Just a nice quiet day at home with the boys and Cassie. I had rented the movie Hairspray from Hollywood Video. I can't say it was the best musical I had ever seen but I did enjoy it and it did get me to thinking.
Back when I grew up in Ames, Iowa we had people from all over the world in our town because of the University. It was not unusual to see women from India wearing a Sari or folks who looked "just a little different" because of the shade of their skin or shape of their eyes. I didn't think much of anything about it. We did not have a large black population and again, I grew up with mostly white friends.
I was in seventh grade in South Sioux City, Nebraska for about a month before my mother and step-father were divorced and I remember playing with a black student after school. I didn't think anything about it. Then I came back to Watching the movie with its underlying themes of integration and discrimination got me to thinking. I really was in Junior High School in South Sioux City, Nebraska before I had a black friend. I was only there for about a month or two at the end of my 6thAmes and went to Gilbert School which was all-white.
I remember going to school in the early 60's at State College of Iowa and I was in a civil rights march and there was a little old man on a motor scooter who rode up and down our line of march yelling "nigger lovers" at us. I guess you know about what I thought about him.
I worked in a bar when I was in school and we went to a place called the Brown Bottle once or twice after we closed. It was an after hours place with a "BYOB" policy. There were usually black people there but again, I didn't think much about it one way or another. We were all just enjoying the moment.
When I worked in Marion, Iowa I got involved with Cedar Rapids Community Theater. We put on a play called "A Raisin in the Sun" It had an all black cast and I worked back-stage. I remember thinking that the actors in the play, while black, were just like the actors in all the other plays I had worked with. They learned their lines and listened to the director and changed the way they acted just like all of the other actors I had ever observed. I think that was the time when I realized that the color of a person's skin had little to do with what that person was inside. That everyone of us had the same wants, needs and desires (to love and be loved) as everyone else.
While we were rehearsing one evening someone came to the theater and announced that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated. That was the only time a rehearsal was ever canceled. It was a unique situation to be in because I could see the loss that the entire cast and crew felt for this giant of a man. I think it was also my first experience with attending a black church when I went to the memorial service for him.
Of course I have had black students in my classroom and I think I related well to them. At least most of them still act glad to see me when I see them on the street. I am proud to say that I (along with a lot of others) worked to eliminate racism in the Order of the Rainbow for Girls and I signed the first petition for a black man to join my Lodge. We had had black Masons visit our Lodge from other countries but had not had one join the Lodge before. My Lodge helped sponsor legislation to gain mutual recognition with the Prince Hall Masons.
But in retrospect I could have done more.
What I don't understand, is why there is racism in my town. I know that there is a separate section in the cemetery where they used to bury the black people. (They don't do that any more) - I know that the kids playing next door to me (on Eisenhower) yelled at a kid walking by on the street and called him "slant-eyes" I remember that my nephew was told in his school not to play with his friend who was from India because he was "dark" - I also know that I stopped dating a girl because she was a racist (and I told her why) - I know that my friends who are black feel that they are discriminated against, and they are. I was shopping in a men's store one time and the sales person looked out the window and said "I don't like it when "they" come in here. I looked out the window and saw three attractive black people coming in the store. They looked fine to me. I stopped shopping there and when he moved to a different store I wouldn't go there either.
Right now we are having a discussion in Ames about some people who are moving here from Chicago. People are upset. I am upset. Not with the folks from Chicago but with the folks in Ames who have forgotten that we are all human beings with the same expectation of being treated fairly with the same civil rights as I expect to have... Unless we have gone back to the 50's when "Jim Crow Laws" were prevalent in Southern states (and I don't think that is the case.) I would remind my fellow citizens of Ames that we have (supposedly) gone beyond that and that ALL PEOPLE WERE CREATED EQUAL. I would ask that they remember the golden rule and treat people the way they want to be treated themselves and that they work to get beyond this and treat all people with courtesy and respect.
My mother used to alibi for her boss who regularly use the "n" word. I never liked it but I couldn't say anything about it because he was her boss. My cousin Chris, had more guts than I. She once walked over to a man in a restaurant and told him that she would prefer that her kids hear the word f**K than the word he had just used. I hope it embarrassed him enough that he thought before using it again.
One more thing. I once told the music teacher in my school that the song "Jump Jim Crow" was inappropriate to be teaching the students as it was racist. I was accused of seeing racism in everything. So I photocopied the dictionary definition of Jim Crow and gave it to her. I don't remember ever hearing that song sung in a program again. So I guess I did do some things. I still think I could have done more. We all can do more. And we should because it it the right thing to do. Hugs, j
4 comments:
I grew up in SD. The only black person I ever saw was the old man who shined shoes at the hotel where we often ate Sunday dinner.
My family loved in Lake Charles LA for several months. There I had black kids in my class. I walked home from school quite often with one of them. A bunch of the other kids tended to pick on him a lot. I never understood why.
Later we lived in southern NM. Of course many of the kids there were "brown." I never though much about that either until one night I went over to one of my new friend's house. His Mom had some kind of a speech impediment. I couldn't understand a word she said. But my friend seemed to understand her just fine. Funny thing was, when he talked back to her, I couldn't understand him either. I was 10 years old, and didn't figure out until later that they were speaking Spanish. I mean, why would they do that? In SD, everybody spoke English. Didn't everybody do that everywhere else in the country?
None-the-less, it was an educational experience.
I imagine a lot of us have grown up with similar experiences. We (white) will never really understand the hurt that a black person feels and the rejection. Although sometimes we come close.
I remember a human relations teacher I had who was black and one of the best teachers I had ever had. I came closest to understanding when I tried to see through her eyes. But I can never really walk that mile in their shoes.
Well, if you put the issue of "people coming from Chicago" as a racial problem, then of course it is difficult to disagree with you. But the issue is more along the lines of income levels and crime associated with it. Unfortunately, the aid that is given to the population coming from Chicago using Section 8 is not properly regulated. It turns out the city officials do not check the criminal background of all family, but only the head of the household. This opens door to the criminal behavior prevalent in low-income neighborhoods. Now, just because people coming from Chicago for aid overwhelmingly belong to a racial group, requesting further scrutiny does not make us racist. But unfortunately, the crime rate is skyrocketed in Ames (2 murders in one year), and it is a fact that most of the crime are committed by people from Chicago. So do you still think it is racist to ask more scrutiny just because most of the recipients belong to a specific racial group?
No, but it is racist to treat all of them as if they were criminal and to lump them together and view them all as criminal when they are not. After all do we look at all the students as being alike just because some of them break our laws by underage drinking. People should never be stereotyped.
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