The Race Card.....Again

I keep finding myself in situations where I feel disrespected.  Taken for granted.  Dictated to.  Talked down to.  The only constant in these situation is that I am black and everyone else is white.  I'd like to think that this is just a coincidence but it happens too often for it to be.

Then I think that maybe it's me.  Maybe I'm on edge; waiting for someone to do or say something.  Maybe I am hypersensitive to it.  Maybe it keeps happening because I'm the problem.

I feel like I am distrusted to handle certain tasks.  Like my opinions aren't valued.  Like I'm talked down to like a child.  But I'm more educated than all of them.  That's the kicker.  They think less of me and treat me like a subordinate because I'm "new".  But I'm not really new.  I have just as much experience (often more) than they do but I'm new to them in this role. 

If I confront them I am always the angry black woman because I can't control my emotions.  But on a daily basis I feel mistreated.  I stew over these incidents obsessively.  I have heart palpitations.  I can't sleep.  When I'm in meetings I try so hard to act like everything is okay that I often stumble over my words and become the bumbling idiot they all seem to think I am.

By the end of the day my jaw hurts from clenching.  I don't even realize I'm doing it until the headache and neck pain sets in.  I have to sleep with a night guard or I have crippling migraines and stabbing pains in my jaw throughout the day. 

If I go somewhere else it won't be different.  At this point I know that.  That this misjudgment and bias will follow me everywhere.  I think that I'll just do a kick ass job and they'll have to notice and change their tune but they never do.  It never happens.  I feel proud of myself and then they kick me down. 

I think back to years ago when I was depressed and spent most of my time in the house alone.  When I wallowed in my solitude and didn't participate in life.  When I took working from to home to extremes and rarely went further than the end of my driveway.  Than I remember how I found myself again.  How I found myself through fitness and volunteering and then moved to positions of authority in both fields and started to feel fulfilled. 

But now I'm back in the same old rut I always find myself in.  I am filled with anxiety.  I am ready to quit everything and just go back to being a hermit.  But I know this isn't the right answer.  I just wish I knew what was. 

But You Speak So Well

Whenever I am with a large group of black people, particularly women, I feel more judged than at any other time in my life.  I feel excluded.  No matter what the setting, there are some black women who seem so intent on preserving their clique that they push other black people away.  I have experienced this the most in professional and fitness groups.

If I had a dollar for every time some white person said to me "Good for you" when they find out I have a technical career or "You speak so well" when they meet me in person after only speaking to me on the phone or via e-mail and not realizing that I'm black.  I know that other black professionals experience this.  I find comfort in having this confirmed in online forums.  I am not the only one who struggles to exist in a atmosphere that is still very much predominantly male and white.  I am not the only one who has been asked to make coffee or copies when someone comes into the office and assumes that I must be a secretary. 

But when I meet my black peers in person I feel the exact same discomfort that I do from my white peers at work.  I want to be supportive of these organizations because they need to exist but, whenever I attend any events in person, I find the hypocrisy difficult to stomach.  At least if I never meet them in person I don't have to deal with the reality that these people don't really have my back.  That they don't get me or care about me.  That the occasional "troll-like' posts that exist in these forums online are more prevalent in person. 

I have found that a lot of other black people have experienced the same thing and now boycott these events.  I have made more black friends through mainstream organizations than through the black-centric ones.  I don't know what this means in the current racial and political climate but it seems like now more than ever we should be supporting each other rather than tearing each other down. 

Traveling While Black

I frequently find myself in some of the trendiest/most expensive restaurants in a city when I travel for work.  The beauty of having a job that makes you travel is the blank check that comes along with it.  All of my expenses are covered by my job so I tend to live it up.

Unfortunately, I am not always treated nicely in these trendy, expensive places.  Depending on where I am traveling, I am often the only black person or the only single person in a restaurant.  I know that some people hold a bias against black diners because they believe that black people don't tip well.  Now let me say, I definitely know black people that live up to the stereotype but I also know a lot of white people who are bad tippers. 

I've also been told that black women are finicky diners who complain about their food and try to get things for free.  If my food is bad I might complain but if the service is crappy I might just suck it up to get the night over with.  But these biases put me in a terrible situation. If I receive bad service I shouldn't leave a big tip but if I don't leave a big tip it just feeds into their bias and makes them treat the next person even worse.

Tonight I dined alone at a trendy restaurant in a major city.  I saw people who arrived after me get served before me.  My drink order never came so I had to ask the person who brought my food to check on my drink.  My waiter never checked on me after he took my order.  I'm pretty sure I was overcharged for my dinner but it took so long to get the bill (and remember it's not my money) that I didn't want to risk sending it back. 

