This concerns the current state of attitudes about each other by Black Americans and White Americans. It's taken me a lifetime to reflect on what the problems are, what the solutions may be.
First of all, I was raised by two extremely prejudiced parents and one extremely prejudiced grandparent, in the 1940's & '50's. Mom and Grandma made nasty comments about "the Jews" all the years I was growing up. One time - I think I must have been about 10 years old - Grandma and I were on the city bus, in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.A., on Market Street, a business district. Standing in front of a store was a man dressed in a black suit. He had a very long, scraggly grey beard, a funny-looking black hat, and was just leaning back against the storefront. Grandma pointed to him and almost sneered, "That's one of them." I knew she meant "Jews." For years, the way Mom and Grandma talked about "the Jews," always putting them down, I thought that there were males, females, and Jews. After seeing the man against the storefront, I figured out that they must also be human.
In my late teen age years, I discovered why Grandma was so virulently prejudiced against all Jews. During the years following the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Grandpa's pay was cut in half and Grandma had to go to work. With only a 6th-grade education, Grandma ended up scrubbing floors for 'rich' Jewish women. That's why she hated Jews so much. Mother had no excuses but did exactly what Grandma wanted her to do, in all things. She must have extended this to thinking the same.
Now I fully realize: Grandma was poor, uneducated and ignorant in her persistent thinking about Jews. She was prejudiced.
Grandpa was present in the mix but he never said an unkind word about anyone. Grandpa played with us children and told us stories.
Our immediate family moved to Dayton, Ohio after I graduated from high school. The new neighborhood was 50% Jewish, more or less. I babysat for many neighbor families, all of whom were Jewish. I learned that the families were lovely, just the same as my own family; and I loved them all. My family belonged to the nearby Jewish Community Center as they had invited families in our subdivision to join.
Fast forward to the last 20 years. When I was new at a nursing job here in Lexington, the staff was 50% black women, more or less. It didn't take long for me to perceive that they were 'testing' me to see if I was prejudiced. I thought I might as well get it over with and started my conversation with, "I was raised to be very prejudiced." All eyebrows immediately raised and I told my experience as above. This seemed to diffuse the suspicion I felt they had about me. For the remainder of my time there, we got along fairly well.
What I withheld from my colleagues was my Dad's side of my 'raising.' I thought it would be extremely disrespectful to them and, in effect, "a slap in the face" to all. Dad was equally prejudiced as Mom and Granny, against blacks whom he called the "N" word. (For all you "youngsters," the term "African-Americans" was not used back then.) There were no black children in my elementary school but there were 5 black girls in my high school. They were younger than me so we had no common classes. As far as I could tell, they seemed to fit in well. And that is exactly where Mom and Dad made their mistake in raising me: they sent me to all Catholic schools. There I learned and believed Jesus' teachings, that we were all equal.
It must be mentioned that my Daddy was raised in a very small, rural town in Tennessee, near the Mississippi border, in the deep south. His family was very poor. Daddy's mother, who left him and his father when he was two years old (in 1916), I learned much later, had come from a family in the south who formerly 'owned' slaves. Daddy sincerely believed that blacks, as he put it, "were as intelligent as donkeys. If they have any sense, it's because they have white blood in them."
Beginning when I was in my mid-twenties, I tried to rationally debate with Daddy about the errors of his thinking. It would greatly upset Mother, who thought we were fighting. After a few years, I decided there was no way Daddy would come to an understanding that his thinking about blacks was nothing more than blatant prejudice. Although he was no longer poor and uneducated, Daddy still was ignorant.
I married at age 20. My husband, who was also as unprejudiced as I was, and I lived for a few months in Norfolk, Virginia. This was 1963. We became friends with a black couple and invited them to our apartment. I remember watching them come from their car to our front door. They looked around many times, making sure they, a black couple in a white neighborhood, would stay safe. I felt very badly for them.
