Do you recall...?

...the first time you experienced a racist incident?

I've been thinking so much about the children and that awful pool incident.:grr::mad::cry:
It made me think back to the first time I realized the world wasn't the same for people of color.

If anyone is open to sharing their first experience with racism, please do so.

My paternal grandparents called people of color a desparaging name--not the N work, but words and phrases equally vile. They laughed about it and since I was very young, I joined in the laughter. My mother set me straight, telling me how cruel these words were. She reminded me of my best friend at the time, my kindergarten buddy who shared my first name, would not like the terms, and they weren't accurate. I remember her muttering under her breath "They never even lived near Negroes --why do they talk like this?"

I bring this out just because it shows how incidious racism is--and how early one people can get indoctrinated into a racist mindset. My grandparent's remarks and my initial response to it has always haunted me, and is a constant reminder for me to treat others as human beings.

lol :) She sounds like a feisty, and very wise, woman.

People who are lucky to have been born into families who do not teach hate or fear of others different from themselves, or who do not indoctrinate their children with the idea that some people are simply born inferior to others are blessed indeed.

and introduced me when I was further on in grade school to some of the local black leaders. She encouraged me to study black history and even wrote a children's book about Sojourner Truth--sadly, no one was interested in publishing it. But later on I was inspired to research Sojourner Truth myself and wrote my senior history essay on her. Got to go to one of the largest university libraries in the country and actually hold one of the books she sold while she was lecturing--gives me goose bumps just to think about it!

:hi:...and thank you for so bravely sharing your prior experiences here. It's never easy to admit our prior mistakes. I appreciate you participating in my thread. :hug:

Thanks for sharing your posts here.

Judging by the posts I've seen of yours on DU, she obviously raised a very thoughtful, sensitive person. That's a wonderful thing.

It's great to see you here :) All, I can say is thank God for a parent like yours and the honesty in relaying the incident.

We went across Western avenue in Chicago to a high school and got racist crap yelled at us out of car windows. The next real time was in a history class. This was when Harold Washington was running for mayor. Sister Lucille Ann called me out in class...the only black girl in the class. She said "XXX, earn your seat in my class and tell me what your community is thinking." Being the shy little kid I was, I muttered something that I can't remember. I felt so uncomfortable and angry at myself for not telling her my seat was earned when I passed the entrance exam, and my parents paid my tuition!

Then, in college in Macomb, Illinois, my friend and I walked to 711 and some drunk ass called us black B's and mumbled something about sucking his xxx...

Disgusting crap. The first time always knocks you for a loop.

...living in Chicago, over ten years ago. I found it interesting how blatant people are with their bigotry (whereas in socal, they generally won't come right out w/it--but it's there).

I was going to take the bus, after not riding for weeks (and taking the El train to work). The rates had recently changed. I usually purchased tokens, so I didn't have to think about fares, but hadn't purchased any under the new rate, yet. Upon entering the bus, I asked the bus driver what the new fare was.

His response, "...you would have known the fare, if you weren't a woman." This from a black man. :eyes:

Then of course, my experience with the esteemed law school professor, who threw his plate at me (after serving his toast at the restaurant I worked in). Apparently it was all my fault for not bowing and scraping enough for his taste. Of course having the audacity to speak proper english to him, while seeming intelligent didn't help. :puke:

It would have to be elementary school in Kentucky. You can pretty much take it from there.

:scared:

one of my earliest memories was playing with a white boy at a park by a beach when I was four. His mom came up to us and said she was taking him to a nearby arcade and asked if I wanted to go. I said yes and when I asked my mom who was sitting at the edge of the park he started to say that she couldn't be my mom. When I replied that she was his mother asked if I was adopted. I said no and she picked him up and ran off. Funny how they had no problem associating with a brown skinned girl but once they realized my mom was white they freaked out. I'm guessing when she gave him "the talk" she didn't included the part where sometimes when a man and woman love each other they may have come from different backgrounds. I still feel more sorry for him than me. I knew there was nothing wrong with me but what the hell was he being taught at home?

Growing up one of my best friends had a Puerto Rican father and white mother. Soon after her parents broke up her mom married a black man and had a daughter. After they divorced she married a white man and had a son. Once when I was at their house the little brother, who was six at the time, came running in happy after school saying he couldn't wait any longer for his Chinese brother because he wanted to learn karate now. Some of the kids at his school were teasing him because of his multicultural family and said next his mom would marry a Chinese man and have a son who would be great at karate. He didn't realize they were making fun of him and thought it was a great idea. We explained to him everything that was wrong with what happened and his mom promised to look into karate classes for him. I know the next day she had a long talk with his teachers at school.

