Racial Bias, Love and Hatred in This Crisis
Racial bias has brought us to insanity. It’s time to end this. One pale girl’s viewpoint on racism, love, pain and hatred and, hopefully, how to teach our children better.
You all know we don’t talk much about politics and current events.
Today though, I can’t keep it in. I’m heartbroken in so many ways. I’m terrified, like so many are. So, I’m sharing. This may cost me readers, it may make some hate me. But, honestly, I feel like being heard. So, in our little piece of the internet, I choose to share and I welcome your comments, thoughts and feelings even if they aren’t the same as my own.
That being said, hatred and bigotry will not be allowed here. We are a family site and will stay that way.
Love and Unity
I want to promote love and unity, not division that sparks anger. I truly feel that everyone is equal, whether I like someone or I don’t has nothing to do with any inborn anything. It has everything to do with who they are, what they say and do.
My husband is a black man, so I have a different perspective than a lot of people that I know. I’ve had different experiences thanks to him. I have seen firsthand the differences in both tone and stance when an officer leans down and sees my husband in the passenger seat. I know the fear that he has every single day and the fear that I share as well.
As a wife, I fear that one day it will be my husband who is killed unnecessarily. Regardless of the fact that he is a loving, law abiding citizen who pays taxes and helps everyone he can. Including donating money we don’t always have when someone or something (organizations) are in need. He loves, everyone. Much more than I do and it shines in his actions. Everyone that knows him, knows that. However good he is, being a black man makes him a target. A stereotype. Judged from first sight.
Arkansas
My husband and I live in Arkansas, you may have heard of Harrison, AR. It’s where the KKK began. The poster town for true, hardcore racial bias. It’s only a few hours away from where we are. Despite what they are trying to say that they’ve changed into, Harrison is not a town for black people or interracial couples to go to. We have to drive though to get to certain places and once, when my husband got out of our car to pump gas, an officer who had been following us through town, got out of his car, placed his hand on his gun and informed us that we couldn’t get gas in ‘this’ town.
Later, a family member spent a good while talking about how it wasn’t racist there. She was very much trying to convince us. She told a story about a black man getting hung and excused it by saying ‘but he raped a girl.’ Now, the first part of that is truth: a black man got hung. What she seemed to forget was that later it came out that it was the sheriff’s son that raped her and was ran out of town (notice not hung like the innocent black man).
Within the last few months a rather rude man asked my husband if he ‘ever hung out in Harrison.’ That was not an innocent comment. There are jokes about ‘hanging out’ and Harrison. Jokes either filled with racial bias and hatred, or disparaging the city.
To be fair, it’s not like that everywhere in Arkansas. However we are cautious about where we go. We don’t drive through small towns we aren’t familiar with. At. All.
We also have friends and family that are either currently law enforcement or are retired officers that are not in the least bit like that, who are also enraged over the actions of officers that kill people.
When addressing the racial bias, I feel it necessary to remind everyone that the ultimate goal is unity and love. We all bleed the same types of blood, we are all made in God’s image.
My Cherokee/White Girl Experience with Racial Bias
I’ll start by saying I’m Cherokee, but I’m so white that we joke that I bled all my Native blood out. Obviously, I’m not full blood. Growing up, that’s all I hung out with so I was teased by my friends for being the white girl. It was just that though and I earned my place so it wasn’t a frequent occurrence and I could shut it down quite well. They are my family and always will be, even though life has separated us.
Oddly enough, in comparison to many stereotypes and assumptions, I’ve never experienced racism or hatred from my husband’s family or the few (because of where we live) black friends that I have.
I’ve been, by my pasty pale self, to both strange (to me because I’d never been) black neighborhoods that were considered to be ‘dangerous’ as well as black owned stores, restaurants and churches. Oftentimes, by myself as my husband doesn’t like going anywhere.
In all instances I was received with love, respect and kindness.
I will also add than a black choir can seriously bring down the house! They take you right to the feet of Jesus where you can feel His presence so strongly that it changes you, ever single time.
Our Family
I said before that my husband is a black man. His family is amazing, they are loving, super mega accomplished and prayerful Christians. It blows my mind how smart they are, not because they are black, but because they are deeply loving, strong, accomplished people!
In our immediate family, there are 3 doctorates! That’s insane and so impressive to me. Honestly, because prior to his family mine had no one with that much education and I certainly did not run in crowds with a bunch of highly educated people. His grandparents marched with Martin Luther King. Another family member guarded President Obama. Every generation in his family has had people serving, they’ve had someone in every single war in this country. They came here free, were enslaved and escaped twice.
They are a family that serves God, loves strongly, fights for justice, for equality, for freedom and they do it all with intelligent, well thought out plans, not hasty, rash decisions. I deeply love and admire them. These things are aww inspiring to me because I had never known people so accomplished before and now that’s my family! I am so proud to be in this family.
The White Side
My husband, however, has experienced racism from my side of the family. One that contains both Christians and police officers. One of my relatives (not by blood) had the audacity, or pure ignorance, to ask my husband if he thought our baby died because we ‘mixed races.’
I’m still angry about that because it was the most ignorant thing that someone could have said and, honestly, I have yet to receive an apology for his desecrating my daughter’s memory with that stupid hateful ignorance, though my husband did get an apology. I wasn’t there when he said it but some of my other family members were and they were livid and slapped (so to speak) that ignorance down. It’s probably for the best that I didn’t overhear it because my temper would not have let me keep my mouth shut.
My husband can calmly address things, give an on-the-spot, well thought out, intelligent, Christian answer, I cannot. I get angry, outraged, and do my best to psychologically break the offender. I have issues, I’m working on it. I also have yet to let go because things stay with me until they are settled and it doesn’t feel settled to me. To me, it feels like that short little prick was too big of a chicken shit to say it to me and not man enough to apologize. He is a disgrace, to our family and to all he represents. (sorry about the profanity, I know that it’s wrong as is my rage. I pray about it, a lot, for real.)