In all the Civil Rights problems of the era, I longed to take an active part in the demonstrations, yet 1) was expecting my second baby in 1965, when the marches started, and 2) couldn't afford even a bus ticket to Selma. I was in total sympathy with Rev. Martin Luther King and what he was trying to accomplish.
Fast forward again to 2007. My youngest Daughter #8, Jeannie, married and moved to the Detroit, Michigan, area with her husband. Once, while visiting, she and I visited the Henry Ford Museum. I had no idea what was there besides cars. It was a giant treasure chest of cars, locomotives, farm equipment, dollhouses (my favorite), and the actual bus on which Rosa Parks courageously decided to sit in the front, and risk arrest. Once inside the bus, a tape was playing with Rosa Parks telling why she decided on her action, and what happened as a result. Remembering all the pain of that era, I started uncontrollably weeping. I just couldn't stop! My daughter held me and comforted me, "What's wrong, mom?" After I regained my composure, I explained, "I just don't see how people could do that to other people!"
In the 1960's and beyond, laws were passed to give blacks and other minorities equal rights in voting and housing. We all thought that prejudice would be over. Tragically, that didn't magically happen. The old attitudes of many of the poor, ignorant and uneducated persisted. Yet: guess what: now Daddy, Mother, Grandma, and many of the hard-core prejudiced are dead and gone, and with them, their attitudes.
Fast forward to last week. Here's a conversation between a young white divorced mother and her male friend, a young African-American. He: "Girl, you've got way too much stress on you. The only stress you don't have is if you were black." She: "Yeah, you're right. I don't have that." He: "Well, when you're black, you expect stress."
This, to me, summarizes the attitude of most African-Americans, beginning hundreds of years ago when their people in Africa captured them for the slave-traders to take over the ocean to the North and South American colonies. Their lives from that moment on, were pure horror. I don't think many of them have been able to think otherwise.
Many African-Americans today appear to "have a chip on their shoulders" because they still expect to be put down and mistreated. Because of laws today, I'm sure that the put-downs by the poor or ignorant or uneducated are greatly diminished because they are aware of laws. Yet, they still occur. And African-American women, especially, are vulnerable to expecting to be put-down. And, they are greatly offended when it happens.
I, myself, have felt the STING of PREJUDICE! And it is not pretty! With a large family of 10 children by choice, I have suffered, over the years, many, many "taunts" by ignorant idiots. With children in tow, many times I was followed by a store clerk, as if we were poor and would steal something. (We probably looked poor). Once, I brought a silver and glass dish, a wedding present, to a pot-luck dinner. I was asked, "Is that yours?" And also, "YOU have a dishwasher!!" I could go on. But I never allowed those stupid comments to reach the inner core of who I am. Mother and Granny actually insult-proofed me. I was taught to think, if someone insulted me (I was fat growing up), "Consider the source."
When Obama was elected President, I thought it would at last give the entire African-American community the final affirmation they needed, that they were extremely worthwhile persons, no different than people of any other race. I don't think it happened, for the most part. The old attitudes have persisted, from what I can see. Many African-Americans still EXPECT STRESS! They expect to be insulted! Worst of all, they feel HURT when they're insulted.
I sincerely feel that two things need to happen for us Americans to, at last, overcome white-black prejudice. It will take REAL CHANGE on both our parts. For African-Americans, they need to drop the attitude of "chip-on-shoulder expecting insults," and, if some useless piece of pseudo-humanity degrades himself or herself and making stupid comments, they SHOULD NOT FEEL HURT! African-Americans should realize their tremendous innate worth as Children of God, valuable humans, and Americans! They should work hard, persist, and know that they can - as many have done - accomplish most anything they strive for!!
On the part of white Americans, we need to watch what we say, not insult anyone, be they black, yellow, red, Jewish, Polish, Catholic, handicapped, or anything not us!!! Moreover, WE SHOULD NOT PERMIT ANYONE TO BE INSULTED!! No more laughing at stupid jokes, no more permitting anyone else to show their sarcasm. NO MORE PREJUDICE!!!
Can we do it? Sure! IT'S UP TO YOU AND ME!!!
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