Cause I'm Electric
posted by kate @ 7:15 AM
5 comments
Out in Left Field
Where parenting and politics meet, but don't always play nice.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
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5 Comments:
"My youngest sons have two black classmates; my oldest only one."
Wait... what?
I've had black friends throughout my life. However they have always been friends either through school or work. When I've had black neighbors, the relationship just never clicked.
Those friends from work or school; we shared something that allowed a friendship to blossom. But the neighbors, I don't know what happened there.
Maybe your average white person and average black person just don't have enough common experience to base a friendship upon. Or something. That's the best I can come up with.
Kate-Growing up in the 60s and 70s in a military family makes my experience pretty atypical but suffice it to say our family has grown into a racial rainbow and we move pretty freely in a multi racial circle of friends and acquaintances. The much more troubling thing as we raise the daughter is a division along class/income lines. One of the reasons we chose our neighborhood in Tampa, from afar in suburban DC, was because it looked like it had the potential of exposing her to a wider range of people. The ethnic makeup is actually less diverse, but not everyone owns three cars and rushes to crew or lacrosse practice after school. However, she's old enough to find friends at work and through activities and they turn out to be more like us than most of our neighbors.
I am actually spending most of my time this winter away from Tampa doing some work for a community non-profit in Minnesota and we are dealing with entrenched racial divisions between the white and Ojibwe tribal communities. Things are so bad we've asked for help from a an outside foundation. We're recruiting people from both sides of the divide to go through a week long retreat. I don't know how things will work out yet.
I can tell you this about taking the first step and saying out loud "This is wrong and we need to work to change it" among the non-converted. It feels very much like crawling out on a limb and working to saw it off behind you. I don't suppose it's all that different from the first kid in the high school cafeteria who sits at the "other" group's table.
As stated before, my partner claims I was a black Jewish woman in a previous life. However, I did grow up in an all-white KKK town in southeast TX. Yeah, not a lot of black friends there. Interesting thing happened though, I left town and moved 8 miles away and my roomie was black. It was the greatest experience of my life and I can still call his mom anytime and she calls me her "Albino child". I think the diversity happens when you just find people you can talk to and understand while sharing common ground. Going out to specifically look for a black friend is like thinking you're going to pick one up while you're at Wal-Mart. My roomie and I met because we shared a few interests, got along well, and genuinely cared for each other. Now, pass me some chitlins.
My parents were children of the depression and lived with segregation. My mother was from North Carolina, and when we use to go to se my grandparents, I got a real good look at Jim Crow in action. What broke the cycle for me was the military. I enlisted in order to avoid being drafted. After basic training, I was sent to Medical Corps school and my roommate was Jamaican. He taught me the good and the bad, and the prejudices that black people had about us in a good way, not angry. We got to be good friends in the process, and I never had another problem with 'race issues'... oh to be sure I've had problems with people...just people of all kinds, but just people none the less. So I guess the long and the short of it is if you hold someone or a group of someones at arms distance, never get to know them, never find out about their likes and dislikes, there will always be a problem...someone always has to cross the line and put out a hand first.
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