There is humor in his calmness and my rage, as the stereotypical judgement and racial bias is that it’s the other way around.
That being said, not everyone is like that. There are many people who aren’t that are the majority. Unfortunately, history has proven that minorities do have something to fear and that the majority is too often shadowed by the heinous things the hateful, ignorant people do.
To quote J.K. Rowling — ‘Those who want power do not deserve it.And those who deserve power do not want it.’ Of course, there are exceptions, but their goodness is often overran by a systematically corrupt system.
Teaching our Children
On the ones in my family who aren’t like that, I recently had a conversation with my cousin-in-love (on my side) about her fears that her children would learn racial bias. They strive to teach their children that there is no difference, we are all equal in God’s eyes. We talked about how her youngest had started describing people as a black person or brown person or red person. She said that she was freaking out because she didn’t know where he got it and was trying to figure out how to address it, to teach him better. The, one day, he said that blonde person. The entire time, he was not describing their race, he was describing their hair color. It made me laugh and gave them a lot of relief!
The answer seems unclear and convoluted. I think that Momma and Daddy are doing an amazing job making sure that race is never a factor. They are teaching their babies (6 & 9 I think) that there are all kinds of people that God loves and we shouldn’t treat any of them differently.
My thinking is that in addition, we should expose our children to new cultures all of the time, showing them that people of different cultures are not to be feared but, instead, respected. After all, the unknown is probably the most feared thing anywhere.
My challenge to you, once the Covid crisis and country wide insanity has calmed down, is to take your children or grandchildren or even just go by yourself to cultural events or places outside of your own culture. If you are nervous, go there and find the first Grandmotherly looking person you can. Introduce yourself and ask them to help you navigate. Make new friends, connect with ‘different’ people. Not only will your life have new growth but if we all do it, the world, our world, will surely become a better place.
SO, this the End of it, I promise.Pray, Just Pray.
Pray for the families who’ve lost, the people who live their everyday life terrified and the people who fall victim to discrimination.
Pray that love overcomes the rampant hatred and racial bias we have in this country. That our citizens are no longer killed by our police, some of whom are amazing and, unfortunately, some of whom should never have been able to receive a badge.
Pray for a Change
Pray for a change, because the president has officially turned ‘our’ military against the citizens of the United States of America. I say that not because they are trying to stop violent protesters, but because they are actively firing tear gas, pellet guns and who knows what will come on peaceful protesters. Protesters who were literally on their knees with their hands in the air. Protesters who are supposed to be protected by our Constitution (see Article 1).
That is not supposed to happen here, though it has in the past and is now happening again.
I have a whole blog post written on this but it would offend many I do believe. CNN and most news outlets are only trying to keep us divided. That channel never gets any time on my TV! I am neither Democrat or Republican, both parties have their faults, neither is perfect. Gosh, what else shall I say before I say too much? Just let me end by saying I still think it’s all about keeping our country divided and I say that as a grandmother of my precious grandbabies who are biracial. Thanks so much for linking up with me at #AThemedLinkup 20 for All Things American (red, white, and blue), open until July 25. All party entries shared if social media buttons installed.
These days, it seems everything offends many. Especially if it makes us look at ourselves too deeply or goes against we see as reality. I agree both parties have their faults. At this point, thanks to 45 and both Arkansas and Oklahoma state Republicans, I’m about done with the Republican party as well. Here’s to becoming Independent! haha. We were never meant to be a 2 party system anyway.
I bet your grandbabies are absolutely adorable and irresistible!
Thanks for hosting!
I had not read this and thanks for giving me the link. You did a beautiful and truthful job writing this. I guess we are lucky that both sides of the families have had mixed children for years.
Have shared this 🙂
Mrs. Gloria, that is absolutely awesome! I hope that one day it won’t be such an odd thing, that it will just be normal. I always think about the ‘white’ side, it’s not like Caucasian American’s are one race, they are mixtures as well. I don’t understand why that matters, the mixing races stuff, when they too are mixed races be it English, Scottish, Irish, or whatever. Just because all of the skin tones are the same color does not make them the same race. People astound me at times. Other times, I am simply infuriated. Then there are times where I pity them, how sad it must be to be them.
I was married to a man whose mother was from Korea.
We visited his aunt and uncle in Bull Shoals, Arkansas. We went to a Walmart for supplies and had an incident where I was scared truly and seriously because this man in hunting gear followed us and glared at us until we left. We were NOT welcome there.
Oh wow! I’ve never been to Bull Shoals but that’s insane! People are crazy in some of these backwards little towns. I don’t get it. When I was younger and had no health problems, I would pop off to people, like ‘can I help you?’. These days though, that could easily get someone seriously injured. I hate that you had that experience! Depending on where you are and what time of year it is, hunting gear is (unfortunately) in style in a lot of places here. haha.
This was beautifully written, I can not imagine how emotional it was to write… I am also at odds with older members of my dads side who are stuck in their thoughts and feelings. I look at them and hope that I don’t ever make someone feel as though the color of their skin is wrong… Being full blood isn’t all glamorous when you’re considered the apple… Lol… And I always get crap for not being dark enough… How does that work exactly? And then add my beautiful biracial children to the mix! I am trying to love them regardless but it is difficult at times and I have to check myself… All of this is a learning process for me and I am one that wants to know more… I want to hear all sides… And want to be heard too…
Thank you very much. It is absolutely heartbreaking how so many are acting. I also have to check myself often as my emotions sometimes (probably should say often) get the best of me. I love that your goal is to grow and learn! That is absolutely beautiful!