Not that it should matter but I was dressed in my work clothes.  A nice blouse and slacks.  My wedding ring is kind of big and I carry a designer purse.  If you were going to stereotype someone as cheap it wouldn't be me.  That's all I'm saying.

So what did I do?  I left a big tip and walked out feeling discriminated against.  I will mention the bad service on my Yelp review but the food was good and the spot was trendy so that won't keep people away.  If I mentioned to management that I felt their waiters discriminated against some diners they wouldn't believe it.  This is a very diverse big city with an equally diverse clientele.  But I was there tonight and I know what I experienced. 

Another day, another video

It is hard to know how to feel these days.  Watching OJ: Made in America in the midst of the weekly videos of police brutality towards brown people and an unapologetically racist candidate for president makes me want to stay in bed forever and pull the covers over my head.

The OJ miniseries reminds me of where I was when all of this happened.  I was in college.  I remember being shocked and outraged when I saw the Rodney King video.  I remember thinking in my ignorance that surely these police officers would go to prison.  Police were there to protect you.  They were the people you were supposed to run to in a crisis.  These cops in the video weren't real policeman.  They were anomalies.  They would be punished and all would be right in the world. 

Well of course that's not what happened.  How blissful I was in my ignorance.  Now 2 decades later I can't count the number of times I've seen similar videos of police brutality.  I don't even hope for a trial or guilty verdict any more.  Not only has it become commonplace for police officers to kill black people, but it is also okay if you're just a citizen.  You don't even have to be a cop.  You see a black person.  Make an assumption about that person.  Even if that person is minding their own business and poses no threat to you at all.  You can kill him.  No one will care.  No one will notice.

What if all these videos were of white people being beaten and murdered?  Every time I hear a story about an innocent person being mistaken for a criminal I don't need to hear the race of the person.  I know it is only on the news because that person is dead and likely unarmed and black.

My hope is that eventually such a heinous crime will be caught on video that people will be shocked into action.  I don't know what will be worse than police severing a man's spine or shooting an unarmed man 20 times on his wedding day but I know it will come.  That the end of slavery, desegregation of schools, etc.  all came eventually.  Eventually cops will think twice before killing someone because they know that they will be punished for their crime and go to jail if they are wrong.  

I am so sick of hearing the daily justifications for these actions.  Oh, it's okay that they killed this innocent person because he has a criminal record.  No, he wasn't breaking the law when they shot him but the mere existence of a shady background makes it okay.  Or maybe they were breaking the law.  Maybe they have a warrant for their arrest.  No they didn't have a gun and weren't threatening the police in any way but they might have.  See we killed a bad person.  Eventually this person would have done something so we were doing a public service.

Not that this brutality is new.  It's just that in this age of social media and everyone having a camera in their pocket that they are caught on tape and made public.  People who think there is a sudden surge in police brutality are naive.  The brutality has been going on forever and will likely continue to go on.  It's just harder to ignore now. 

Every time I pass a police officer I have irrational fears of being pulled over for speeding and then being pulled out of my car and being beaten.  If I walk into a store and there are police there I worry that I might look suspicious.  That my big purse will make them think I'm carrying a weapon. That if I talk too loudly or get too close to them they will accuse me of something.  But them I worry that if they don't notice me and I suddenly sneak up on them by walking around a corner they may be surprised by the sudden appearance of a black face and draw their weapons.

I know that these fears are irrational but that doesn't stop me from having them.  I can't imagine that any of the innocent people who have been killed thought they were about to die. 

So yes, OJ was obviously guilty.  The evidence should have been more than enough to put him away for those murders.  But he got off.  He beat the system.  He was a black man who committed a crime and wasn't punished for it.  It feels like a victory in the face of all of the cops who killed black people and got away with it.  I can understand why so many people wanted to believe that OJ was innocent. 

I'm happy that in the end karma came around and he ended up going to jail.  Sure, it wasn't for murder but it still feels like justice.  I can only hope that one day karma will come around for the rest of us too.    Until then I won't make the mistake of running towards police for help.  I will take my chances with whoever is chasing me instead. 

BET Takes A Giant Step Backward

On the season finale of Being Mary Jane, Mary Jane ended her relationship with "The White Boy".  Not really a surprise since all of her relationships are unhealthy and end in a ball of fire.  Fans expect at least one new love interest per season and, subsequently, one epic breakup.  Usually the relationships have a honeymoon period and the viewers get sucked into thinking this one might last before the hammer drops.  But the difference between the other break ups and this one is that nothing actually happened this time. 

There was no argument that lead to this breakup.  Just Mary Jane deciding one day that she was black and could not maintain her blackness if she dated a white boy.  She spouted off all kinds of BS about how black men got her in a way that white men never could and that she couldn't date a white man because of this because it was some sort of betrayal to her race.  WTF.

