who lives in that tiny ass town off the highway, in the middle of nowhere

[jlh]

It's International Blog Against Racism Week! You can read more at ibarw. I've changed my default icon for the first time since I got my "clio seamus/dean" one, and rather than making one monster post I thought I'd make daily smaller ones, taking the theme of my favorite cartoon ever, This Is Dedicated to that One Black Kid by Keith Knight, which I linked to a little bit ago. My overall disclaimer for the week is that I'm not speaking for anyone else, and really I never do--who can? My racial experience isn't singular, but it is out of the norm, which is probably why that cartoon spoke to me so directly.

I'll also say that I meant to make this post on Monday, which is why it's backdated for the ages. I started writing and got a little discouraged, and then I read this post about a very different sort of growing-up-black experience (thanks to oyceter for the link) and realized that really, this was fine for a post.

I absolutely lived in a tiny ass town off the highway in the middle of nowhere—population 14,000, the kind of place that as a teen you can't wait to get out of. Often when people learn I was born and grew up in Maine they say, "Didn't you have a lot of problems with racism?" presuming that I would have, given that it's so white (according to the 2000 census, 97%). And when I say, "Not really" I can sense the disbelief; I've even been gently told that I don't want to remember, or didn't realize when it was happening. And that's sort of true, and sort of not. Maine is an incredibly insular place, where by far the most important thing is whether or not you're a Mainer. I don't know what it is about me or the way I carry myself, but I come across as a native nearly all of the time, so I tend to not raise that many eyebrows. What was true was that I was often the first, or only, person of color that people had met, but I'll talk about that in a later post.

I'm sure this isn't true everyplace. I didn't even grow up in a particularly liberal town; Maine is in the northeast but is rural and so tends to have sort of bizarre politics. But what I do remember is that folks I knew were accepting of their ignorance. They knew they didn't know anything, and when I'd say something to them, I rarely got the sort of defensiveness that I've seen so often since. And I'm sure it was also colored by having been cross-racially adopted, so even my family was white. But it does make me wonder about the "white liberal guilt" that we often (sort of) joke about, and whether wanting to think of yourself as knowledgeable and not racist makes you unable to learn.

What I gained from being in a tiny ass town off the highway in the middle of nowhere was time to not be culturally black, which had its good points and bad points like anything else. I'd still describe the "culture" I came from as Maine, with a side of French Catholic: rural, insular, stoic, and prone to silence. I got to be the "smart" kid, to be in the band, to do pretty much whatever I wanted without pressure of doing what the other black kids were doing. But on the down side, I was pretty unprepared, often, for how some people would react to me (both black and not) and I had no sense at all of my racial cultural heritage. I was left to find my way through race on my own. Now, in the end most of us decide what being black is for ourselves, but I'm sure I made a lot of mistakes along the way. It would have been nice to have had someone to talk about these things with before I got to college.

So this is why this goal of a "colorblind society" doesn't work for me. It's why I get annoyed when people "forget" that I'm black or just "don't think about race." It IS the hallmark of being white and unaware of your privilege, like the people I grew up with. I think my larger point here is that it isn't what you know or don't know that makes the difference, as we learned with the whole miscegenation mess; it's how you react when you realize you didn't know. There is no shame in a lack of knowledge; only in a disregard of it.

Comments

As good a place to reply as any

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

(1) I didn't know you'd done radio in college! That's v. cool.

(2) jedirita has adopted a little boy and she's wondering about how on earth she's going to raise him to be a young black man. She posted about it here (http://jedirita.livejournal.com/308086.html) and I thought you might (or might not, really, all things considered) have something of interest or useful to share with her. At any rate, it might be worth pointing her to these posts; I think y'all are thinking about similar things from v. different directions right now. I love it when that happens. :D

Re: As good a place to reply as any

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I did, and "Jenifa Taught Me" was my theme song. That's how I met Peter, actually--he was in the classical department and did the opera show. My friend Sarah was also at the station.

Someday when you have time checking out all the links at the ibarw comm might be good, when you want food for thought. But thanks for this link and the other one you emailed me!

But I feel the same way; the whole discussion has been very exciting!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It's kind of fascinating how this can work--if you've got one person living in a community it seems like it's really a different thing that a group of "them" that people see as threatening etc. But I also never thought about how you'd have that pressure on the other side of being expected to somehow know stuff that you haven't been exposed to just because of who you are biologically. Even while there are things that do come biologically, if that makes sense.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

There was something on NPR this morning about some rural counties that are starting to become non-majority white just within the last few years, and a hispanic woman living in rural VA someplace said that things were fine when there weren't many hispanics there (I guess she's been there 25 years or so) but as their numbers increased, the town attitude started to change.