A couple of weeks ago I went to Six Flags. I spent most of the day chaperoning ;-) the teenagers in my group since nobody else wanted to ride the roller coasters and get wet with me. While waiting in one line we saw a guy his friends referred to as a Jamaican a** n***** making a fool of himself (of course the friends weren't much better). One of the kids I was with rhetorically asked why they had to go make all black people look bad. I realize he's at an age where he should know what the world's like but it was still kind of sad hearing a 15 year old acknowledge he would be judged by the actions of others because of their skin color.

...people that get freaked out when a brown child, has a white parent. I guess the thought of an "interracial relationship" harshes their mellow. :shrug:

1)The dentist's office segregated waiting rooms. The white side was air-conditioned with chairs, the black side was a room, open door, not air conditioned, with benches. I opted to stay outside since it wasn't me seeing the dentist. I was either 6 or 7 years old.

And that was only the beginning....

Not a pretty picture. Makes me wonder how the examination rooms (black vs. white) differed, in appearance, comfort, instruments, etc. Did the caucasian patients get anesthetic while black patients got extractions by tying a string to their tooth, and slamming the door?

:scared:

The stories I bet you could tell... :cry:

...two little (non-ethnic) girls, decided they were mad at me (to this day, I don't recall why). But their way of "ostracizing me" was to make ethnic cracks. Thankfully as "baby bigots" they weren't advanced enough in their skills to use any true "slurs." They just had a rather pathetic discussion in earshot of me about "Soul Train"...having "soul" and getting "funky." :spray: (sorry, it sounds kinda' funny, thinking about it now).

I didn't understand exactly what they were doing. I just knew they were 'trying' to insult me...and that their comments made me uncomfortable. I didn't speak to those girls again, after that.

I know it probably messed with your head but the fact that the best they can come up with was "Soul Train was too funky" is the funniest thing I've read today. :)

It's times like this that I'm glad I grew up in a racially segregated town. All of my teachers, doctors, classmates, friends, government officials etc were black. White people seemed on the other side of the moon for black kids growing up in the SWAT's in the 70's and 80's.

I didn't experience racism until I was a 17-year old college freshman. And the racist incidences I did experience I'm not all that crazy talking about.

...to be honest. :spray:
Keep in mind, that incident occured during the period when we were bussed into another district(70's). Thinking back, I'm grateful that the girls didn't learn much "racism" at home and that was the best they could do. :rofl:

Prior to the forced integration, my elementary school was predominately ethnic. So the majority of my elementary school experience was segregated. Most of the school's population was asian, hawaiin, phillipino. The next largest group were latino and black. I could count non-ethnic kids on one hand. We were the majority and all of my teachers were asian except one year, when my teacher was a black woman. Moving on to jr. high and high school--segregated (predominately ethnic).

I understand your not sharing. :hug:
I dated a young man who attended Morehouse, while I was in highschool. He shared his yearly experience with me, of marching through the caucasian areas on MLK's birthday (as a group/school)...:scared:

at recess, the girls called me "La petite Negresse" instead of calling me by my name.
Back in those days the schools were gender separated. The school had two playgrounds,
one for the girls and one for the boys, and a great big wall separating them.

When My brother and I took our school picture, for whatever reason,
there was an African Doll behind us as part of the scenery.
If I ever find that pic (I have it somewhere in some boxes)
I will scan it and show it to you guys. I was about 5 years old.

:wow:

that's messed up.

I was in the second grade and really didn't think much of it. Everyone liked our lunch room assistant Mrs. West. She used to make me stand in the corner for minor offenses that others got away with but I still liked her.

One day when we boarded the bus to go home we were surrounded by an angry group of white protestors with signs. As our bus made it's way through the crowd we saw our lunch room teacher with a sign that said, N*** go home. On the bus people were saying, "Look, that's Mrs. West". She saw all of us gathered at the window looking at her but she continued with her protesting.

Later on I began to understand why she made me stand in the corner for no reason.

You can live to be a hundred and never forget this kind of stuff, can you? The people who made you feel this way. That no matter how smart, pretty, polite etc. you were, that you were trash because your skin was too dark.

I am so sorry that you had to experience that.

