General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: White DUers: Tell Your Stories [View all]Triloon
(506 posts)I'm a 65 yr old blue eyed devil and I guess I can drag up some old examples of racial bigotry I've experienced. I was raised one of a handful of whites on an indian reservation out west. Everything was great, I loved it, but when I had anything to do with the townies, the white kids at the white school off the res, I was aware, even at a young age, of the division, I was treated like a renegade, living Out There with Them. I have been spit on, shoved and tripped by black folk because I am white. I have been ignored, stared through, snubbed, ridiculed, openly insulted and abandoned on the road because I am white. I have been denied employment for being white, I have been denied training for employment because I am white. I have been romantically rejected because I am white. I have had old colleagues snub me in public because they didn't want to be seen being friendly with a white. I have experienced many small episodes of disregard and contempt for being white. When I was a kid I gave a handful of change to a Black Panther on the corner collecting for the kids breakfast program. He took the money, but wouldn't even look at me. I was in a foreign country and a black guy came out of the blue and shouted at me, "I wouldn't HAVE that white skin!". I was lost in Miami looking for a post office and asked a black guy on the street to point the way. He gave me the hooded eyes look and walked away. I was at a train station in Chicago and there was a group of black women sitting there wearing these brown nun-like outfits. I was curious and politely asked one of them who they were. She looked up from her book, saw me, and went back to her book. Later I found that they were women from the Nation of Islam, so, mystery solved. I was the only white guy on a black contractors crew, the boss was having a dispute with a white homeowner that wasn't working out. He told me she was a bigot and wanted to know if I would take a shot at clearing the dispute. I did take a shot, but meeting with the woman homeowner I was only greeted with being reviled for being a Fool. "Wasting your life working for a Man Like That". My family members had been working in a construction trade for the last 80 years, but I was denied entry to the union apprenticeship program because they were trying to increase their black membership. Me and a white friend walked into a black bar one night, a really hopping place, looking forward to good fun. But a guy leaned over first thing, and coughed on my neck. A big open mouthed phlegmy cough. I wiped off his slime and moved on, and someone else tripped me. I was working in a black home, a very affluent household. I finished what I had to do but had been given no instruction on whether to lock the place up or not, so I waited for an hour so on the porch until the guy got home. He asked me what I was doing and I told him I was watching his door til he got home. "Oh," he said, and walked in and shut the door behind him. I cant think but that I might have been treated in a more friendly way had I been black. My sister in law married a black guy. He was wild about her, but would have just nothing to do with me, just a nod.
But - I have mostly been treated with courtesy and civility, with warm friendliness, generosity, hospitality , and grace that has gladdened my heart and brought value to my life.
Why didn't I punch out the guy that spit on me? Why didn't I upbraid any of these for their abusive rudeness to me? I cant say for sure, but in the Old South my family was one of those that owned a lot of slaves. God only knows what atrocities they committed, and god only knows how many black americans are walking around today carrying the generational wounds and bruises that my family personally delivered. I'm not personally responsible for any of that, but I will also not be responsible for adding to the ugly list. I wont be lecturing anyone on how its unkind to spit on a white boy. After all, the guy that spit on me didn't know anything about me. It wasn't personal. He was spitting on a symbol of the oppression that had undermined his life. Thats' how I figured it. None of these things caused me real harm. The guy who snubbed my post office question.. that didn't screw up my life. But I figured maybe his rudeness somehow empowered him a little, let him feel somehow more whole and in control of his life. So, I could absorb that small insult. It wasn't me he was insulting, it was White Society, or something. The truck full of workers that wouldnt drive me up to the jobsite because it was the 'black van' and just laughed and told me to wait for the 'white van'. Well, their actions said nothing about me. I was not dishonored or defined in any way, but their actions did reveal something about the content of their own characters. 'Hey man, it was just a joke.' ha ha. yes, cute and clever. It's amazing how much poison can hide behind Cute and Clever. For instance - I could call you a Picaninny. That's kind of a cute and clever word, lightly comical sounding, like so many racial slurs, but while that would barely describe you in any way, it would go a long way in describing my own heart, for using it. The guy that spit on me did not dishonor me, he dishonored himself.
Wypipo is similar, yes? It's a cute and clever word, lightly comical sounding, but it does nothing to describe the people its aimed at. It says nothing about white people or any slice of white society. It does reveal the contempt and disregard of the people who use it or promote it though.
Take it from a blue eyed devil, born to racism. Racial slurs carry more poison to those that use them than to those that they are aimed at.