So all black marriages have a 100% success rate because they just get each other?  Or 0% of interracial marriages last because they don't?  Shame on BET for this sort of ignorant 1950's mindset.  Black people and white people are different and they shouldn't be together.  Stay with your race.  Never stray from what society tells you is best for you. 

Relationships work when people listen to each other, respect each other and let their guard down enough to open themselves up.  For all the single women out their who cheered when Mary Jane ended the relationship and in the next breath complained to their girlfriends about how hard it is to find a good (black) man shame on you too.  I'm so over media telling me who I'm supposed to be.  The last place I expected to see racism promoted was on a network that is supposed to make me feel good about being black.  

Inequalities in Prison Terms in the U.S.

I was excited to read about the 25th anniversary of Friday Night Lights in the 8/3/15 issue of Sports Illustrated.  The book, movie and TV series are all held up as some of the best of all time.  But, almost as a side note, the article highlighted the inequalities of he criminal justice system.  Either the author didn't notice it or didn't want to turn his nostalgic article into a political article. Sports Illustrated missed a key opportunity to address an issue that society is struggling with right now. 

Person A- Abused by relatives.  Spent time in foster care.  High school football star.  School helped him cheat in high school so he could stay eligible to play football.  The help stopped once he was injured and couldn't play.  Flunked out of college. Charged with aggravated assault after hitting someone with a beer bottle during a fight.  No prior felony record.  Misdemeanors for driving without a license and failure to pay child support.  Given 10 years probation.  Stopped making regular visits to his parole officer.  Sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Person B- Family law firm.  High school football star.  Attended Harvard.  Joined family law firm.  Admitted starting a fight with his girlfriend and her ex-husband that escalated into a brawl.  B and two friends entered the ex-husband's house uninvited and continued fighting with the 8 people inside.  Charged with burglary with intent to commit assault- a serious felony.  Placed on 5 years probation and had his law license suspended for 5 years.

There is big difference here.  Why was one given 10 years probation and the other 5 years?  Was person A told that if he violated his parole he would then have an equal amount of jail time?  Did person A ever receive therapy to deal with his childhood hardships?  Person A didn't have the family support or resources that person B had.  Person B not only had a family of lawyers supporting him but the personal knowledge of the law to know what would happen if he didn't follow the rules.   

I am not advocating violating parole but there are too many people spending years in prison for non-violent offenses.  And more often than not, they aren't given therapy or skills in prison to cope with the real world once they get out so a lot of them end up coming back. 

It is hard to believe that race and economic status didn't play a role in the unequal treatment of the two men.  Person A is black and poor.  When he was injured and could no longer play for the football team, he was subjected to racism from the football staff and community.  The football team provided him with the support that he never had from his family.  Once that was gone, he was on his own again.

Person B is Hispanic and comes from a family that is prominent in the community.  I'd like to believe that person B would have been sentenced to prison if he violated his parole but it seems unlikely.  And if he was sentenced it probably wouldn't have been for 10 years. 

No matter what your background, there should be a set list of rules for offenses so that judges don't sentence poor, black people to longer sentences.  A good lawyer or a bad judge shouldn't decide someone's fate.  At some point the criminal justice system needs to stop solving everything with a trip to prison.  Rehabilitation will have to be a key part of  treatment.  The reason we have more people in prison than any other developed country is because people are in jail for non-violent offenses.  We put all of our money into building new prisons and very little on programs to prevent people from going into prison in the first place. 

Young Bigots

I am always shocked when young people are ignorant.  When I see anyone under the age of 40 smoking I want to shake them.  Don't you know the risks?  Don't you know how awful you smell?  How your habit affects innocent people around you.  It's the same with all the "isms". 

I remember this stupid game that we would play where we would say who we would marry if you had to marry someone in the room.  In high school it was all very innocent.  Everyone named each other and giggled.  Maybe revealing secret crushes.  But it all changed in college. 

In my circle of friends I am almost always the only black face.  It's never an issue until someone makes it an issue.  I would live my life like everyone else and then WHAM, out of nowhere, racism.  During my first Habitat for Humanity spring break we were playing the who would you marry game.  A couple of guys said me which was nice.  But both of them immediately said "But not really.  My family or the people where I grew up wouldn't approve of that" or something similar.  It was a stupid game.  It wasn't a commitment.  But they had to make sure to declare that there was no possibility of marrying me, their friend, solely because I was black.  I will never forget that.

Or my former co-worker who whispered to me that his brother hated that he listened to rap music and called it n*gger music.  I don't even know where that comes from.  I don't know why he felt like he should tell me that or why he wasn't disgusted by his brother's use of the word.  But I know that I trusted him less after that.  If he was willing to tell me that to my face what sort of racism took place in that house, in his life outside of work.

