I’m thinking about buying this book. After all my downsizing, getting rid of most
things that have no ‘functional use’, that sort of feels like a step
backward. On the other hand, his
election was a significant event in my lifetime. I was born in 1952 and, even though the Brown
v. Board of Education decision came down in 1954, my entire public school
education was predominantly segregated. Until
our family moved back to Orlando from Ocala in the summer of 1968, when I had
two years of high school left, I really didn’t know any people of color. I know there were some black students in some
of my classes but my life remained segregated.
Growing up I was always a Girl Scout (which may be a topic
for a future post), and upon returning to Orlando I began looking for a new
troop. The one at my high school was
full and not accepting more members so I found a troop that met downtown and included
girls from different schools. At the
first meeting I was happy to discover that the troop was a mix of black and
white girls – as a matter of fact, there were more black girls than white
girls, which I thought was very cool.
But cool was about as much as I thought about it. I believed we all were happy to be in this
troop and that we were all friends. As a
matter of fact, I had my first major disagreement with my family over the girls
in this troop. It went down like
this. My parents had said that I could
have a party for my birthday. I’ve
always been an introvert – and a little eccentric – so I hardly had friends in
high school except for the girls in my Girl Scout troop. The only people I wanted to invite to the
party were those girls – all of them.
Much to my dismay, my father would not allow that. I could not have a gathering at our home that
included my black friends. I was
flabbergasted and furious! I don’t
remember ever before discussing the issue of race in our family and I had never
perceived my parents as overtly racist. But
here it was – in my face. I remember
having an emotional discussion with my father, resulting in my decision not to
have a party after all. It wasn’t worth
it to me to have a party under those conditions. That was my first stand against racism.
Unfortunately, my activism and my understanding of racism
did not progress any further for a long time.
I don’t recall having any discussion about this event within my
troop. I think our leaders were
progressive to the point that we learned to value each other without regard to
race but we did not address the issues in the larger context of society. In Florida, Girl Scouts just weren’t doing
that sort of thing back then – few people were.
But there was another, bigger event that happened before we graduated
which I really didn’t understand at the time.
There was a “camporee” that included many troops from the area. We raised money as a troop and most, if not
all, of our members attended. I know we
were the only integrated troop there. I
don’t remember whether there were any all black troops in attendance. During an assembly of all the Scouts we sang
the song Dixie and
everyone stood up – everyone except the black girls. Thinking back on it now, I am mortified! I really had no idea what was happening. After that weekend all the black girls in our
troop quit. As far as I can remember,
the rest of us never discussed what had happened. An opportunity for learning, growth, and
reconciliation was surely lost.
Obviously, it may not make sense to judge the events of 1969 through the
lens of my awareness today but how sorry I am that no one took advantage of that
opportunity.
A few years later, in 1972, I moved to Hawai’i, a place
where white people have always been in the minority. Thanks once again to the Girl Scouts, I began
to make connections with some locals and began to learn about the foods,
customs, music, and lifestyle of people very different from me. I loved every minute of it and never looked
back. However, once again, my ignorance
was cloaked by my naïveté. I thought
that because I felt no prejudice against people based on their race or
ethnicity, (and I was, after all a minority there) I had little responsibility
for the devastation of native Hawai’ians or the oppression of other non-white
people in Hawai’i. It took me many years
of listening and reading to begin to understand.
I don’t know how I escaped some of the influences of a
southern upbringing. I was always pretty
free of the judgements based on race that are persistent in the south. But I cannot escape the more insidious bits
of racism buried deep inside, nor the systemic racism that continues to oppress
people of color, nor the benefits afforded me by white privilege. The more I have come to understand these
things, the more I recognize what a huge event it was when we finally elected a
black man to the highest office in this country. Many will say things to try and minimize the
importance of that event: “Oh, but he was only half black.” “Well, he wasn’t raised in a typical African
American family environment.” “Yeah, but
he went to a private school.” But the
fact is, in this country, those things make not one whit of difference in how
we think about and treat black men. Barak
Obama is a black man in America and as such, all of the effects of the years of
oppression conspire against him. And
while white privilege has a significant impact on the lives of people of color,
the only ones who can actually do anything about it are white people. The only thing that could truly override
those effects, even for Barak Obama, is when we as a majority white country chose
to raise ourselves above the centuries of bigotry and toss off those constraints,
at least for a moment; when we put our faith in a man who is brilliant,
compassionate, honest, and engaging – a human being that we trusted to have our
best interests at heart and to represent us to the world. To me, that means there is hope. And
that is something. And in these days when it seems we’re again going
backwards, I think I would like to have a visual reminder of where our nation
once was, and where it could be again.
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