In honor of Martin Luther King day, I thought I’d just give me and Babci’s take on racism. Unfortunately for me, my dad was a big fat racist so I had a lot of exposure to this mentality. This meant I constantly had to hear about his opinions on the Blacks, Jews, and the Puerto Ricans around town. He would often link people’s actions to their race and point those links out to me. Look, that Puerto Rican is paying for their food with food stamps. All Puerto Ricans are lazy. (There were white people who paid with food stamps too, but he didn’t point those out). This drove me nuts because he also didn’t allow me to play with any of the kids in the neighborhood that weren’t white and there weren’t many of them. It was pretty lonely and confusing because I really didn’t understand the link between skin color and someone being bad or good.
Babci on the other hand was not what I’d call a racist, but she often uses race as an adjective to describe my friends. She has a very strong tie to her Polish heritage, so to her your background is a very important part of who you are as a person. I think a lot of immigrants do this. She’d say, how’s your Jew friend Karl? She loves Karl. He’s a fun loving guy who’s good looking and in great shape. His grandfather was a Polish Jew, so he was fascinated by my mother and gave her a lot of attention when he visited her. One time she was teaching him how to make pierogies and the two of them had a blast. As he was leaving she said “ba, bye, Karol” (Polish for Karl) and then smacked him across the butt. He, being the funny guy he is, jumped way up in the air and squealed in a very exaggerated fashion. This made Babci blush. Just then she realized that grabbing my friend’s rear was probably inappropriate. Karl and I still joke about it today.
Racism is Insecurity
Now by some standards, people would think that both my mother and father were racist but I think there is a distinction between the two. When you go out of your way to generalize about a population of millions of people in a negative way, I think it’s a sign that you are an insecure person. I liken it to the coworker who throws someone under the bus to make themselves look better. Polish jokes were very popular in the 70’s and 80’s and it was pretty common for a person to call me a dumb Polack. If I go back in my memory banks and remember the boobs who used to say that to me, they were some of the most dim witted dolts in our class. How they didn’t stay back was beyond me because their report cards were littered with D’s and F’s.
I don’t think it’s necessarily the right thing to try to homogenize our culture and pretend like cultural and racial differences don’t exist for people. I really do think our backgrounds define much of who we are. It’s okay to have pride in your race and try to maintain the traditions and values that define you as a people. So, for me, I think it’s okay to generalize certain positive values about a culture (Latinos have strong family ties and family is a #1 priority to many in that culture.) On the flip side, it’s not okay to generalize in a negative way (Insert Derogatory Slang pump out babies without thinking about how they will take care of them).
Negative generalizations about people are self serving and have no value. I personally don’t think it’s wrong to acknowledge someone’s background as an important part of who they are. I think that’s why Babci always describes my friends in terms of their race or heritage. She knows that if they were raised with a different color skin, gender, sexual orientation or heritage, they would be different people. I also think that extends to socioeconomic standing as well. I don’t think people really know what it’s like to be rich or poor unless you’ve been there yourself. That being said I’ve never heard Babci describe people as rich or poor because one can move in and out of that classification several times in life. It’s more of a fluid trait that doesn’t define who you are, but just a point in time.
Racism is Ignorance
The other thing I often hear is people who assume things about a population of people because of their lack of exposure to them. When I was in South Africa, one couple we were talking to tried politely telling us that the black people there are not very bright. I told them that my manager was black and he was plenty smart, so they concluded that American blacks were different from African Blacks. In my head I was saying “Um…I’m pretty sure you didn’t allow the native people to get educated until very recently, so I’m not surprised that they haven’t caught up yet.” There is definitely a difference between intelligence and lack of exposure to education. Assuming people can’t function because they haven’t had the same exposure to education is ignorant.
Another form of ignorance is not being exposed to the minority within a certain racial group. Growing up, all of the minorities I knew were poor and struggling to survive. If I stayed in my neighborhood for life, I might have assumed that that was the case everywhere. It wasn’t until I started my professional job where I became exposed to very successful and ambitious African American and Latino professionals (along with many other races too). Even though many minorities may have had a rough start, there are people out there who have risen out of poverty despite the additional hurdles and hardships.
One of my first managers who became a long time mentor was African American. He took me under his wing and was very patient with me. He answered lots of questions because I was really curious about his background and upbringing. We traveled a lot together and he would point out things like the people who stared at us in airports. I was totally oblivious to the fact until he pointed it out, but if you’ve been black all your life, you notice when people stare at you, especially if you’re not with another black person. Wow, it was really eye opening seeing the racism that I never noticed before. I’m really blessed that I’ve been exposed to a company that embraces and values diversity. It’s made me a much more interesting and compassionate person as a result.
Racism does exist, even today. I still see it and feel it and I’m always paranoid that some part of my dad’s upbringing has soaked it’s way into my subconscious. One of my other minority colleagues told me that racism is so ingrained that most of us don’t even realizing we’re doing it. So if I did that in this post, I apologize in advance for my subconscious.
So that’s my outsider’s honest and open take on racism. It’s one of the more simplistic explanations. I know it’s far more complex than what I’ve described, but that is my world view based on where I’ve come from. I’d love to hear how you describe racism and ways to combat it. I’d also like to take a moment to thank Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and his family for the incredible sacrifice they made during their fight for equality.
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