...but didn't face anything like this. :wow::crazy:

We alternated semesters. The semester I attended my home school, (with kids from the other district) one of the Pacific Palisades kids was whining. :eyes: I remember him as being a brat, and he had an attitude.

"Why should I get up early to go to this ghetto school," he started....blah, blah, blah. On and on he went. We had just done our time getting up early (the prior semester) to take the bus out toward Malibu, and had little compassion. Then he started using some slurs.... (cue scary music).

Well the kids from my school (majority asian)cornered him on the school yard that day, and gave him something to whine about.
;) He didn't complain anymore.

But I'm sure it was the 3rd grade, at least that's when the word prejudiced entered my vocabulary. Frankly it feels like I've been looking over my shoulder looking out for the knife that some seemingly sweet little white girl may stick in my back when the teacher isn't around. Or the adult equivalent as the case may be.

It seems stupid now but as there aren't too many black people in Alaska even on the Air Force base where I went to school. I remember this rather large boy who declared that the reason I was so brown was because I ate too much chocolate pudding. There was a two-faced little girl named Bethany who would act as though she was trying to be friends with me when the teacher was around but would have her friends trap me against a while so she could hit me. (That stopped the first time after my mother stopped cutting my fingernails regularly when I grabbed her arm and dug my fingernails into her skin until she bled.) I didn't have girls for friends because the alpha female didn't like me. She didn't dare go after the other black girl in our 3/4 combination class probably because that girl was a 4th grader and bigger than she was. And as no one really bothered to stick up for me I make damn sure I do it myself. I suppose it still comes across even now when I rip someone a new one when discussing race on the boards. But then for some subset of white people this is all academic but for me it feels like life and death and they are taking it way too lightly.

Just today I ripped someone a new one for comparing people who are wary of the police to racists who don't like black people because black people weren't nice to them once upon a time when they tried to make an effort. (although seriously how much of an effort do you think this person actually made, but I digress)

Why, I've never seen that in all my time on DU! :) Not my sweet, demure, diplomatic little Raineyb!!
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :pals:

My mom, cousin, grandma and I were at Dominick's buying the week's groceries. Backstory: My aunt had my cousin when she was 17 and she was going to give him up for adoption. My grandma took him and raised him in TX. When I was born, my mother and father were going to get married and have the whole Cinderella life, but he was an alcoholic and a philanderer and soon my mom found herself on her own with me. We were poor and my mom could not afford a babysitter, so she asked my grandma to come up to Chicago and take care of me while she worked. So my household was very unconventional: I call my grandma "Mom", my cousin is more like a brother, and my mom was rarely home because she worked so much. But it was a good household and a good life and I wanted for nothing.

Anyway, we were at Dominicks picking up the groceries and my mom went to pay. She has always worked hard to maintain good credit and was very proud of this fact. She got out her checkbook, ID, etc. and handed them to the cashier. We'd gone to Dominicks every weekend for years and we always paid by check. The cashier hesitated, looked all of us up and down and excused herself to get her manager. The manager came and looked us all up and down.

As I said, we were poor. My clothes were hand me downs from my cousin and my grandma would sew the rest of our clothes. She wore her hair under a scarf and was short and "ethnic" looking (for lack of a better word). I had never felt like I wanted for anything, but at that moment when the manager was staring at all of us, looking us up and down, I didn't feel right. I felt out of place.

He told us that he couldn't accept our check. My mom pointed out that other people were paying with checks and that she had paid with a check several times before. He just kept saying he couldn't accept it. My mom was livid. She pushed the cart full of groceries away and we didn't go back to Dominicks ever again.

That makes me so sick! You know what else makes me sick? We used to live two doors down from a white guy and he and my husband would golf together and have a beer in the backyard every now and then. One night he starts telling a joke about a Mexican and an Arab. I went off! I asked him why he didn't break out with a black joke? I let him know that shit was not acceptable and I knew if he talked about those groups he had a field day with my folks.

He tried to play it off like he didn't joke about black folks....yeah right and on top of it who cares! Don't talk about any minority in front of me and mine.

So either they accept us or they go out of business.

:rofl:

I can remember you had to pay a quarter for a cart at the Dominick's on 79th near Vincennes.

