Learning Racism

On Facebook the other day, a colleague challenged her friends to name the ways we have been taught racism. It's one of the worst questions I've ever been asked because, well, those are the things we learn without realizing we're learning them. It's strange how childhood memories become marred when you realize the brokenness associated with them.

Still, in the tradition of confessing sins--I sometimes wish my tradition had formal rites of repentance--I'm confessing to you that I am not innocent. I'm formed by and complicit in a system of racism. I have benefited from a racist system in countless ways. And here's how I was taught that system.

I've said this before, but it remains one of the things I just can't get over: when I was a child and misbehaved, my grandfather would tell me he'd go buy him a little nigger girl instead. I was an adult before I realized the implications of that threat. Some days, I still can't believe a man I loved so deeply thought a system where people were merchandise was ok. I didn't realize there was a racial slur thrown in until I was seven or eight. Also, it's fair to remind you that I'm 31 years old. 

When I tried to correct my grandfather one day after using that slur again--probably around seven or eight when I realized what he'd said--my mom quickly shushed me. She was doing my hair at the time, so very quickly, her hand was over my mouth and I got a swat with the hairbrush. I don't remember everything, but I do remember it was a rant about NBA players.

Most of the time, nothing I was taught was so overt.

Because I grew up in a very, very white world, much of the conversation about people with dark skin was in theory. It also meant everyone talked about "they" and "them" because in a world where everyone has light skin, the people who didn't were always other. The veterinarian in town and his wife who ran the office were both African-American. They were respected, trusted, and very light-skinned. I don't know how it would have been if they weren't so needed in that rural community. I was in fifth grade before I saw another child who wasn't white.

Before that, my only other memory of a person of color in my community were missionaries my church supported. I remember being fascinated by how very dark their skin was. I remember struggling to understand their accents. They were from Africa, but I can't tell you where exactly. I remember it was a country that grew cotton. For many years, my mom had some of that cotton in a box. It was as other to me as the people who brought it. Now that I think about it the conversations about they and them stuck with me more than anything.  I remember an uncle sincerely asking, "Do you really think they're like us?"

Occasionally, when I was older, we'd go to Lexington, Kentucky for something. It was not as large or diverse as Louisville, but my sister went to school there. To get to the University of Kentucky, we drove through the housing projects and shabby parts of town that looked like no place I'd ever been.  The people walking on the streets all had dark skin. I certainly didn't want to stay in those homes.

When my best friend and I were watching The Cosby Show or Oprah, as we often did after school when at her house, we had to quickly change the channel when her dad walked in the house.

A coworker of my mom's found out that in the teeny, tiny little town that was the county seat of the rural area there was a street where all the black people lived. I don't remember the street, but I do remember my mom disliking the woman's response that this was racist. After all, this was where they wanted to live. In that era, I doubt there were any housing laws. But in high school, when I was at a small town festival, walking around with a friend, we walked over there to where her family hanging out. When we walked over to that street--the name of which I no longer remember--we crossed the tracks to get there. I'd never seen a family that wasn't white before. Yes, my friend was African-American. At most, I think there were four children of color in my high school. This world was one I didn't know existed. Now, I realize the across the tracks housing was no accident, even if my white mother no longer remembered the reason.

I don't know how I was taught that I should tense up when a black man got on the elevator with me, but I was.

That's pretty much how all of this goes. No one ever sat me down to teach me racism, the way I was taught a million other things. I learned it just the same. I had it reinforced time and time again so that I learned this lesson well. Those lessons didn't stop just because I reached adulthood. I was stopped on a shuttle at my graduate school, the driver asking if I was in the right place. When I looked around, I saw I was the only white person in sight. I was chastised by a friend for getting off a train at the wrong stop; I'd jumped on the wrong line and needed to switch. In the middle of the afternoon, I didn't think twice about getting off and waiting ten minutes for the next train. I stood next to a little old lady for the entire time.

So I confess that I am part of the problem. (It worries me that many people refuse to confess there is a problem.) Can you, too, name some of the ways you were taught racism?