I often "lurk" and read diaries about race relations in the U.S. As a 50-something Caucasian daughter of the South (at least Southwest: Texas), I have a guilty feeling that I don't have a right to speak on racial or ethnic issues because I have so clearly lived in a different reality than my Black or Hispanic friends.
But, I have realized that I have a story about race relations to tell from my reality. And it is a continuing story with Sen. Obama's presidential campaign.
My parents, and their families, were oblivious racists in my childhood. It was not something they thought about. It was just the way it was. Our town was small, so in my younger years I didn't see many overt signs of racism, just the absence of any Black faces in my life. However, I remember our Brownie troop being asked to donate our books to the "colored school" because they didn't have text books. That was the first time I knew there was another school in town. I remember seeing drinking fountains in the basement of Woolworth's in Austin that said "Whites Only" and "Colored Only." It seemed very odd to me.
Then when I was in about 5th grade, the "colored school" integrated with our school. One Black boy, call him Joe, was in my class. Another was in my younger brother's class. The poor kid in my younger brother's class was so afraid of all those White faces on the first day of school that he jumped out the window and started running away. The teacher sent my brother to catch him, since he was the fastest kid in class. My brother caught him and talked him into coming back to class with him.
Joe and I had a rather complicated relationship. We were both social outcasts. I was the class geek, the one who always made the best grades. He was the only Black face in the class. At one time, he intimidated me into doing his homework for him by backing me up against the walls, playing on the old racial fears of a Black male and a White female. But, over time, we became friends. I don't know how it happened or exactly when, but it did. He stopped being an intimidating Black face and became just Joe. And, I think I became something other than just another White face to him.
I remember sitting with Joe at a party when we were seniors in high school. Neither of us had a date and neither of us was ever asked to dance. I knew why I was a wallflower, but, by this point, I couldn't understand why he wasn't out there having a good time dancing. When I asked him, he looked at me like I was crazy. "Do you know what would happen if I touched one of those White girls??? They let me come to the parties because they think I'm harmless. But, if I put my Black hand on a White girl, they'd have me hanging from a tree by morning!"
I know it sounds impossibly naive, but I had never thought of lynching as a reality in our town. Joe and I talked, and I realized that he was serious. We had a very long talk that night. That party probably was more important for the two of us - at least for me - than for all those kids out there dancing.
Graduation night came. Joe, and most of the other guys in the class, had been drinking all day. It was an accepted social thing in our town. Guys had been passing out drunk in class since junior high. Still, Joe was so excited about graduating. He was the first one in his family to graduate. His whole extended family was there to see him. Then, our idiot principal walked in. He singled out Joe from all the drunken boys in the class and told Joe that he could not graduate because he was drunk.
There were only 50 of us in my class. We had been together for a long time and we were close - even the outcasts like me and Joe were an important part of the class. Our class stood up to the principal. If Joe couldn't graduate, none of us would graduate. We refused to leave the library to march into the gymnasium without Joe. I was valedictorian and I'd been fighting this idiot principal since he was my principal in junior high. I wasn't budging. The salutatorian was my cousin. She wasn't budging. The other class officers stood firm. We won. Joe graduated with us in front of his family.
I never saw Joe again. I invited him to my wedding a few years later - much to the shock and dismay of my family - but he didn't come.
Somewhere in those high school years, maybe because of Joe, maybe because of the books I'd started reading (like Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice, and Black Like Me), I started challenging my family on racist terms and racist jokes. It took a while, but they stopped using the terms and telling the jokes, at least in front of me. I started challenging them on assumptions. My mother was, and is, the most racist member of my immediate family. I remember my mother telling me, "But, Honey, just think if your brother brought home a Black girl and wanted to marry her. You wouldn't be comfortable with that, would you?" Yes, I told her, I would. And I reminded her, to her great distress, that my father's family had not come to their wedding because they considered her White trash. What was the difference? I was young, short on tact and willing to fight dirty to make my point with her.
