When I was a child...

[lostnfound]

92. I'm white and can't believe it took me 50:years to see how stupid most whites are

I learned about racism in Catholic school, that we were all Gods children and that terrible things had been done to people based on the color of their skin, and this made God unhappy. But it was an all-white Catholic school. And some kids were treated as less for reasons as silly as their names “Penny?! What kind of name is that? There is no St. Penny!”

I got confused when my aging and cautious father told us to lock the doors”on “the South side” because it wasn’t safe. As a teenager it annoyed me.

In college I tried but failed to make a friend of a black woman roommate. I’m sorry for whatever ignorance on my part chased her away.

In the workplace it was easier. But only in my 40s when I was raising a child did I see black people on the streets with eyes newly opened to the hardship some experienced and yet they overcame. Raising a kid was so hard, even with my advantages. What must it be like for others? Gradually I started to become shocked by the level of self control displayed by black people every day, to survive in such a ridiculously racist society.

Years of listening to KPFT — shows by Hitaji Azziz for example — taught me to be more broadly aware. More recently, I’ve really enjoyed Joy Reid, Tiffany Cross, Jonathan Capehart, and Al Sharpton not only for their own views but the fact that they often have multiple black guests discussing issues important to them. It is a pleasure, in spite of often painful content, to feel one’s own mind or heart stretched open. Let it happen. I’m grateful. And clearly, the “average black person” is showing way better judgment than “the average white person” who elected the former guy.

But also in recent years, I feel very angry at the PRIMITIVES who insist on perpetuating the tired, hateful, limiting, destructive and ugly racism that makes the world worse for everyone. Hearing that there was speculation about the color of the skin of an unborn baby of Meghan and Harry made me want to throw up. The smirking face of Derek Chauvin is like dirt to me, like repulsive chewed-up dirty gum stuck on the shoe of America. The laws being passed to suppress black votes are a hard slap in the face to the ideals I was taught when young by my less-than-perfect dad or my-less-than-perfect school. At the moment, the only specific non-family bequests in my will are to Fair Fight and Southern Poverty Law Center.

I’m sorry it took so long to get this far, for me. The future belongs to people of color, and I personally will welcome that change.