As I watch all the posts on social media from people regarding police brutality and racial profiling, gay marriage and the president, I am shocked on a daily basis by how many young ignorant people there are in my life.  Some of these people hide behind the bible or some ridiculous claims from a right wing organization that say the president is taking away guns, the kids are going to be taught how to be gay in school and other completely insane things.  The worst of it is they believe what they are saying.  They believe that they are right.  That they are justified in this hatred or justification for hatred.  It is depressing. 

With every news report or documentary that I watch it is clear that we have a long way to go as a country.  The sad part is that these people have children that they are teaching to be ignorant.  That this hate will continue on for generations to come.  Maybe these people aren't directly responsible for all the tragedies that happen in this country but the people who are don't think that different from them.  Instead of just saying how much they hate a group of people they are going out and attacking those people.  Trying to eliminate them.  All it takes is one unstable person in a group of angry people to create a tragedy. 

For now all I can do is hide those people from my feed.  There is no reason to subject myself to their hate.  I can only hope that things do not get too much worse before they start to get better.

Homosexuality and Sports

Jason Collins is gay.  No matter what talk radio station I turn to, that is all people are talking about.  Collins is the first male American professional athlete in one of the major sports to come out while he is still an active player.  All of those adjectives are key in the description.  Tennis, swimming, figure skating and golf are all sports with male professional athletes but if one of their players came out it would be reported on the back page of the sports section.  It would be a non-story after 24 hours.  Athletes coming out after retirement from one of the big 4 (football, basketball, baseball and hockey) is nothing new.  Female athletes coming out while they are still playing?  It's been happening for years and it rarely gets a reaction. So my excitement over his coming out has been squashed by all the ignorant comments that I've heard for the past 2 days. 

The two most common arguments:

Gay people should have separate locker rooms.  If I were playing sports and one of my teammates were gay I wouldn't feel comfortable changing next to him. 

So apparently gay men are all sex fiends.  They can't stand near someone of the sex they are attracted to without wanting to have sex with him.  And of course all people of the sex they are attracted to are attractive to them.  I have never been a man but I have changed and/or gone to the bathroom in front of plenty of men and gay women over the years and, in doing so, been partially or completely undressed in front of them.  At no point did I have to fight someone off because they were so overcome by the sight of my partially naked body that they had to jump on me.  

To play the other side of this argument.  What if someone was attracted to you?  Does that mean they would act on it?  Do people typically physically assault every person they have a crush on?  More often than not, you hide your feelings from the person you are lusting after and go out of your way to seem like you are not attracted to them.  I have had men and women grab my ass or make inappropriate comments to me while I was walking down the street or into a bar.  I wouldn't advocate for all people who may be attracted to me to be banned from public places because they incidents are the exception and not the rule.  I have been well over 100 situations where something like this could have occurred; I can count all the incidents on one hand. 

There is nothing courageous about what he did.  It's not like he's a superstar.  If Kobe Bryant came out that would be brave.  That would be a story.  

Your accountant coming out is not a big deal to the general public. For the most part, kids aren't watching your accountant on TV.  Your accountant doesn't regularly bump elbows with some of the richest, famous and most talented people on the planet. Your accountant would still be brave if he came out within his co-workers and circle of friends but it wouldn't be national news. 

A 12 year old boy who knows he is gay but is afraid to come out because he doesn't want someone to call him a sissy may not have known who Jason Collins was yesterday but today he is his biggest fan.  Because he sees someone who shares his sexuality but doesn't act like the over the top, gay stereotype that is so often portrayed on American television (think the New Normal, Glee, Rupaul, etc). He sees another option.  He sees that he can be gay and still be masculine and not the but of a joke.  And he sees those guys that are superstars playing next to this guy and not blinking an eye.   

Collins pointed this out in one of his interviews.  He made a point to mention that he is not an effeminate gay man.  Many gay listeners called in and criticized him for this.  These people need to face the fact that people who's inner circle doesn't include gay people think of all gay men as the overly effeminate lisping stereotype and all gay women as  the manly, unattractive man-hating stereotype.  It is important for people to realize that gay people come in all shapes, sizes, colors and personalities just like the rest of us. Yes, sometimes you can look at a person and guess that they are gay.  But a lot of the time you can't.  And there are a lot of effeminate straight men out there screwing with this stereotype.  

I am black and my husband is white.  There are a lot of people who don't approve of our relationship.  Many of these people are very vocal about their disapproval of our relationship.  30 years ago there were laws that supported people's rights to discriminate against us and, in some cases, arrest us for being married.  Unfortunately there are still many people who feel this way.  There are still towns with segregated proms and neighborhoods.  But they are the exception, not the rule. 