...as i wouldn't have given dominick's a dime when i lived there. :grr::mad: i shopped at dominicks frequently. :(
bastards!

recall as a child from white people in the United States but plenty from being African from African-American classmates. My siblings and I were soundly beaten up every blessed day during our elementary school years for talking funny, looking different, and the best was because my dad was the "chief cannibal" :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:, I lived in a hut, and I had lions and monkeys as pets, though I'd never seen either until the zoo here in the U.S. What's really intriguing and beautiful about how this stopped was through a young Black Panther who came to the rescue. He's probably a really old dude by now but I'll never forget him.

There are plenty when I was a young adult in the workplace. But the worst was in France when I was repeatedly told that my ass was "too aggressive" and therefore offensive :mad::grr: :mad::mad::grr:

(edited to add how pissed off I still am by this)

:rofl:

Not possible.

(I am self-censoring many other, um, ideas that passed through my mind....)

me laugh and is really the first time I've laughed about it, instead being so indignant :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: Truly the most absurd racist incident.

Okay, I've heard that the asses of black women are too big, too round, too pronounced, even "too much to handle." But I have NEVER heard that our backsides were "too aggressive!" That's easily the stupidest, most nonsensical thing I've heard this week.

Yeah, I won't even go into the stories of racism I've felt in the workforce. That would be an entire thread onto itself. :) I do find it interesting that I have experienced 100 times more racism from white women than from white men. And every educated black woman I know has had similar experiences.

...the woman that was "trying" to be my friend, and(I guess) attemptingto compliment me:

She rubbed my arms, while we were sitting at lunch one day.
When I asked what she was doing, she responded,"...your coloring is just so perfect. If I could be your color, I'd be so happy--I'd never have to tan again. I'm rubbing and wishing your color was mine."

wtf? When did I become a wishing troll? Or did she just think some might "rub off" onto her skin? :crazy::shrug:

My other fave, was the women who seemed to think it was appropriate to ask if my hair was real. (heavy sigh) :eyes:

Quote:
I do find it interesting that I have experienced 100 times more racism from white women than from white men

It's one thing to act like I'm your friend, if I'm your friend, but petting me like a dog and making statements about me or asking questions that you wouldn't want directed towards yourself is another issue.

Typically I'll just put my hair back in a pony tail but the last time I straightened it and wore it down somebody came up to me and said that some people were saying behind my back that I should wear it like that all the time but she thought I looked better without my weave. There's nothing quite like a failed attempt at a compliment x(.

http://www.cafepress.com/r_a_n.68776515

:hi: ;)

Or make one for those times when you straighten your hair that says,"...It's NOT a weave and no, you can't touch it!"

I could live in it. Even when I don't straighten my hair I get to deal with strangers walking up and asking me where I bought my curly weave.

I started dying my hair when I was 13 and stopped a couple of years ago. It always seemed odd to me that I had a hard time convincing people I dyed my hair yet I also had a hard time convincing people I actually grew it.

:hide:

Lord, have mercy!! Like I said, PLEASE don't even get me started!!!
:mad:

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

Responding to bliss_eternal's "Do you recall...?" thread

"...too big, too round, too pronounced, even "too much to handle..." Yes, that's what a couple of women called aggressive, but with an added assault of people's dignity. Hmm, never had that problem with the men though :crazy:

But times are changing, it doesn't seem like that's a problem anymore with recent media bombardment in praise of it. Funny, I don't know if you remember during the election campaigning last year when an elderly couple were caught on tape. The wife was complaining about Michelle Obama's rear-end as being too big and the husband had to Explained to Her that it's a trait, nothing more/nothing less, of people of African descent.

at a Florida Older Jewish living complex......during the time of the GE, when the media was saying that older Jews in Florida were not supporting Obama.

The woman called Michelle a horse or something like that. Twas shocking to me, to say the least.

People, and let's be real, the majority of whom are women, have been programmed into thinking that women's bodies should be rail thin, lacking all of the curves and swerves that make it female. It's sick, frustrating and really just pitiful the numbers of women who have allowed themselves to be programmed into almost hating the female form.

Too many members of Western culture have been brainwashed into thinking that breasts, hips and thighs belong on the bodies of "whorish" women; that pristine, chaste women of virtue look as though they haven't eaten a decent meal in 3 weeks.

So they look at the bodies of the Beyonces, J-Los, Queen Latifahs etc. and they just don't get why anyone would want to look like that. And it is even more shocking to them that a) these women absolutely embrace and love their bodies and b) there ain't all that many men complaining about those bodies. Too busy wiping the drool off of their chins. ;)