Millions of Americans believe that racism is a thing of the past and just doesn't exist any longer. For the most part, those Americans cruise through and live life with fair, meaning white, skin and most have very little interaction with people of color in their lives as neighbors, co-workers, or church member.
Of late, media attention on the number of killed/murdered, unarmed young black males by police, has brought the question of racial equality, briefly, back into sharp focus.
Of course, many apologists who deny the existence of racism still persists, somehow always find a way to point to the number of young black males killed by other young black males as a rationale for defending the "lawful" actions of police against minorities.
But there are other instances of embedded racism that still exists and is rarely, if ever discussed and is never covered and explored by the media.
Continue below the fold for a brief introduction to current trends in racism.
A brief bit of background is required. I am a black, older woman, tipping the scale towards seventy. Physically, I am just a littler taller than 5'2" and for a recent medical procedure, I was given a "baby dose" of narcotic to make me comfortable during the procedure. In other words, I am not a big, dangerous looking black woman roaming the streets of urban America.
Forty-nine years ago I married my husband. We met, fell in love and hardly noticed that he is white and I am black. At the time of our marriage, our union was illegal in more than twenty states in the US.
Of course, back in the day, he and I received quite a lot of unrequested attention from the police and people at large, just because of our racial differences. Every time we crossed the borders between Los Angeles County into Orange County, my husband, a Marine at the time stationed at El Toro and then Camp Pendleton, required us to leave the almost civilized acceptance of bi-racial couples in LA to travel south to unfriendly environs. During that time we were routinely ticketed for some violation or another that always required a court room appearance. Our appearances became so routine that the presiding judge would look in the back of the courtroom, see our faces, and loudly and routinely proclaim "case dismissed."
Socially, the classic never-ending ditties voiced back in the late 1960's routinely started with "What about the children"? Of course these people were never genuinely interested in the fate of our future progeny. Then of course there were the salacious, "What's it like to have sex with a white man?" always asked with unbridled interest as if I had had a full bevy of sexual partners by the time I married at seventeen.
These intrusive and judgmental questions were typically tolerated by me because my mother and father raised me to be an educated, middle-class, cultured buppie who had learned to tolerate biased white folks. I learned to discard and often internalized these slights and over time, as a good Catholic girl, these slights morphed into indefinable guilt. At times my passive tolerance would slip when questioned by complete strangers about the origin of our children with "No, I da Mammie" after repeated questions about if our children were "natural, adopted, and/or foster care" because of their golden curls and fair complexions. Once, slightly embarrassed, my husband once threatened to "leave you home" because I had spouted off at two, older Jewish women who could not contain their interest in our platinum blond, blue-eyed son who was too young to participate in the adventures at Magic Mountain.
Attending college together brought a whole host of brand new questions about our union. One teacher thought "How marvelous that your parents decided to adopt a black child" and her immediate retreat and hostility that arose once my husband informed her that "she's my wife and not my adopted sister ." Of course, we expected and received daily negative responses from the Nation of Islam brothers selling Bean Pies in their crisp black suits and white shirts on campus with "Girl, whacha doing with that devil." But we were always surprised by the vitriolic, random hatred that poured from the mouths of people, immigrants, who could barely speak English. I can't tell you how many times I have been told "Go Back Where You Come From" in broken English from people with accents from eastern Europe and Korea.
And therein lies the very act of racism that many people discard as just simple curiosity. You would think that after almost fifty ears of marriage that I would have grown immune to the continuing stares and that still occur. You would think I should have long since become immune from censure because of my grey hair and that I should have long ago abandoned the practice of "...we have been married for X amount of years and we have three children" as some sort of way to validate our long-standing union to a world filled with judgmental men and women from both races.
And yet I still offer these cultural dolts a chance to see and accept me as just merely human. About a month ago, my husband and I were invited to attend a dinner at our local country club by our condo association's president. After exchanging innocuous chit chat with a lady born and raised in Brooklyn, she felt comfortable enough to allow me into her world of discomfort with "Oh, so you and your husband are from LA? My family always said those people from California were always so progressive." To think that this woman, well over the age of fifty and married to a successful lawyer, with kids, from Brooklyn New York, found it progressive thought TODAY, that a white guy could be married to a black woman in 2015?
White women, especially the so-called cultured and privileged, have this tendency to look at me down their sculptured noses and demand in a clearly unspoken but an emotion packed demand, like when a mother conveys to a child, silently that they have over-steeped their bounds, that I supply them with pertinent information about my life and my being just to ease their discomfort about my presence. Men, white men, on the other hand, depending upon the size of their wallets, although I have been shoved and physically jostled by rich and poor alike, as a not-so-subtle gesture that I, and my kind, are not welcome.
So, some might agree the recent slew of killings of young black males are reprehensible and our justice system's penchant for incarcerating (warehousing) tens of thousands of young black males is greater than a societal problem with roots that rest solely in the black community. Perhaps the slew of targeted racism reveals that we aren't as post-racial as the media bobble heads would like us all to believe?
I have one simple question; exactly why is it easier for me to accept white people as whole human beings while I am still judged solely on the color of my skin?
Post-racial? Not even close!