When I was five years old, a man gave a speech that changed the world. He said he had a dream that one day people would be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. I don't recall hearing that speech until much much later. At that time I lived in a pretty much whites-only world which was defined by Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." So I am not sure if I could have understood what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was saying at the time because I had no experience with what he was talking about. I didn't know anyone of another race. I didn't know that there was discrimination against people because of the color of their skin.
Now I am hearing that some African-Americans are objecting to the term "brown bag" because they feel it is offensive. The irony is that as far as I know this was never a term used by whites; it was used by light-skinned African-Americans to discriminate against darker-skinned African-Americans. As in you have to pass the brown-bag test to belong to certain African-American organizations; if your skin was darker than the bag you couldn't belong.
Well, all I can say is that if that is all that African-Americans can object to, then we have indeed come a very long way. It's kind of like the woman who was objecting to the bees on her neighbor's farm. There are worse things out there. (By the way, her complaint has gone national; a film crew from LA was filming that meeting.) I am not saying this to diminish the struggle against discrimination. Racism is unfortunately alive and well. But we have made tremendous strides. To put things in perspective, my community theater is doing "To Kill A Mockingbird", which is a very sobering look at where race relations were in 1935. They weren't that much different in 1965, either.
Last night I had an interesting discussion with a 17-year-old neighbor who quite frankly said he was bigoted against black people. (As a sidenote, the feeling in my predominately white trailer park community is that George Zimmerman should not have gotten off for the killing of Trayvon Martin, so much for the "media's" claim that the races are polarized over the verdict.) Anyway, this young man's skin color is at least three or four shades darker than mine (even allowing for it being summer), his hair is black and his eyes are brown. So I decided to risk it. I asked him, "What would you do if you found out you had an ancestor several generations ago who was black?" He looked at me like, What do you mean? So I said, "You are darker than me. How do you know you don't have any ancestors who were black?" "I am half-Native American!" he said indignantly. But I think I shook him up a little. He could no longer assume, as he had previously, that he would be always accepted as white. Because in fact, he is NOT white. He's mixed-race. Last I knew, Native American is not white. And back in 1963, his golden skin color would have been enough to make him sit in the back of the bus. It would have been enough to deny him service at restaurants or a room at a motel. Yes, that white Southern Confederate culture he professes to admire would have let him know that he was NOT one of them. That all I would have had to do was to make a complaint against him and he would have suffered the same fate as Emmett Till in 1955. This is what this ignorant young man does not realize. He doesn't have a leg to stand on. Because he is NOT white. And there are still areas of the country today that are biased against Native Americans. "I don't believe in race-mixing," says this young man who is himself racially mixed (though he doesn't consider himself to be so). Well, if you want to play the skin color game, then make sure you can pass the test!
But his is a viewpoint that is dying out. My parents considered themselves relatively enlightened by the standards of their time yet they never once as far as I am aware of never socialized with anyone of another race. It would have been unthinkable to invite a darker-skinned colleague over for any reason. But lately I've noticed, when I've gone to baby showers, weddings, cookouts, that there are at least one or two dark faces in the crowd. Race is becoming less and less of a big deal, and I'm glad to see it happen. That is the way it ought to be.
Now I am hearing that some African-Americans are objecting to the term "brown bag" because they feel it is offensive. The irony is that as far as I know this was never a term used by whites; it was used by light-skinned African-Americans to discriminate against darker-skinned African-Americans. As in you have to pass the brown-bag test to belong to certain African-American organizations; if your skin was darker than the bag you couldn't belong.
Well, all I can say is that if that is all that African-Americans can object to, then we have indeed come a very long way. It's kind of like the woman who was objecting to the bees on her neighbor's farm. There are worse things out there. (By the way, her complaint has gone national; a film crew from LA was filming that meeting.) I am not saying this to diminish the struggle against discrimination. Racism is unfortunately alive and well. But we have made tremendous strides. To put things in perspective, my community theater is doing "To Kill A Mockingbird", which is a very sobering look at where race relations were in 1935. They weren't that much different in 1965, either.
Last night I had an interesting discussion with a 17-year-old neighbor who quite frankly said he was bigoted against black people. (As a sidenote, the feeling in my predominately white trailer park community is that George Zimmerman should not have gotten off for the killing of Trayvon Martin, so much for the "media's" claim that the races are polarized over the verdict.) Anyway, this young man's skin color is at least three or four shades darker than mine (even allowing for it being summer), his hair is black and his eyes are brown. So I decided to risk it. I asked him, "What would you do if you found out you had an ancestor several generations ago who was black?" He looked at me like, What do you mean? So I said, "You are darker than me. How do you know you don't have any ancestors who were black?" "I am half-Native American!" he said indignantly. But I think I shook him up a little. He could no longer assume, as he had previously, that he would be always accepted as white. Because in fact, he is NOT white. He's mixed-race. Last I knew, Native American is not white. And back in 1963, his golden skin color would have been enough to make him sit in the back of the bus. It would have been enough to deny him service at restaurants or a room at a motel. Yes, that white Southern Confederate culture he professes to admire would have let him know that he was NOT one of them. That all I would have had to do was to make a complaint against him and he would have suffered the same fate as Emmett Till in 1955. This is what this ignorant young man does not realize. He doesn't have a leg to stand on. Because he is NOT white. And there are still areas of the country today that are biased against Native Americans. "I don't believe in race-mixing," says this young man who is himself racially mixed (though he doesn't consider himself to be so). Well, if you want to play the skin color game, then make sure you can pass the test!
But his is a viewpoint that is dying out. My parents considered themselves relatively enlightened by the standards of their time yet they never once as far as I am aware of never socialized with anyone of another race. It would have been unthinkable to invite a darker-skinned colleague over for any reason. But lately I've noticed, when I've gone to baby showers, weddings, cookouts, that there are at least one or two dark faces in the crowd. Race is becoming less and less of a big deal, and I'm glad to see it happen. That is the way it ought to be.
