A Racism 101

Sitting in class, fresh through the excerpt, someone asks, “Why does she capitalize Black but not white?” And immediately, without a pause or any hesitation, someone replies, “Because she’s a racist.” Is it silly of me to be surprised by this immediate response? Should I attribute my shock to my race? To my personal views? To the influence of my race on my personal views? Yes, I will admit, there are things that white people ca not do or say in our society because it immediately registers as “racist.” I even admit that it can be perceived as “not fair” as I’ve heard many of my peers say. But I also admit to the other side, the side that I am personally involved with, my family who shake their heads and say the hurt is still too fresh. Yes slavery was over almost 200 years ago, but that official abolition date does not mean the racism ended until forty, thirty, twenty, even ten, years ago depending on location. Some places it is still going. I have family ties in Mississippi and Ohio, the South and the Midwest, and those places were plagued by racism issues, if my grandparents, aunts and uncles and second cousins and the things they say and believe are anything to go by. If the fact that my parents did not learn to swim until they were young adults because their parents were so used to segregation at pools that they forbade my parents’ generation near the water is anything to go by. I am not saying that anyone owes my anything, most black people are not saying that either, and I am not saying that black people are not or cannot be racist, because they can be and be so openly. I am saying that there is more than one side to this issue, like everything else in the world, and that one cannot just dismiss a whole passage or person’s beliefs by first impressions or previous beliefs of your own.