I am racist.
The first thing I ever remember doing that was specifically racist was in middle school.
I’m ashamed and I don’t want to be writing this. It was so, so stupid. But I’m going to write it.
I’d been reading a bunch of YA books of the Sweet Valley High/Nancy Drew variety. In one of them, I don’t remember which, a black character gets called an Oreo. The white friends all act confused, and the black character bitterly explains, “Black on the outside, white on the inside.”
I still didn’t really get it, and now I see more of the levels in which this is a terribly hurtful and offensive term. But, back then, all I understood was it was supposed to be offensive. So, the next time a black girl at school bullied me, I inexcusably used it. It doesn’t matter that I was being bullied - that happened all the time, by white students, black students, everybody, it was not race-specific. But my retort was. I selected it specifically because of the skin color of the person bullying me.
It seemed to pass over without much effect; in fact, the girl seemed rather confused and appeared to just write me off as some kind of idiot. I don’t know whether to be grateful about that or not - that my racist outburst seemed to go unfelt, but also unchecked. On the one hand, if it didn’t cause mental or emotional damage, I’m grateful for that. On the other hand, I should have been suspended. But, ultimately, there was no ill effect to me.
The first thing I ever remember doing that was specifically anti-racist was when I was somewhere between late elementary school and early middle school. I know it was after we had done some token celebrating of Black History Month (I lived in suburban Cincinnati, token was pretty much all we got when it came to racial education).
I was sitting at the dinner table with my dad and stepmom, and I think at least one of my half-siblings had been born by that time. The conversation had somehow turned to different villages around the Cincinnati area. My father mentioned one, and my stepmom gave him a sour look and said, “Oh, don’t go there, that area’s full of B-L-A-C-K’s.”
Yes, she said that, and yes, she spelled it out like it was a curse word.
I will admit, my anti-racist reaction didn’t occur right then and there - I hadn’t even hit double-digits age-wise, and my stepmom scared the shit out of me. But the comment festered in my slowly evolving mind, and after a few days, I decided to ask a question that clearly embarrassed my dad.
“Is Jenny racist?”
He seemed very flummoxed by my question - as did my mom when I asked her the same thing. Neither one of them seemed to know how to answer, or how to respond when I recounted the impact her B-L-A-C-K’s commented had made on my young and impressionable mind.
Looking back, I wish I had been more proactive, and spoken to my stepmother directly. But I let my biological father and mother know in no uncertain terms that we had studied racism at school and that I was pretty sure what Jenny had said was racist, and that another adult should say something to her about it right away, because she wouldn’t listen to a little kid.
I don’t know if they ever did. I remember one of the responses - I can’t remember which parent - was a half-hearted, “Well maybe she was only talking about the bad ones.”
…...
Really?
So, that was my first, trembling, baby-deer-standing-up-in-the-woods attempt at racial advocacy. Pretty lame. But it shows: educate kids about racism in school. Maybe it will eventually result in kids so much braver than I was. Maybe it will lead to greater empathy and understanding, so kids don’t waver back and forth on the spectrum of racism and lapse into their baser selves like I did.
And I’ve been racist since then. At best, I haven’t been a good advocate. At worst, I’ve said disgusting, inappropriate, insensitive things, like “jungle fever” and comments about hair. I’ve denied that I’m racist. I’ve gotten exasperated about people "playing The Race Card.” I’ve gotten frustrated about race-based scholarships, and, most deplorable of all, I’ve quietly thought that maybe black people wouldn’t have so many issues with police if they would just behave themselves.
“Really?”
There’s no excuse. It’s not right, and you can’t blame upbringing, not when we’ve had the benefits of education for decades now. If I knew it in elementary school, then I’ve known it for my entire conscious life. Plus, even people who are “brought up that way” know.
We know.
I’m sorry, but we do. All humans are wired the same way - when we do something inherently wrong, we know it. We get that little twang in the backs of our minds, whenever we treat a fellow human as less than. Unfortunately, some people seem to revel in the feeling, splashing around in it like a bubble bath. They can enjoy it and still know that it’s 100% wrong. In fact, sometimes knowing something is wrong makes it that much more fun for people. If that weren’t true, we would have Ashley Madison sites and like half the videos on PornHub, YOU KNOW I’M RIGHT.
So, what can we do?
We already know that, too. It’s been plastered all over the place since George Floyd’s death, and before then, too, but we weren’t listening hard enough. Listen. Use Your Privilege. Show up. But also, don’t just do it now. Right now, it’s trendy. It’s easy. You can perform your anti-racist dance and get all kinds of applause and accolades right now. Enjoy all that validation while it lasts. But once this all fades - and it will, with the next catastrophe - you can’t stop. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the only thing that proves you’re anti-racist is time, and how you act when more time passes.