I hope that we are saying the same things about gay rights a few years from now.  That when a so called religious person compares homosexuality to bestiality, pedophilia and polygamy people look at those people as crazy.  That those people no longer get to be part of the mainstream.  That their hate is limited to the cult that they represent.    That those people are on the fringe with the rest of the bigots and the rest of us are allowed to live our lives with the same rights and freedoms as every other American citizen.  

What Would You Do?

Ever since Oprah got her OWN network I have been over indulging in life changing TV.  I am admittedly not Oprah's biggest fan and was very happy when her show finally ended (at least 5 years too late if you ask me).   http://onehappybitch.blogspot.com/2009/07/when-did-oprah-jump-shark.html

But I have to admit that a lot of the content that is on OWN is as life changing and as thought provoking as the old Oprah show and, thankfully, very light on the presence of Oprah (big plus).

There is this show called What Would You Do? which is apparently a re-airing of a show from ABC that I never saw.  Hidden camera shows make me cringe.  I hate to see the awkward situations and feel for the people who are put in them.  Candid Camera, Punked and other shows like that have never been my thing.  But this show is different.  It uses actors to create morally questionable situations and then films how real people react to these situations.  This show is not only a great social experiment but it makes you question how you would react in the same situations.  

As good as this show is, several episodes get backed up on my DVR before I have the courage to sit down and watch one.  This is because the show make me cry every time.  I cry with happiness for the innocent people who do the right thing and for all the people who don't.  I cry because I know these scenarios are based on things that have happened in real life.  This show makes me ashamed of the apathy of society and the prevalence of prejudice.  

One episode that sticks out in my mind was of kids vandalizing cars at a public park.  The park was in a middle class neighborhood in New Jersey and the experiment was done on a very busy Saturday morning.  When the vandals were white kids some people called the cops or confronted the kids but a lot of people just walked past.  But when the vandals were black kids the response was almost immediate and much more aggressive.  When questioned, the people said that they would have reacted the same way if the kids were white but that clearly wasn't what the experiment showed.  

It seemed like in this very white middle class neighborhood, the people assumed that the white kids were some kids from the neighborhood who were just fooling around.  But those black kids, no they clearly couldn't live there, they weren't from the neighborhood.  They were a threat.  Because if media has taught us anything its that young black men are thugs and young white men are just goofing off.  Maybe that's a stretch but I can tell you that people often make assumptions about me solely based on my race.  The people who make these assumptions don't seem to have ever had any meaningful conversations with a black person.  Media must play a role in how they form their opinions because it's not coming from life experience. 

The worst part of this episode was how many people called the police to report a group of black people sleeping in their car in the park.  This was not an experiment set up by the show but a real situation that occurred during the planned scenario.  People were calling to say that they thought they were casing the park and potentially going to rob it.  This was a story that the white people created in their heads because they had been taught to fear black people. Because these people who didn't look like them didn't belong in their neighborhood.  These were a few people taking a nap in their car.  I can't express how harmless this situation was.  I wish they would have re-created the situation with a white family.  I bet no one would have called.  

The crazy thing was that these calls came in while the white kids were vandalizing cars.  So these people took the time to call the police to report black people minding their own business and ignored the white people breaking the law.  It makes me sad.  

I wish this were required viewing for everyone.  It should be a required class from elementary school through college, like English, because it is just as important.  Knowing how to properly punctuate a sentence is a pretty worthless skill unless you're going to become an English teacher.  Learning how to accept people from different backgrounds and live in harmony with people that are different than you is essential.  I don't think society will ever be perfect but it would be a hell of a lot better if people talked about these things and didn't pretend like the don't exist.  In every episode I learn something else about myself.  I hope that I am one of the good people that would do the right thing.  But I don't know how I would react if confronted with a situation like this.  That is the beauty of the show.  It's easy to say what you would do when you are sitting on your couch.  But in real life, how many of us would be cowards?  How many of our hidden prejudices would reveal themselves?  

Thanksgiving

Today I am thankful that I am a straight woman. I am thankful that I wasn't born pre-disposed to love someone of the same sex because my life would be very difficult. I could not marry the person that I loved in most states. If I died, my partner might not be allowed to received death benefits. If my partner and I had children and she died her family could take my children away from me if they didn't approve of our lifestyle. I could get kicked out of the military if someone found out I was gay no matter how nobly I served or how many times I had risked my life to protest the lives of others.

I live in a country where society as a whole allows gay people to be discriminated against. Where there are government policies that discriminate, or at least don't equally protect, gay people. Why are people surprised that so many gay children and young adults are killing themselves? What are we as a society giving them to look forward too? What message are we sending them about their lifestyle?

