I was raised by a racist family.
Of course, until I was in high school, I didn't know what my step-father's particular brand of hate was called. I didn't know that it was rampant in our country and rabid in our area of the south.
When I was a little girl in grade school I got my first lesson in unreasonable prejudice from my step-father. I made a friend in school, one of my first friends in the first grade. Her name was "Carla" and I loved her big, beautiful white smile. She was taller than me, she was funnier than everyone and she beat me in every race we ever ran!
She was also black.
As a child, I had no inherent racism. I saw her for what she was; a friend. I loved her lovely black skin, so different from my own pale features and had no idea that because of this skin, she would not be welcome in my home. I cried at the unfairness of it. I begged for a reason why she couldn't come play at my house. My step-father's response? That blacks were the children of Cain and beneath our notice, less human than we were. It didn't match with what I knew of my friend. She wasn't less human. She wasn't dirty or stupid or somehow beneath me.
I couldn't understand his reasoning, but I had to follow his rules.
My, how that hurt my heart.
By middle school I drifted away from my friend, we had different lives, and started noticing that blacks and whites rarely mixed in social clicks. I still made friends of all races and colors, I just couldn't tell my "Dad" about some of them. I lied to him often, I'm sad to say, to play with friends I loved. But the racism wasn't all on the white side either, anymore. The blacks were not all ready to be my friend. I was white and therefore the "enemy" and not to be trusted. I had a boyfriend whose parents were black and Hawaiian. When he found us kissing in the parking lot, he forbade the relationship. He was furious. I was heartbroken.
My how that hurt my heart.
I have to say that he relented a little in my high-school years. His racism was no longer so rabid. Life taught him lessons and he learned them well. But he was STILL bigoted in many ways. I fell in love with a boy who was half white and half Japanese. My love for him was so deep. It caused an uproar in my family that lasted for months until I was forced to break-up with him in order to maintain peace in my home.
My heart wasn't just hurting, it was bleeding and screaming for justice.
I stopped looking for love anywhere I found it. I'm ashamed to say I wasn't strong enough to risk his wrath. My boyfriends were all white from then on. But they weren't always good just because they were white. In fact, some of them were awful. Funny how those prejudices didn't stand up to scrutiny.
White does NOT mean good and Black does NOT mean bad. Yet I had been taught differently. I didn't believe it then, I don't believe it now.
When my sister (his daughter) bucked the hatred and married a black man, my step-father didn't talk to her for years. She was shunned and didn't speak to me for years, even though I was the only one who didn't care about the choices she made in love. My heart broke for a lost sister. My mother sputtered about the kids and how tough it would be for them.
They are fine examples of beautiful, smart kids. She needn't have worried.
The systematic teaching of racism failed to find root in my heart. I resisted as much as young girl in the south could resist. I continued to break the color barrier and make friends with everyone who would be my friend for my entire life.
I grieve for the Black families that must have "The Talk" with their children because they ARE in danger. The reality is too terrible to comprehend.
I stand in solidarity with the people who are trying to make these positions obsolete, Black Lives Matter....etc. They are only stating the truth about the state of racism and it's inherent evil in today's world. I applaud their courage.
But mostly I find that my heart is STILL hurting, 47 years later because those lessons I learned about hate are being promulgated today and ruining good hearts and little minds in children all over the world.
My, how that hurts my heart.