SB and I were having our usual bedtime chat and last night we were tackling racism- not the overt form but the more subtle racism that we possess and don't really have self awareness to identify. Like when during one class in undergrad, a black student told me that he could walk across campus all day and no one would look him in the eye. Even though he was one of my friends, I quickly realized that I probably also did not make eye contact with black people who weren't my friends. The same statement was repeated to me from a Korean student that I was working with the next semester. My undergrad university had a long military tradition and was overwhelmingly white. The school tried to attract minority students and was only mildly successful because our isolated location in rural Texas, combined with strong military tradition and lack of closeness to urban society was a deterrent for a lot of minority students who came from much more diverse and less conservative city settings.
I felt that a lot of students who never made eye contact with the minority students were not so much prejudiced as they were ignorant. They were less comfortable with things that were not typical, such as non-white students and just subconsciously ignored the outliers. I grew up within diverse groups of Asians and westerners but had not seen a lot of black people until I moved to the United States as a teenager. One of my first friends was a black girl named Stephanie, who I am still friends with today. But when my college buddy told me that other students did not make eye contact, I recognized that I was guilty.
SB related to me a story he heard from family friends. A long time ago, before he was born, the friends threw a blackface party. Back in that time, it was not considered offensive for a white person to put on blackface and pretend to be black in the entertainment industry. Nowadays it seems so obvious that that is a pretty poor idea for most of us who come from places where our awareness has been raised. Anyway, this party got underway with all the white guests in blackface when a group of partygoers arrived who thought it would be funny to arrive dressed as the Ku Klux Klan. The hosts of this unfortunate party told SB that even though they were only fake black, they felt really, really uncomfortable with the fake Klansmen. And a lesson was learned.
I felt that a lot of students who never made eye contact with the minority students were not so much prejudiced as they were ignorant. They were less comfortable with things that were not typical, such as non-white students and just subconsciously ignored the outliers. I grew up within diverse groups of Asians and westerners but had not seen a lot of black people until I moved to the United States as a teenager. One of my first friends was a black girl named Stephanie, who I am still friends with today. But when my college buddy told me that other students did not make eye contact, I recognized that I was guilty.
SB related to me a story he heard from family friends. A long time ago, before he was born, the friends threw a blackface party. Back in that time, it was not considered offensive for a white person to put on blackface and pretend to be black in the entertainment industry. Nowadays it seems so obvious that that is a pretty poor idea for most of us who come from places where our awareness has been raised. Anyway, this party got underway with all the white guests in blackface when a group of partygoers arrived who thought it would be funny to arrive dressed as the Ku Klux Klan. The hosts of this unfortunate party told SB that even though they were only fake black, they felt really, really uncomfortable with the fake Klansmen. And a lesson was learned.
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