Burning and the literary journal

[punk-a-doodle]

Beautifully written. Thank you so much for sharing.

 

[HHandbasket]

Kristy,

Thank you so much for sharing. Having grown up in Central California, which is very racially diverse, it was like a culture shock to me when I moved to the south (Louisiana) a for a few years. I could not believe there was still so much segretation and prejudice there (they try to sugar coat it, and the white community likes to pretend "we're not like that", but YES YOU ARE LIKE THAT). When we lived in New Roads, Louisiana, I was completely, utterly flabbergasted to find that whites lived on one side of the tracks & blacks lived on the other side. I used to go to this one place to get boiled crawfish (yum YUM YUMMO), and it took me about 2 months to find out I was going to the "black side of town" and that I was the only white customer this particular store had ever had! I mean, they were 4 blocks from my house, but they were on the "black side" of the tracks. Seriously. SERIOUSLY. I had no idea that kind of BS still went on the United States, but it is alive and well in the south.

My granddaughter, who lives in Stockton, California, and is half black, is one of the most beautiful children I've ever seen in my life (and I would say that even if I didn't love her with all my heart). I had a picture of said black grandbaby on my computer at work, and actually had a coworker at Our Lady Of The Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge ask me why I let my son "date one of them". I told her because we are a lot smarter out west and don't believe in judging people by skin color and that I raised my half-white, half-Mexican children to be "color blind". Judge your companions by their personality and character, not by what's on the outside. That shut her up but good, but then my white coworkers no longer associated with me (most of the people in the medical records department at that time were black, including all the supervisors, but I am "color blind" and didn't even notice it until a white coworker pointed out to me how "wrong" it was that "they" got all the supervisory positions).

For the record, I'm white on the outside. But we all bleed red from the inside.

When I lived in the south, I was almost ashamed to be white.

 

[redhen]

 

[punk-a-doodle]

When I lived in the south, I was almost ashamed to be white.

I've seen it all over, it's just it tends to take a different sort of form up north or out west. It's almost more hidden and sinister. In contrast, it tends to be very blatant in the south. My very young and very white husband still remembers how in LA, the black kids at his school were caned, but not the white kids. He is from the deep south, but never seemed to have that way of thinking rub off on him. Perhaps, in part, because his grandmother was a firecracker of a woman who marched alongside MLK. ...Which was not looked upon kindly judging by the burning cross in her yard.​

 

[dainerra]

I will second the shame I feel for being a white person in the South. I posted on the other thread the things that go on at my work. And it is really scary.

I honestly feared for my families safety when they came to visit. My brother was called a racial slur and threatened at the gas station, just 2 minutes from my house!! I (used to) shop there every day. And it wasn't a customer, it was the clerk of the store!!!

I won't even get into the things that are said about the President. Not because politics aren't allowed, none of their sentiments have ANYTHING to do with politics or government. Let it suffice to say that they believe that the White House should never again be lived in and should be torched to prevent "contamination" of the "real" President when he gets voted in next election.

Kristy, I'm glad that you have lived a life that stands up to people like that. It can be so difficult, esp when you see what happens to those who DO speak out. I hope that your message touches some of the children who hear you speak and makes them realize the consequences of their actions. If it makes even one question the things they see around them, it will make a difference.

 

[speckledhen]

Wow, some of you sure paint with a very broad brush. I cannot believe the stereotypes in this thread. I was born and grew up in the south, spent my entire childhood in a suburb of Atlanta, however, I also am the wife of a career Air Force man so have lived out west and in the midwest while he was in the military for 20 years. Prejudice is most definitely not exclusive to the South and the extreme cases described have to be in small pockets. Anyone reading this thread who had not been to the South would think there were still "colored" and "white" bathrooms down here like in the 50's. Good grief.

Every region has its dark histories. If you don't think so, do some studying. I am not ashamed to be a Southerner, but some apparently think I should be.

 

[gritsar]

Quote:

 

[sourland]

Quote:
Even this liberal Yankee knows that when we paint any particular group with that 'broad brush' we are ourselves praticing prejudice and judgement. Let's lighten up folks. I would hate to see Kristy's thread closed because of intolerance - wouldn't that be ironic. Judge not ----

 

[FarmerJamie]

For the record, I am a white middle-aged male.

I want to echo a little bit of what SpeckledHen was saying too.

All the stigma of being labelled "prejudiced" and the baggage around the associated "guilt" I see being professed around me at work drives me crazy.

Because I said up front what I was, did you have a reaction about me one way or another? "Oh boy, here we go? again" perhaps? That really doesn't bother me - why? Hear me out.

We all pre-judge the stuff in the world around us, it's how humans are able to survive and thrive - in every situation, we don't look at everything being exactly equal and then painstakingly evaluate it. When we go into the grocery store, do we evaluate the brands of a given product equally before we buy? Typically we don't, if we did that, we would never get anything done. Being "prejudiced" is nothing to be worried or ashamed about. HOW WE REACT TO AND DEAL WITH THOSE PREJUDICES IS ALL THAT MATTERS. This was advice given to me a lot time ago from a mentor who happened to be a different race and ethnicity from me.

Here's a story from the other side of the coin - in the 1990's I found myself on a Greyhound bus in Alabama heading to Florida. I was the only "white person" on the bus. At one stop, an elderly gentleman got up to leave and was struggling with his suitcase. Without thinking I got up to help him as I would with anyone. After a minute or two, I found myself being pushed out of the way by two youths who were prompted by older men behind them. Sitting down in my seat behind the driver, he whispered to me "as a black man I really appreciate what you did, but a word of advice, don't ever do that again while you are down South, you could get hurt real bad."

I work in a multi-cultural environment with many people coming from outside the USA. They are constantly amazed at the obsession we have here in the States with political correctness and the fear here of being labeled "prejudiced".

Respect one another and be yourself, and we can all get along.

 

[gritsar]

When DH and I first started dating we attended a motorcycle rally in Hot Springs, AR. There I met several of DH's acquaintances and friends from the town he works in. Right away I took a liking to a black man (married to a hispanic) that DH has known since childhood. This guy is a hoot to be around and we are now close friends.
Arriving home from the rally I was excited to have made so many new friends and wanted to invite them all over for a cook-out; including the black man and his wife. DH sat me down and explained to me how that would be considered unacceptable by his superiors - the Who You Ares in town. Out of town (in Hot Springs) without any of the who you ares around it was fine, but not here.

As a person raised in the South, I was outraged. I have never treated anyone different because of their color. Arkansas is considered to be part of the South, but it is most definitely not the south that I grew up in. I wholeheartedly agree with Jamie. Don't paint me as prejudice just because I live in the South. I treat folks as I would want to be treated, no matter their color.