I always wondered, because I was a better dancer than many of my friends, if that was somehow a "black" thing, like the stereotype? Being adopted you always wonder about those things, because actually my family is a big dancing family. My parents would always go out dancing if they wanted to go out for an evening. And at weddings, you should see my brother and sister and their spouses. They might all be in their fifties but they do NOT dance like, you know, your uncle at a wedding. My sister and BIL do a mean hustle, actually.

[dramawench.livejournal.com]

You have such a unique perspective, coming from where you do and how you were raised. I think that makes your posts and thoughts on these issues even more important. Keep it up!

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I really appreciate that. Here, a Maine icon.

[dizzledee.livejournal.com]

I got to be the "smart" kid, to be in the band, to do pretty much whatever I wanted without pressure of doing what the other black kids were doing

Sometimes, I wish I had that. I had the pressure to be 'blacker' than I was (and still do in some circles) because of how light skinned I am and that people expected me to pick sides. And I've always had the 'black' identity even though that's probably the minority of the blood running through my veins.

I think my larger point here is that it isn't what you know or don't know that makes the difference, as we learned with the whole miscegenation mess; it's how you react when you realize you didn't know. There is no shame in a lack of knowledge; only in a disregard of it.

Yep.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I thought of you when I was writing that paragraph, from things you said about school and all of that. It sucks that you can't be both but I think that's true for everyone in high school and even college, and it takes a while to work out the various sides of yourself and then find people who line up with those sides. But I wish that when I saw a big bunch of black folks that I didn't know that I felt like walking over to them, instead of worrying that I wouldn't act black enough and they wouldn't like me.

Picking sides also reminds me of the whole interracial mess and how Halle Berry is very clear that she is black, while Mariah Carey and Tiger Woods catch some heat for saying, this is what I am and you can call me what you want. I remember reading a whole article about it in Jet (I know) and being sort of taken aback by the tone. But as interracial emerges as this sort of identity I find that it comes closer to how I feel about myself--though it could just be another way to reconcile my race with my upbringing.

[amyamy.livejournal.com]

So this is why this goal of a "colorblind society" doesn't work for me. It's why I get annoyed when people "forget" that I'm black or just "don't think about race." It IS the hallmark of being white and unaware of your privilege, like the people I grew up with.

I definitely see how it's a big flashing neon sign for white privilage (thank you for that, by the way, hadn't consciously made the connection between a discussion some friends of mine were having about male privilage and a man's right/ability to not worry about gender) and can understand how it would be incredibly disturbing. I also think the ignorning of race is also a frighteningly easy way to ignore cultural difference - certainly I waned to hold onto and remember the things which made me American while I was living in Japan. I din't want to become Japanese, of course, and knew many Brit/Canadian/Aussies/etc caucasians who would get very annoyed/upset if someone assumed (as the Japanese tend to do) that white = American.

I am curious, though, and am trying to figure out how to work this best. Sorry if I fail. Do you think it would be a good thing if everyone, not simply whites with white privilage, really did stop caring about race and color? True socieital "colorblindness" (and I've been trying for minutes to come up with a less loaded term and just thoroughly failing), it seems to me, ought to be the end result of true equality (opinions?), except what happens then to matters of historical and cultural heritage and context?

[jlh.livejournal.com]

if someone assumed (as the Japanese tend to do) that white = American.

How interesting that they do that! I guess they would be more America-oriented than Brit-oriented like, say, South Asians. My personal hope is that as racism itself receeds--and it IS receding, slowly but surely--that it will be replaced with an interest in and respect for cultural diversity, which is something we haven't always had in this country, or at least, not for every culture, certainly.

So it isn't about erasing difference, but about not putting hierarchical weighting on those differences. That person does soemthing I don't do, but it's sort of like this thing I do, and sort of not, and that's cool. The problem is that we're sort of hard wired as a species to think in terms of "us" and "them" and for good reason. So in a sense having a multicultural, unbiased society is "unnatural" but it's also the future, as we keep moving around and intermarrying and all of that, so we'd better work this shit out. Or as LBJ said, "we must learn to love one another, or we must die."