I know that things will get better, because they always do. There was a time where I couldn't go to college, marry my husband or go to certain places without fearing for my life because I am black. I hope that gay kids that are born in the next decade can look back at the early 2000's and be grateful that they weren't born then, the way I look back at the late 50's when my mother was born. I hope that we as a society realize then, how ignorant we were as a society and how un-American it was to discriminate against 10% of our population because they were different.

What I Should Have Said

I often find myself having imaginary conversations with people days (OK sometimes months) after an encounter that upset me. I never seem to be able to compose myself enough in the moment to say what I really want to say when someone says something ignorant. I think I'm just so shocked at the things that people do and say that I'm at a loss for words.

Q: Are you the first person in your family to go to college?
A: No.

I used to get this question a lot more in my 20's. I am happy to say that I only get asked every once in a while these days but it still aggravates me. It is either a demonstration of how ignorant people are about the history of black people in this country or that they are racist and assume that black people aren't educated.

What I Should Have Said: How old do you think I am? Do you know that some northern colleges were admitting black people in the 1700's and shortly after that historically black colleges were established all over the US? By the time slavery was abolished in the late 1800's black people had been going to college for more than 100 years. The Civil War ended in 1865. It's almost 2011.

Yes, black people's rights and opportunities were still very limited in some geographic regions until the 1960's and 1970's when the Civil Rights Movement worked to change that but that doesn't mean they lacked the desire to become educated and strive for a better life. A person's
ability to go to college is generally driven by their socioeconomic status more than anything else. Yes, by percentages, there are more poor black people than any other race but that doesn't mean that all poor people are black or that all black people are poor.

Depending on what study you believe 50-60% of Americans have attended college but only 27% leave college with a degree. According to the federal government, 57% of white students who enter college earn their degrees compared to 44% and 39% of Hispanic and black students, respectively. Not great odds when you compare us to other countries.

So 1/4-1/3 of all people that you meet don't have a college degree, regardless of race. Are you asking everyone you meet if they are the first one in their family to attend college? If you are, I'm sorry I was offended by your comment. I thought you were asking me because you're one of those people who watched shows like The Cosby Show and thought they were the exception and that few, if any, successful black people exist in the world.

You're the guy who asks me for more towels when you see me walking down the hall in a nice hotel or the lady who asks me to find a shoe in her size while I'm shopping at a fancy department store because you can't fathom me being able to afford these things. You're the mother of several of my friends growing up who were surprised that I was black the first time they met me in person because "I sounded white on the phone". You're tiny, ignorant little brain can't imagine that a black person could have the same, or gasp, a higher level of success and income that you.

I wish that I could say that all the people who ask me these questions are very old but they are usually late 30's to early 50's. I struggle to tell someone that they've got snot hanging out of their nose. I can't imagine walking up to a complete stranger and asking them anything like that. As I've gotten older, I've tried to let these comments go but I am rarely successful. I'd be lying if I didn't say that every moment of ignorance against me is burned into my memory with no hope of being erased.

Racism in Black Media

Last month Reggie Bush was on the cover of Essence magazine. He’s a professional football player, young, attractive, great body. Makes sense to me. Apparently a number of Essence subscribers disagreed. You see, Reggie is dating Kim Kardashian, who isn’t black, and that apparently should have eliminated Reggie as a possible cover choice for Essence, a magazine that focuses on black women. The upsetting part is not that one person was upset, it was that dozens of people were upset enough to write a letter to the editor or blog about the poor choice of Reggie because he doesn’t love “our women” or support “our community” so he shouldn’t be featured in “our magazine”. Sounds like a whole lot of racism to me.

The great thing about Essence is that there are articles on beauty and wellness that I can relate to. If I pick up a Cosmo or other popular women’s magazine there are rarely people in there who look like me. As a result, all the advice about the best makeup and hair doesn’t apply to me. Essence also features articles on social issues and celebrities that just don’t appear in mainstream magazines. Unfortunately, Essence often has a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle racism in every issue.

I wish the editors at Essence would take a stand and tell these readers that they are wrong. Society isn’t going to change until the media hold black people to the same standards that it expects of white people. Can you imagine the outrage if Cosmo published an article about how horrible interracial dating was and how black people should stick with their own kind? These same black people would have been calling for the editors of Cosmo to be fired for publishing such racist comments. That it is 2010 and there is no place for racism in this country. I don’t understand how they miss the hypocrisy in publishing an article about how minorities can’t find jobs because people discriminate against them on one page and then on the following page publishing a two page rant from a blogger about interracial dating and how much she hates it and the people who participate in it.

