Faces
Just now, 2 pair of teens walked past my house. 2 girls, then, 50 feet behind, 2 boys. Nothing special, right? So why am I writing about it? Because of one very small, yet significant detail.
In each pair, one person was white, the other black. And it wasn't important.
It's that last part that is the paradox: The fact that race is unimportant is very important.
When I was growing up in this town, there were exactly 5 "non-white" people in this town. Old Man Newton and his wife raised horses on the edge of town. They were black. The Spanish teacher at the high school was Peruvian (Hispanic). And a family in town had two adopted sons--one black, one Asian. The city--including all the rural farms and lake-side communities was no more than 5,000 people. In a place where everyone knows everyone, those 5 stood out. They were part of the community, and treated the same as everyone else, but there was always the undertones of them being "different".
The city hasn't grown much in the last 25 years. But the population has changed. There are quite a few families that are "non-white". There are also several immigrant families from Germany and Albania. I watch the kids walking past my house, or standing in the driveway next door, and I see that they're blind to those differences.
In a town this size, there aren't any ghettos. There isn't a "black community" or a "Hispanic community", or any other such arbitrary sub-division. Kids separate themselves along the traditional lines--popular, geek, jock--with no thought to skin color or nationality.
People talk about big cities as being the spearhead of integration and acceptance, while throwing all the small towns together under the umbrella of "backwards" and "prejudiced". But it's the big cities that have Harlem and China Town and Little Italy and all the rest of the segregated communities. It's in the big cities that each minority defiantly lays out the "cultural borders" of Us and Them. It's in the big cities where minorities gather together and people avoid them because "it's a bad neighborhood"--with the subtext that says "it's full of those people.".
In a town this size, if you avoid someone, it's personal. And you'd better have a really good reason for it, because people will notice. You can't hide behind "bad neighborhoods" or "economic status" or "cultural differences". Around here, everyone is just about the same. If you avoid "that girl", it's okay if she's a jock and you're a geek. Or if she stole your boyfriend. But it's not okay if it's because she's black.
In a town this size, everyone sees everyone all the time. Everyone deals with everyone in all kinds of situations. We can't be insular. We can't retreat to our "neighborhoods" or "local communities". Everyone here is forced to look at everyone else as a person not a "member of a different group".
The fight against racism isn't going to be won in New York or Los Angeles--cities where each minority stakes its claim and erects walls around itself--but in small towns like mine where people are forced to see that accents and skin tones don't make someone different; and there's nothing wrong with that white boy making out with that black girl[1].
[1] Well... except for the fact that he's a total dorkish dweeb and she's exceedingly hot.
In each pair, one person was white, the other black. And it wasn't important.
It's that last part that is the paradox: The fact that race is unimportant is very important.
When I was growing up in this town, there were exactly 5 "non-white" people in this town. Old Man Newton and his wife raised horses on the edge of town. They were black. The Spanish teacher at the high school was Peruvian (Hispanic). And a family in town had two adopted sons--one black, one Asian. The city--including all the rural farms and lake-side communities was no more than 5,000 people. In a place where everyone knows everyone, those 5 stood out. They were part of the community, and treated the same as everyone else, but there was always the undertones of them being "different".
The city hasn't grown much in the last 25 years. But the population has changed. There are quite a few families that are "non-white". There are also several immigrant families from Germany and Albania. I watch the kids walking past my house, or standing in the driveway next door, and I see that they're blind to those differences.
In a town this size, there aren't any ghettos. There isn't a "black community" or a "Hispanic community", or any other such arbitrary sub-division. Kids separate themselves along the traditional lines--popular, geek, jock--with no thought to skin color or nationality.
People talk about big cities as being the spearhead of integration and acceptance, while throwing all the small towns together under the umbrella of "backwards" and "prejudiced". But it's the big cities that have Harlem and China Town and Little Italy and all the rest of the segregated communities. It's in the big cities that each minority defiantly lays out the "cultural borders" of Us and Them. It's in the big cities where minorities gather together and people avoid them because "it's a bad neighborhood"--with the subtext that says "it's full of those people.".
In a town this size, if you avoid someone, it's personal. And you'd better have a really good reason for it, because people will notice. You can't hide behind "bad neighborhoods" or "economic status" or "cultural differences". Around here, everyone is just about the same. If you avoid "that girl", it's okay if she's a jock and you're a geek. Or if she stole your boyfriend. But it's not okay if it's because she's black.
In a town this size, everyone sees everyone all the time. Everyone deals with everyone in all kinds of situations. We can't be insular. We can't retreat to our "neighborhoods" or "local communities". Everyone here is forced to look at everyone else as a person not a "member of a different group".
The fight against racism isn't going to be won in New York or Los Angeles--cities where each minority stakes its claim and erects walls around itself--but in small towns like mine where people are forced to see that accents and skin tones don't make someone different; and there's nothing wrong with that white boy making out with that black girl[1].
[1] Well... except for the fact that he's a total dorkish dweeb and she's exceedingly hot.