Yesterday at church our ministers courageously spoke on the subject of race. Although I did not grow up in church, I have attended pretty regularly for 34 years and I don’t remember hearing anything quite like I did yesterday. I commend these ministers for being honest, forthright and so committed to social justice.
It made me examine my own race and my own feelings towards people of other races.
My mom was from Puerto Rico. She was terrified to move to the mainland USA in 1956 when she married my dad. Many people were shocked when she showed up here and looked “white”. She wasn’t sure why that mattered, but she heard it many times in her first months in Arkansas and Alabama. Her parents were European, her dad’s family was from Spain and her mom’s was from England. My grandfather had olive skin that tanned easily and quickly and my grandmother had the peaches and cream skin of a British lady. My mom was a mix of the two, but seemed more like her mom.
In Puerto Rico when she was growing up, people were a mix of all races and OK with that. The fact that my mom’s family was more European than the usual look expected from a “Puerto Rican” was not a big deal there. And seeing people of all skin colors marrying people of other skin colors also seemed to be no big deal. When she arrived in the US she realized it WAS a big deal here. She made sure she raised me to think it was not a big deal.
We all have our stories and our heritage, I have just told you some of mine. It should not change the way you see me. While it is maybe different or interesting, knowing it doesn’t change the person you know me to be.
As a youth, I thought it might change the way people saw me, so I tried to ignore the fact that I was half Puerto Rican. My mom’s accent was a constant source of embarrassment. Although I eventually grew past that, it was a lot longer coming than it should have been.
I went to schools in Homewood when they were still county schools. Between the 7th and 8th grade, Homewood decided to start it’s own school system and I was unceremoniously kicked out. I was sent to Birmingham schools and although I was a bit scared of going to “inner city” schools, my main complaint was that I had just graduated to and had a year in a junior high (7-9 grades) and now I was headed back to an elementary school with the little kids(1-8 grades). It was awful.
By the time high school rolled around, I was sent to a high school that was predominantly black. I would say that Ramsay was about 65%-35%, or thereabouts at that time. It was 1971 and race relations at some schools in Birmingham were pretty rough. I have to say, Ramsay was pretty cool about such things.
I can remember as a cheerleader that I had some pretty frank discussions about race with my black team mates. I also can remember a black English teacher who would only accept white paper with black ink because she wanted us putting the black OVER the white. She made a big deal out of it and we thought she was ridiculous.
I remember taking the PSAT and getting the highest score in my grade. I got a notification that there was scholarship money associated with such a high score. When it came down to it, I was told in the school office that the scholarships they had access to were only for black students. I really didn’t understand at the time why race should matter. It made me angry.
In watching the “Black History Month” moments on TV this month I realize how many contributions were made by people of color over the history of this country and how we were never taught any of them, even in a predominantly black high school. Of course, we learned a bit about Booker T. Washington and even less, but a little about Frederick Douglas. Otherwise, not much. It takes these moments on TV or movies like “Hidden Figures” to learn about that part of our history.
And that is what it is- OUR history. It should be in the text books and being learned every month, not just one month out of the year or only on a movie screen.
One of the things that our minister said was that a young person in our church, who had grown up in our church, had emailed him with Bible verses that supported the young man’s racist ideas. It literally sent chills down my spine when I heard him speak of this young person trying to defend his lack of tolerance. It made me tear up.
I guess I live in a bubble. I see how the kids in Jon’s group seemed to all get along. I remember at one point Jon had a group of friends, many of whom I knew well and a few I only knew by name. One of the young men got married and I was able to finally meet more of the group. Never had Jon mentioned the race of these guys and when the group had people of other races I remember being proud that race wasn’t an issue for him. In the context of the things Jon had told me about the guys, their race was not important.
It isn’t that you don’t see color, it is that it isn’t the first and foremost thing you judge someone by. Maybe it would be great if we could all be color blind, but is that really realistic? No. We should see people for who they are and their race is a part of them. It isn’t all there is of them.
Although I could pretend I wasn’t half Puerto Rican as a youngster, it eventually dawned on me that being hispanic made me who I am. It doesn’t define me as a person, but it is a part of me.
My mother’s life experiences in Puerto Rico and when she came here became part of her and eventually part of me. My experiences in high school changed who I was and how I saw people. I can not for an instant pretend to understand what the black students in my school went through or how they felt. I can’t expect someone with such different life experiences and history to be just like me. So I have to acknowledge that we see things differently.
When I started helping with some kids in East Lake a few years ago, a classmate of mine from Montevallo came to help me a couple of times. Afterwards he and I went out for drinks to talk about the experience. As a young black man I thought his insights working with our kids would be invaluable. What he said kind of deflated me and I have never known how to take it.
He told me these black kids would never relate to me, an old white woman, because they could never see themselves in me. “But couldn’t they just see me as a creative human being who wanted to teach them drama?” He chuckled and said probably not. At that moment I was lost, I can’t change who I am. But I could see where an “old, white woman” was going to have a tough time, especially with the older kids.
I have no answers. As with most of my blogs I only have questions and my experiences to share. I know that I try to walk away from conversations that I find racist when others find them amusing. I know that I try to be sensitive to where people come from and what upsets them. If that makes me too “politically correct” which suddenly seems like a bad thing, then so be it. If trying to not hurt people or upset them is wrong, I give up. If seeing someone as a person first and foremost before putting a label on them is not the right answer then I am even more confused and lost.
I have tried to teach my child to love everyone regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation or any other difference people like to point out. When I got confused by Caitlyn Jenner and why as a woman she didn’t want to date men, my son said “Mom, people are who they are and they love who they love. It is as simple as that.”
I thought his generation would make it as simple as that, but now I am not so sure.
All I know is I am trying to follow my mom’s heritage, the one I tried to deny for so long, and be as open and gracious as I know how to be. I want to be able to be who I am and love anyone that I can. I want to be sensitive to the differences in all of us, but concentrate on the things that we all have in common. I want to be a supporter of social justice, but feel sad that some people who have such a different history from me can not relate to me on a human level.
I do not know where we are headed right now. It seems like things are getting better and then that they are not. I pray about it a lot, and although I know that is important, it doesn’t seem enough. I have no answers. I will just keep asking questions, I guess.