Who someone dates or marries has nothing to do with how black someone is or how supportive that person is of the black community. I spend time with people that I share common interests with; the color of their skin has never been something that I consider in any of my friendships or relationships. The thought that I should have put my efforts into finding the best black man for me rather than the best man for me is ridiculous. Aren’t these same people discriminating against other races when they only seek out relationships with people of their race? When they go on E- Harmony they rejecting messages from anyone that doesn’t share their skin tone despite any personality traits and hobbies that they may share with that person and then they go out with their girlfriends and complain that they don’t have any luck finding a date. Well get your head out of your ass, step out of that little tiny box you’ve been living in and open yourself up to new people and new experiences.

Maybe if I would have grown up in one of the many urban areas in this country where some of the schools have a 90% black student body my views would be different. But I doubt it because my parents aren’t racist and I was raised to judge people by their behavior and not their skin tone. It is hard to believe that in 2010 there is this much ignorance in people my age. If you don’t want people to discriminate against you then stop discriminating against them. You are part of the problem and the sooner you realize that the sooner we can move towards true racial harmony in this country.

Racism in America

Remember the 2007 Fiesta Bowl? Boise State had gone undefeated during the regular season and made a great case for why the BCS system is screwed up. Even though they didn't get a chance to play in the championship game, they did get to play against football powerhouse Oklahoma who many had thought would battle for the national championship before they lost to Oregon and Texas in the regular season. Boise State beat Oklahoma and showed people that a team for a smaller conference could compete with the big boys.

To this day, a lot of people still reference that game as one of the best arguments for why we need a better system to determine a national champion. But the most memorable part of that game happened on the sidelines after time ran out. The star football player from Boise State got on one knee and proposed to his cheerleader girlfriend on live TV. She of course said yes and the crowd went crazy. The young couple appeared on all of the talk shows and gave a fairy tale ending to a fairy tale season that was so perfect and cheesy you would have thought Disney wrote it.

What wasn't reported in the national media were the threatening letters and phone calls that the young couple and their families received. The death threats that made police protection necessary and forced them to change the date and location of their wedding several times. You see the football player is black and the cheerleader is white. To be accurate, the football player has a white parent and a black parent and is of mixed race but that is irrelevant to most people in this country. The bottom line is that if you appear to have any black in you, if you have brown skin, then you are black and any other part of your ethnicity is not important.

The fact that just seeing an interracial couple on television incensed so many people that hundreds of them decided to threaten them is disgusting. But the fact that none of the media outlets reported on it is even more disturbing. Sports Illustrated recently ran a "Where are They Now" story and reported this information for the first time to the general public in a mainstream publication. Was there public outcry? Did it become the lead story on the news? Did Oprah do a show about it? No, of course not. Not even a letter to the editor (or at least none published).

What does that say about us as a nation? That such rampant racism exists but isn't reported. When Barack Obama became president I heard a lot of ridiculous talk that this was a sign that racism was no longer a big issue in America. If you don't believe that a large portion of the people who say that the president is Muslim, not an American citizen and all the other bullshit that these protesters are saying has more to do with the color of the president's skin that his politics then you are lying to yourself.

When the Princess and the Frog became Disney's first movie to feature a black princess people said that it wasn't a big deal. These people have obviously never tried to find a black Barbie doll for their child. Mattel only makes some of the Barbie's in black. Many of the special edition and themed Barbies only come in white. As do many baby dolls and other toys that are mass marketed to little girls.

Anyone who believes that Hurricane Katrina wouldn't have been handled differently if it happened in a predominantly white area is lying to themselves. If there is a shooting at a school in a middle class area it becomes a national news story but a shooting at an inner city school is often back page news. When a black athlete or entertainer gets in trouble with the law or has tattoos he is a labeled a thug but that tag isn't applied to a white athlete/entertainer with the same bio.

I experience racism on a regular basis in this country. It is usually fairly subtle. No one is yelling the n-word at me or refusing to serve me but I would almost rather have that. When sales people don't wait on me in the store but ask other customers several times if they need assistance, that is racism. Or when those same sales people show up at the end of every aisle that your shopping in because they think you're going to rob the store, that is racism. When people meet me for the first time after only speaking to me on the phone or communicating with me via e-mail and tell me I don't sound black, like its some sort of compliment, that is racism. When people assume that I'm the secretary when they walk into my office because I'm the only black person there, that is racism. When complete strangers feel comfortable asking me if I'm the first person in my family to go to college despite the fact that black people have been graduating from college in this country since 1823, that is racism. When people assume that I grew up in the inner city, that I listen to rap music and that I have certain cultural and political views solely based on the color of my skin, that is racism.

