"I'm Not Racist, But Don't Call Me Your Auntie"
A friend of mine posted a childhood memory in her blog. She told a story about when she was seven years old, getting a ride home from school by her mother's room-mate. My friend is multiracial and her mother's room-mate was Jewish. A policeman stopped their car, and this Jewish woman told my friend--at seven years old--to keep her mouth shut and not give the cop any idea that they were related, because she didn't want the policeman to think she dated black men. This happened in the early 70's, in New Jersey, in a similar space where I was born and raised.But racism like this is alive and well.
In 2008 my honey and I got stopped by a policeman in Nebraska, I swear, for no other reason than there being a tough looking Asian woman and little old me in the car. The stupid cop was trying to figure out if our being together in the car was a kidnapping, a smuggling across the border, or something else. It never occurred to this cop that we could be friends or lovers. We violated no driving laws, our headlights were working, and were driving within the speed limit. No reason to be stopped.
What would happen if people let go of all of their racism, if it were beaten out of them, if they went on some retreat where they were completely cleansed of it through prune juice purges, and woke up the next morning seeing everyone born in this country as Americans deserving of equal rights, freedoms, and education? And why is it that the poorest, stupidest white people hold on to their racist views the tightest, as if this racism was a million dollars in their pockets, even though those in power use racism to keep these whiteys poor, stupid, and sick too?
It makes me tired. When I teach my Intro to LGBT Studies course I address racism as well as the other systems of oppression that affect LGBT people and all others in the alphabet soup...there is no way to talk about any system of oppression in the United States without talking about racism, since these systems overlap. It is exhausting and soul killing, this huge boulder that even one million people can't push up the hill and off the cliff.