Okay, so maybe this isn’t the place but I am shattered by the deep extent of racism that recent events have made painfully clear.
I truly believe that there are political things we can and should do to fight the problem but that’s not what I hope this thread could be about.
I would like to see us share the things we can do or say to make a difference no matter how small. I think it isn’t particularly helpful to divide people into categories of racist vs. non-racist but rather to think of everyone as being on a continuum somewhere between totally racist and totally not racist. What I’d like this thread to be is a chance to suggest positive ways that we personally can nudge ourselves and those we interact with further along on the scale to not-racist.
One example: My MIL (white) was talking about how she dated a black guy once in college and there was absolutely no racism, no one had a problem with it. “That was in the late 50’s and there wasn’t any racism in the north then, not until the 60’s when the blacks started rioting and then racism became a problem where it never existed before.”
I was tempted to let this slide because my MIL is a difficult person who makes life challenging if you confront her in anyway. But I didn’t let it go. I responded, “Just because you didn’t personally see or feel racism before the 60’s doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.”
MIL is still made at me and I’m sure I didn’t change her mind but I modeled for my children that you don’t have to stay silent to keep the peace. Some trouble is good trouble.
Honestly I think that the way to change any racism is at the elementary school level. Trying to get adults to change is an uphill battle. I believe that is how society has changed it’s views on gay marriage. It starts with the kids.
Daily diversity/acceptance programs for all kids preschool through senior high. This is the only way we can even begin to combat racist views handed down by parents.
Religious community commitment to diversity/acceptance. All religious education to work towards acceptance and understanding of all religions and races.
Marketing/Consumer goods/Mass media commitment to racism/acceptance.
It was/is very difficult for me to figure out what was the right thing to do when I had guests who made comments I disagreed with and found disparaging. I found myself deciding to not embarrass our guests by staying silent. I would then tell the children later that this was not acceptable but we should not embarrass our guests.
This didn’t work at all because the silence was thought to be acceptance and the behavior just got worse.
I still struggle but know I should always say something immediately. I have explained to my kids how I handled this wrong and how I would better do it in the future.
K-12 public education is largely racially segregated on the basis of neighborhood. Even in schools having sizable racial representation, the classrooms themselves often end up racially segregated.
Overcoming stereotypes is a two-way street. Not only do individuals require coaching to become open minded and accepting, but communities need to do some honest soul-searching and address destructive pathologies in their culture.
Thanks for creating this thread. The first step is acknowledging it exists which seems to be impossible for some. I agree with starting with kids but they aren’t the problem.
I have struggled with the same problem (and with the same types of in-laws, @mom23travelers). My H’s family all live in a very rural area of a rust-belt state where there are very few Hispanics and no black people. My H has mentioned that he never had a black classmate until college.
Anyway, these people routinely say things that make my jaw drop. On my last visit, my sister-in-law made some comment about how she’s like to retire someplace warmer but she’ll remain where it’s cold because “cold weather keeps black people away.” That’s one of her milder comments, but she (and her siblings) routinely exhibit really racist behavior and speech. The casualness of their racism is awful.
At first I never called them out on it, but as I got older and I started confronting them with “you know that’s not true” or “that’s a terrible thing to say. Do you really mean that?” Sometimes they pause, but by now (I’ve been a part of their “family” now for 30 years) I think they just ignore me. So no, there’s not much I - or anyone else - can do to sway their beliefs. They’ve already written me off as that liberal Southerner that their brother married.
I know you didn’t want this to turn in to a “racist vs. non-racist” thread, but I just wanted to say that I know exactly what you mean. I don’t know what the answer is, either, to shifting people toward the non-racist end of the spectrum. I do think, though, that modeling behavior for children works. I also like what sax said about admitting to children when you don’t confront racism head-on. I also know that my own D is much better at this than I am.
Everyone here is saying to start w the kids. But how do you do anything substantive if the kids don’t get to interact w racially different people, because the kids are in racially segregated schools/neighbourhoods?
My grandparents lived in a VERY small town (it just recently grew to 1000 in population), I’d grown up in a larger much more diverse town a few hours away and had always had friends from different races and ethnicities, so I recall being more than shocked when as a teen we were visiting my grandparents and my grandfather told my cousins not to swim in the public pool because (in a whisper) ‘black people swim in there’. My grandfather has since passed away, but my grandparents were some of the most loving, generous people I have ever known. But not being exposed to people different from yourself allows you to keep prejudices. Being a teen, I didn’t say anything out loud (although I’m sure my jaw dropped), but even today I remember that moment vividly. Many of those cousins who didn’t go off to college and still live in that same rural area, still have those beliefs and are now passing them on to their own children.
Although a different rural community, I raised my son in rural America too and many of my friends will openly admit they are racists as if it’s a badge of honor. These are people who are ‘good people’, but just do not have much exposure to diversity.
A couple years ago I volunteered for a program ‘College Summit’. It helps kids investigate colleges and maneuver the application process and is focused on lower income students. The program which was hosted at a nearby college was split almost half and half between inner city African American kids and poor, rural Caucasian students. More than a few of the Caucasian students that were soon going to be entering their senior year of high school had never met an African American prior to that (this was in 20013 or 2014). It was a weird experience observing these students who had been raised with prejudices interacting and learning about each other (I think many learned more for that exposure to people different from themselves that will stay with them, than they did about the college application process).
Even where I work, in a professional environment with educated people it is rare to see any minorities just because of the area we live in. It is becoming more diverse at work recently (I guess we’ve drained our supply of qualified people locally), but it’s 2016, it shouldn’t be a recent occurrence.
I don’t know how you combat racism in rural areas when children are raised a certain way and just don’t have any exposure to make them question those beliefs. It was always important to me to travel to other areas with my son to expose him to different cultures, but that’s not something that can be forced on people.