Before I started college, the honors program I was entering had a weekend retreat. The topic was race relations. I was the scared country mouse. This college was bigger than my whole home town. I knew that these kids all had better educations than I did and I felt like a fraud being there. So, I just listened. It didn't take long to realize that all these fancy, big-city kids were prefacing their comments about Black people with things like "I've heard . . ." or "I've been told . . ." or "I understand that . . ." Finally, I couldn't restrain myself. I stood up and asked them: "Don't any of you actually know any Black people??" THEY DID NOT. Not a single one of them. Oh, some had a black cleaning lady, but that was it. That's when I understood that integration of schools didn't mean shit if you were rich enough to live in a neighborhood that didn't have Blacks.
Over the years, I met and became friends with people from lots of backgrounds. Joe was not my last Black friend. I secretly took pride in the belief that I had overcome my racist background. I was still young and foolish. Then, one day I was reminded how that past was alive, just hidden, inside me.
I was practicing law with a big firm in Los Angeles. I was driving my pretty new sports car - convertible - in one of the marina areas to meet a friend. An older car, driven by a young Black man, pulled out of a side street right in front of me. I had to hit the brakes and swerve to avoid running right into him. And out of my mouth came pouring the most awful, racist filth. Words I had not heard since I banished them from my family through my efforts in high school. Worse than that, because I had learned lots of new curse words in the intervening years and my brain came up with all kinds of creative ways to combine the racist filth and the curse words. I pulled over and just sat there shaking. I was more upset, more shaken, by my own reaction than by the near wreck.
I've never had that experience since, but I've never forgotten it. I have never recaptured that youthful "pride" that I have overcome my racist past. I don't know what still lies buried in my unconscious. I have discussed this with a Black friend of mine. He is always quick to call me on anything he thinks may be an unconscious bit of racism, so I figured he would really crucify me for my reaction to that near car wreck. Instead, he told me to quit being so hard on myself. He said I couldn't help how I was raised, but what was important was my actions and how I lived the rest of my life. I have tried to keep his words in mind.
I have been a supporter of Sen. Obama since early in the primary season. I don't support Sen. Obama because of, or in spite of, his bi-racial heritage. I have been inspired by his words, impressed with his intelligence and accomplishments, and in agreement with his goals. I never thought about my support for Sen. Obama being part of my personal journey from my racist background - until a couple of days ago.
Last year I stumbled across a site connected with Harvard University which tries to measure unconscious bias or preference, including political and racial bias or preference. https://implicit.harvard.edu/... I don't know how accurate it is, but it is an interesting exercise. I took the tests on candidate preference, back when there were 4 or 5 Democratic contenders for the nomination. I showed a marked preference for Sen. Obama on their test - but that was no surprise to me. I also took the racial preference test. I was disappointed in myself when it showed a moderate preference for Caucasian over African features. I took the test again and tried to fool it. No luck. Same result. I consoled myself with my friend's words that I could not help my background, but I could be responsible for my actions.
I lost my link to the Harvard site and didn't rediscover it until earlier this week. In the meantime, I have been actively involved in Sen. Obama's campaign, working as a Precinct Captain, Caucus Secretary in Texas, delegate at the county and state level, making contributions, phone banking, etc. I have become increasingly committed to Sen. Obama, and increasingly excited about the prospect of President Obama. On discovering the site again, I took the preference test between Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain. Not surprisingly, I showed the highest level of preference for Sen. Obama over Sen. McCain. Then, I took the racial preference test again. Now my test at the site shows little or no preference for one race over the other.
Hmm. Wonder if the two are connected? All my work, all my actions to try to ensure the election of Sen. Obama seem to have percolated down to those hidden parts of my being. I now see in my mind the wonderful day when Sen. Obama is elected president. I see the even more glorious day when he is inaugurated as President Obama. I see a strong, powerful, intelligent man, who happens to have dark skin, leading our country. I see his beautiful, capable wife and lovely children living in the White House. This is the future of the country which I see in my mind and it seems perfect and right.
I want this future because I believe it is what is best for our country. I didn't start supporting Sen. Obama because I thought it would affect my view of Black Americans. I thought my views had already changed. I realized that it would be a wonderful milestone for Black Americans, but I never realized at a truly personal level, until now, what an equally powerful step it is for White Americans.
I believe that I am an example that an Obama presidency, in addition to all the other benefits it can bring the country, will help White Americans make the journey from the racist past. I continue to slowly journey from my personal past of racism. As an older, and, I hope, wiser, person, I've come to believe that it will always be a journey - and it is one worth making. President Obama - the man I hope will soon be my president - has taken me another step on that journey.