where we were from. You see, the entire thing that prompted the Bushnell trips was our friends in Chicago saying to us “but you don’t talk like you’re from there...” and so, we said “come see where we are from, come meet people from where we are from. See how we aren’t that different.”
So we brought Black, Mexican, Jewish, Indian, white, gay, lesbian, straight people to our town. And, guess what? They fell in love. And our friends at home fell in love with them. There was some apprehension from some of them to come to Bushnell because they didn’t know how people would react to them. We assured them, it was totally safe and that was a silly thing to think. But on both sides the apprehensiveness was all because neither side really knew another person from that background. And having them meet and get to know PEOPLE was all that was needed and it was a nice nearly 10 year stretch of trips of varying groups that we introduced to small town living and introduced our small town to different groups. It was, maybe, one of the best things I’ve ever done.
I’ve been living in Asia for 5 years. My boyfriend is Vietnamese. I teach Vietnamese children. And I love it here. The people, the food, most customs and as much of the language as I understand. But as a mono-lingual person...it still, at times, blows my mind that people can have the in-depth conversations in other languages that we have in English. Imagine how insane that sounds. Of course they can. Maybe more than English speakers because of the descriptors their language uses. But...this makes me a little bit racist too. To believe that others are somewhat inferior to me because they don’t speak English. I don’t actually believe non-English speakers are inferior to me but I’ve definitely had the thought before of whether or not they CAN talk about the same things I do.
But I work on this ALL the time. I try to seek out new people and cultures and places. But the one thing that I’ve noticed in most places I’ve been is that white skin and blonde curly hair gets you a pass for a lot. And dark skin, no matter the beauty of the person or education gets you looks and touching. I get looks and touching too but the way the touching happens is different.
Get to know people from races and cultures that are different from your race or culture. See the world through their eyes. See that their hopes and dreams for their families are the same as yours for your family. Imagine how you’d feel if you saw your “own people” killed in a way you feel is unjustified and think about how you’d feel. Would you be scared? Mad? How would you act or react? You can agree or not with the peaceful protests, looting and riots. But you can’t agree with the poor or demeaning treatment of other humans. We are all a bit racist and the sooner we admit that to ourselves and others and the sooner we open ourselves up to learning about the people behind the race, the sooner we can live better as humans.