My way is not possible in our current world. My way is to always state the truth, however politically incorrect it may be. Stating the problem honestly as ugly as it may be is the beginning of solving this problem. If the only purpose of any statement is to paint a rosy picture, then no problems could be resolved. There are way too many rosy pictures being painted these days…there are very few problems being resolved and they are coming at much faster rate then the resolutions.
I would humbly suggest @GMTplus7 that one of the jobs of parents is to work really really really hard to seek out at least some activity/friendship/opportunity for kids to interact with people of other ethnicities.
For my family that means driving 45 minutes every Sunday morning to attend an ethnically diverse church.
Finding these options is easier or harder depending on where you live but most of us should be able to find some way to interact on a regular and positive basis.
And @scout59 and @sax I hope I didn’t sound judgmental about confronting my MIL. Family is tough. It’s always a balance of whether there is anything positive to be gained in the situation either through change in the person being confronted or the people/children listening or even just what I need to do for my own self respect. I am a very non confrontational person but I am pushing myself now to confront is there is any hope of any good.
The more ignorant people are, the more racist they may be. I try to reach folks from their way of thinking. If they’re religious, I remind them that all souls are the same color and that each person is God’s special beloved creation. I remind them that God has no tolerance for racism and He won’t let them into heaven as long as there is hate in their souls.
If they’re not religious, I use a different approach.
mom23, I understand what you’re saying about in-laws. For me, it’s my FIL that spews crap about “minorities.” In Mr R’s family, no one talks back to parents. It’s just not done. They’re not changing their minds and in this particular case it’s going to help no one if I fight back.
I grew up in a very racially diverse area and later moved to a predominantly white area (where I live now). It is different. There is something just different about the climate when there’s only one race. I can’t quite describe it.
Until fairly recently, I was heavily involved in a sports league in the area where I grew up (it was a short drive away so my dad and I did the commute to stay involved). It was a league with, I’d say, about 50% Black children, 40% White, and 10% Hispanic (not a large Asian population around here). In the 15+ years I was involved in the league, I never heard of a single racial incident. But, it’s been my experience that kids are more accepting than their parents.
In my PhD program, I am in the minority. I am the only white student in my cohort or the one above me. I think the incoming cohort has one white student. We are constantly having conversations on race and the discussions are so much different than in my previous program where we talked about race with maybe one non-white person in the discussion, if that.
I don’t know what the answer is but I do agree that making sure that people aren’t staying insulated in their own racial circles is critical. It becomes way to easy to “Other” people that you don’t have regular contact with.
I agree that it’s best to speak up when you hear or see injustice or racially ignorant comments. Several of my siblings (and their kids) are racist. I call them out on it as often as I can, and my D (who is biracial) has spoken up for herself quite well since she was a young teen. We keep our distance-and they know why. And that’s heartbreaking, but sucking it up and letting them think I’m ok with those views has never been an option.
In the wider world, both H and I have done a variety of things-worked from within to change racially segregated groups, joined groups where we were a minority, organized public forums, spoken up. Sometimes we’ve been heard, sometimes not.
D has been very involved with a variety of social justice issues, and never hesitates to call out kids who make racial comments (or homophobic ones, or anti-religious ones, etc. She’s also worked with minority kids since she was really still a kid herself (she is biracial, H is black, for those who don’t know). She believes wholeheartedly that empowering kids to believe in their potential is one of the best things she can do for them. She leaves in 3 weeks to begin college where she’ll study to become a teacher of minority children to continue her cause. She’s also organizing a forum for young women of color to discuss what they can do to bring about change.I am in awe of her dedication in the face of so much violence and hatred these days.
I grew up in a state that is still about 95% white.I never shared a classroom, EC, church or time in a restaurant or store with a black person. I was friends with a couple of the 10 or so black kids in my HS of 2,500, though. My parents raised all of us to be aware that things were NOT equal for everyone (I grew up during the civil rights movement). They homeschooled us, in a way, about other races and cultures and taught us about appropriate comments and thoughts. I believe that’s because they went to college in NYC where they SAW the diversity and interacted with people from all over. We sure didn’t get anything in school.
I’m not sure why my siblings have grown more and more conservative and racist over the years. Most stayed in-state and aren’t around anyone unlike themselves. I moved. But it’s deep than that. Nothing I’ve said, nothing my D has said, has changed them. But we’ll keep trying.
So, when making a choice of residence, you may want to consider such things if you want members of your household to have greater interaction with people of other backgrounds as a normal daily feature, rather than something that one has to specially go out of one’s way to do.
When we were looking for a new home, we specifically looked for one where the schools that we were zoned for were more diverse. I can honestly say that at times it is difficult to convince some of my neighbors ( acquaintances not friends) to not request a school change. My children also participate in a Boy Scout troop that welcomes diversity and special needs scouts.
The problem is more than racism. It’s bias. Whether against another race or another group, like people in rural America. I think the problem is exacerbated by the hyphenization of America. If we think of ourselves as some sort of ‘special hyphen’ type of American, we will never come together.
The solution is to judge individuals individually.
That was one awesome speech at the Dallas Memorial. Having a President that is warm, caring, level headed, logical and calming seems to be a very, very important quality when trying to bring the country together to fight racial injustice. He hit all the right notes. A very good role model for our country.
This is so true! My dad is a wonderful guy, but he grew up in a pretty racist atmosphere. So I have to admit, I was surprised when he suggested that we bring along a young white man, my son’s age, when we all went down to the Texas coast for a week. We all had the best time! And my dad did great. I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it is. One small step!! And it’s because my dad had gotten to know this “kid” at church. Come to think of it, it’s pretty amazing that the guy goes to the church, because other than him, it’s 100% white! Everybody likes him.
