I am a black woman that grew up one generation after segregation in a small town in Texas. I know first hand what racism is and is not. I will not speak on the situations that are happening and being exploited on every media outlet. What I will address is that these are the things that divide this nation. Instead of everyone coming together to present a united front, we allow race to decide what we believe and whose side we are on. I have vivid memories from my youth & one stands out to me more than others. I went to school with the same kids from kindergarten to graduation. In 7th grade P.E. class, I was sitting under the tree at the far end of the gym with the rest of my track team. I had a bottle of gatorade and I recall one of them asking me if she could have a drink of MY gatorade BEFORE me. I didnt think anything of it until one by one others asked the same and were totally okay drinking after each other. It was then that I understood that I was different. These girls were my friends. I did spend the night at some of their houses. I was invited to their birthday parties. But I was different. Not less than but different. Do I think these girls were racists? No just uneducated. Now fast forward 30 years later. Just the other day my hubby & I noticed a lady at the light in front of us with her spare tire literally about fall from beneath her car. My hubby honked at her but she didnt hear him. So thinking it would be less threatening for a woman alone to be approached by another woman, I got out of our car waving my arms yelling maam, maam to get her attention before approaching her car. She literally looked at me in broad daylight & and hit the gas at a red light with traffic coming from the other direction which is the only reason she didnt flee from me. I finally screamed, Maam, your spare is almost on the road! What resonated with me was here I am 5 ft tall dressed nicely (no hoodie, Timberlands, no sagging pants) for a date and this woman is more afraid of me than being t-boned by an F-150. When I made it back to the car, my hubby said, Wow, if I would have went to her car she would be dead. My hubby and I laughed hysterically. Do I think this woman was racist? Foolish but not racist. I say all of this to say this. As a society, we are fooling ourselves if we say race is not a factor. But to Even though I try to be an enlightened individual and see people through the eyes of my faith in God, no one is colorless. I make the same stereotypes about other ethnicities. I fight to rid myself of the same bigoted views as everyone else. Ive just made a decision to not let anyone elses ignorance bring me down to that level. Joining team whoever because of race is racist. Terrorists dont differentiate between black, white or tan America. Their desire is to kill us all regardless of skin color. Now is not the time to point the finger at each other but to stand together and not give fodder to the terrorist groups that use these tragedies as propaganda to indict our nation and train their next generation to hate us. They dont care what color the person is killed for their cause. We have created our own self-imposed segregation with every injustice issue not race issue. There is still inequality, police brutality, crime & civil unrest. We are all flawed. We all need to learn from our history so that we can prepare our children for the future.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 12:48:23 +0000
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