With Barack Obama's recent historical speech on the continuing racial divide in the country, I thought it would be helpful to share some of my research on people's earliest memories of racial difference and prejudice. The take-home message is earliest encounters linger and will influence our lives, if we let them do so!
We collected over 250 memories of first encounters with racial difference or prejudice from various members of my campus community of Connecticut College and another 100 or so memories from African-American students at Spelman College in Atlanta. In studying the stories people wrote about these memories, we were struck by the enduring vividness and power of these experiences from long ago in people's lives. Some were embarrassing memories in which the narrators made naïve comments like the one that is in the title of this blog, and others were more traumatic memories in which individuals were beaten up for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some people also shared moments of pride in which parents helped them to embrace their difference or the difference of others who shared their classrooms or neighborhoods.
What our results emphasized was how people often could not shake the attitudes parents had modeled for them so early in their lives. In one of the most painful examples, a participant wrote about how she had brought an African-American child home to her house for a play date. Her parents said nothing until the child left. Her father then spanked her and told her never to bring that "kind of child" to their home again. The person ended this memory by admitting that she has never felt comfortable with a person of color since then.
I would not want people reading this blog to come away with the impression that if we are exposed to racist or prejudiced attitudes early that there is nothing we can do about it. There is plenty we can do because we do not have to allow residual discomfort or awkwardness to guide our actions. It is our job as adults to look hard at ourselves and question deep-seated fears and reflexive biases. I think this was the true message of Obama's words. We live in a society scarred by a past of racial division and oppression. We have all been affected by this fact and cannot escape the way it has warped each and every one of us. Accepting that we are all tainted, that we are under its evil spell to some degree, what do we do about this? The answer is that we step up and reject the status quo, the legacy of discomfort and ill will that is easily available to us. We look for bridges and ways to unite. We find our better natures and rise above the painful impressions of our formative years. We do not let those who would prey on these early and easy prejudices distract us from our more noble purpose.
Late Bloomer
One of the biggest factors that molded my experiences with race happens to be the fact that issues of race did not arise until I was much older than some of my peers. I grew up in an environment that exposed me to many different races of people, and I was submerged in various cultures for many years before I encountered prejudice or bigotry. Maybe I was simply unaware of racial tensions that existed all along. For me, my earliest memories of discovering that there was supposed to be some grave difference between the races came in high school. I transferred to a very rural high school where students proudly embraced the southern heritage and wore Confederate flag shirts, pants, shoes, shoe strings, stickers, tattoos, hats, scarves, jackets, pins, etc--and I'm not exagerating. These emblems weren't in themselves burning totems of racism. It was statements made to me by people I considered my friends, statements like "White and black people can't have children together or their children will be deformed." "Black people are just naturally lazy." And once, a girl who couldn't have been older than four yelled at me on the bus, "Get away from me you N--!" I was appalled and horrified. Although I went on to a racially diverse university because I believed that exposure to different kinds of people was a truer view into the American experience, since that time I think I confront situations in which I'll be around people of the opposite race with a tinge of wariness, but an open mind. Learning about racism so late helped me to filter it through a lens of understanding of the ignorance fueling this social sickness. While I worry about the experiences that my children will one day have with racism, I try very hard to subtly lead them to the understanding that nobody's so different on the inside and there is nothing wrong with their little brown bodies, the same way that my mother raised me.
True, it's not an easy thing to grow out of, our safe, fenced in racially segregated mental worlds, but being a late bloomer helped me be aware of the fact that I don't need to worry about every four year old calling me the N-word, or every white person I work with being the enemy.