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Am I Racist?

Thoughts on my part in the current national debate.

By Kathy JuraPublished 5 years ago 4 min read
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Am I racist?

The answer is a heart-rending, yes.

I am a 61-year-old white woman, the only daughter of older middle-class parents. My childhood was spent living a sheltered life in a farming community in southern Arizona.

There were many Hispanics and blacks in our town. I know that term is now politically incorrect but that’s what we said then, so I’ll continue to use it here.

No matter how we are raised, we are taught by our environment to react in certain ways. I grew up a member of the dominant race and society in a nation where only lip service was and is paid by most of us to the idea that all people should be treated with equal respect.

My conditioning was everywhere: only white Barbie dolls, mostly white people on TV and in the movies, darker people were usually the bad guys, my parents’ friends? All white.

There was some integration of where people lived, and looking back I am glad of that. Living in the West, many families had come from other places, and I think this helped us as a community to not care as much what people lived in our neighborhoods. Hispanics and blacks rose to prominence as leaders and businessmen in the area. I also believe the activism of the 60s and 70s had helped us begin to move away from totally separate neighborhoods.

Both my parents considered themselves to be quite liberal, until I wanted to date a young black man in high school. My father was the most patient with me, gently pointing out the example of daughters of people we knew who had intermarried and the problems they and their mixed-race children had in society.

It was true, of course. At that time in history, in my town, there were still strong feelings in the white community against intermarriage with any other race, particularly with blacks.

In those days it was unusual to see a mixed-race couple, or their children.

I remember being slightly shocked when I first saw a black-white couple. And I started to question why I was shocked.

I felt ashamed. They were just people, I told myself I would do everything I could to change my own feelings about this, to fight the conditioning I had received.

I was proud of myself. I thought I wasn't racist anymore.

I was wrong.

Being racist is an insidious thing, you know? My friends? White girls. My dates? White boys. I was finally allowed to date a part-indian boy when I was a senior because I had half-Cherokee cousins on my mom’s side. Thinking about this now, I just shake my head.

I kept fighting. I took a whole semester of Spanish Immersion in college and have made it my second language. I taught school on the Dine (Navajo) reservation, and was on the receiving end of racism toward our group of teachers where I was the only white person.

I asked them “Does this happen often?”

They told me, “All the time.”

The very fact I had to ask proves I had a long way to go. In the sentence I wrote above, the first time I wrote it I used “Navajo” first and put “Dine” in parentheses. Why? Because I am still conditioned that the white view comes first, a perfect example.

My husband and I raised our children to believe all people are equal. We told them they could have friends/ dates/ relationships with anyone they chose. We taught them to suspect the stereotypes they see on the media.

I’ve had many jobs where I deal with the public and have prided myself on my treatment of all equally. And you know what? Looking back I can see my instinctive reactions to certain situations have been still, in my own head, racist. Who's at fault? Who do I suspect of cheating/stealing/lying? In every case, my mind still tends to jump to those of another race before I consciously remind myself that isn’t so. My upbringing is still insidiously informing my actions.

Well, crap.

What to do?

Again, I fight. When I deal with a person of another race in public, at work, when I speak, and most especially in my head, I try to pay extra close attention, to not jump to those conditioned responses. I am trying hard to react thoughtfully, rather than instinctually, to pause, to be logical.

Is it working? Sometimes. I've caught myself enough times to know it's doing some good. And enough times where I know I could have done better.

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