It is no surprise that there isn't a large civil rights movement in this country like there was in the 1960's. Most people don't even know that this racism exists because it isn't reported. I don't know what its going to take for this country to take a serious look at itself and for people to be outraged. I am almost afraid of what sort of catastrophe would need to happen to spark a civil rights movement

My Dream House

I grew up in a large house that my parents built on a couple acres of land in a northern Virgina. Beyond our property boundary was a pond and woods. Since there were no houses behind my house, the pond and the woods felt like an extension of our property. Since we lived on a cul-de-sac we also benefited from a bike bath that the town had put in to run from my neighborhood to several other neighborhoods and to the high school for kids who walked and biked to school. The bike path also lead to a basketball court and a creek. I have fond memories of riding my bike to my friends houses, walking to school for special events and wading in the water and playing basketball with my friends and family. We always had parties and barbecues at our house because it was a great location. I couldn't have asked for a better living situation.

Unfortunately, developers bought the property behind my house a couple years before my family moved out. They drained the pond and cleared out some of the wooded areas to make room for additional housing developments. The basketball court, creek and bike path are still there but perverts and other undesirables have taken over the wooded area surrounding the path so it isn't safe to explore any more. The man who bought our house ended up putting up a large fence to separate his property from these new unwelcome neighbors. I distinctly remember that the only houses that had fences when I was growing up had pools. It was sad to see that my idyllic little Virginia town now needed fences to protect its citizens from the outside world.

I have lived in apartments, townhouses and dorm rooms of various sizes over the years. I have lived in the city, in a college town, in both rich and poor suburbs of major cities and dealt with all the good and bad things that come with each of them but nothing has come close to the house that I grew up in. The house that I live in now is very close to what I want. It provides more than enough room for my husband and I and our furry family to live comfortably. We have about an acre of land, an in ground pool and live a short drive away from a medium-sized city.

The only problem is that I live in a large neighborhood with hundreds of houses and am surrounded by major roads on all sides. If I could move my house to a more rural location and at least triple our current acreage I would be much happier. Unfortunately, all the areas where my husband and I have visited that fit this mold are not very diverse.

When my husband and I go to events in these towns I rarely see another non-white person and am blatantly stared at by complete strangers. When running in road races in these towns, I have seen people cheering for everyone in the race stop clapping when I pass by and avert their eyes only to hear the clapping start again after I pass. I try to say hello to everyone that stares at me but am often met with a blank stare. Didn't their mothers teach them that staring was rude? And be clear here, I'm not talking about children (while that happens as well) I am talking about adults.

Even people in the neighborhood that I live in now often express their surprise that I am educated and friendly. Apparently I do not live up to the stereotypes that they have collected after years of ignorant media images. The Cosby Show, A Different World, The Fresh Prince, these are all completely contradictory to the lives that some white people seem to think that black people live. I bought my house before I met my husband so the looks and comments that I got from contractors, neighbors, etc, while generally not blatantly racist, were completely ignorant and offensive. I'd like to think that I'm just being paranoid but my husband and friends have noticed these things when they're with me as well. I don't want to give the impression that these things happen every day or that no one is friendly but the ignorant, unfriendly people have a much greater impact on me. I can go weeks without a problem and then will be slapped in the face with such blatant racism that it makes me want to go in my house and never come out.

The beauty of Northern Virgina and many of the Washington, D.C. suburbs is that class is primarily dictated by money and not race. The D.C. suburbs are filled with politicians, diplomats, college professors and various other professionals who want a short commute to the city but don't want to live there. I was exposed to rich, middle class and lower income people among all races growing up. While there were plenty of incidents of people being racist towards me or my friends and family, I never felt like I wouldn't be able to live somewhere because of my race. The general openness of the most people outweighed the negativity of the ignorant few.

My husband and I have discussed moving closer to Rochester or Buffalo, much larger cities in upstate New York. Aside from the increased racial diversity, living close to a bigger city will also account for some of Syracuse's other shortcomings. The short list includes: bigger airports with cheaper flights and more possible destinations, a better selection of concerts and cultural events, a bigger selection of national restaurant and retail chains, black hair salons and stores that sell ethnic skin and beauty products, more job opportunities, alternative medical facilities and more social groups and clubs. We frequently drive for 90 minutes or more for many of these things.

Sadly in making this decision we will never be able to live as far from the city as we would like. I'm getting tired of being the ambassador for black people. Just once I'd like to move somewhere where people don't consider me a credit to my race, the exception to some rule, not like other black people, etc. It's hard to convey to other people how difficult it is to go through life listening to people talk about how racism is dead when I still deal with it on a regular basis. No matter how successful I am financially, I will never be able to live any where that I want without serious consequences to my emotional well being and that is depressing.