Hello Chocolate Mama Fans,

I’ve been getting lots of response from readers and the majority of it has been positive and inspiring, so I’m thankful. However, there are some readers who are not only negative, they actually think that they’re smarter than me when it comes to race relations and that I need to be schooled on how I am wrong about my perceptions of the world as an African-American woman when they are NOT BLACK.

Da’ HAYELL?!? SERIOUSLY?!?

This is the text of an actual response I received after my Trayvon Martin column ran: except for me removing some personal details, it’s verbatim and my response, aside from the same omissions, is also untouched. Raise your hand if you notice the elitist, lofty tone, the placid acceptance of the status quo and how the reader attacked the symptoms instead of the problems. Here’s a hint: if you think the following letter makes sense and you agree with her, chances are you’re a racist. Good luck with that…..

—————————————————————————————————————————————-

“I found your column posted on March 28th in “The Briefing” quite interesting, and in that posture, I wish to respond.

First of all, I am a white female, born in 194*.  My ancestry goes back to living in a farm house with no lights, no running water and wood for heat.  In 194*, there were not many blacks in our area.  The entire community could be classed as “dirt poor” and our family was among the poorest.  We did, however, eventually live in a rent  house in the back woods and neighbors were scarce.  We were welcomed in this rent house by our closest neighbors, and the family was black.  I think I was at least 6 years old before I saw my first black person, and it would be this family across the field.

My mother was busy birthing * kids in 1* years and only one of us, the last one was born in a hospital.  My father was on the road doing pipeline work and was not home very much (but he came often enough to keep my mother pregnant and barefoot). [smile]  This black family was awesome – they were kind, they helped my mother out tremendously – helped with the laundry, working the garden, gave us food, we kids were allowed to go to their house and stay all day if we wanted – they played games with us and they loved to brush our long stringy hair.  Decades later, believe it or not – and in another city, we ran across this black family and we all recognized each other, in spite of the time lapse.  It was so wonderful to see them.

Time passes and we end up living in the ************ Project in **** Dallas.  These projects were available to all races; however, the units were segregated – blacks, whites and Mexicans had separate areas.  The schools were segregated.  My first encounter with racism was when a white kid leveled a 22 out the upstairs windos of these projects as a Mexican kid walked across the field by Fish Trap Pond and killed the Mexican boy with one shot.  There was a huge outrage within the Mexican community and we white kids were not safe walking to school – there were the Mexicans with chains, the brass nucks, the switchblades.  Eventually, it all subsided.

The next horrific happening was when two black boys took a retarded pre-teen to the quarry  near Singleton Blvd. where the cement factory was – I believe it was near Chalk Hill.  They raped her and killed her.  This created immense threats, discomfort and assaults between the blacks and whites.  Eventually, this subsided, also.

We move to 197&-7*; blacks had been granted equality with the white race; however, the schools were suffering with the busing crisis and tensions were outrageous.  My daugher and her friends were met in the bathroom by a gang of black girls who excelled at beating the crap out of them.  In order to keep down the “conflict” the school – Bryan Adams High School – kept the issue quiet so as to keep the incident from the newspaper.  I had to leave work on more than one occasion to retrieve my oldest daughter from school to keep her from being assaulted, again by blacks.  Threats were issued daily to the white kids.   Daily sufferings because of the prejudice, racism and ignorance of blacks!  These actions prompted more that one “TALK” about being aware of your surroundings and keeping yourself safe.

Yet again, my niece, within ten years of my oldest daughter’s assault by blacks, was caught in an isolated area on the school premises and the very obese black girl that beat her up left bruises over her body – yet again, the school wanted to keep the assault quiet – and they were good at it, until I came home and saw my daughter.  THIS black girl was from a family where her father was a well known professional athlete..A fine example of prejudice, ignorance and racism. My niece grew up with kids of all races and some of her best friends were black. In this particular crowd, again, two black teenagers took one of the white girls down to a nearby field and raped her repeatedly.  This prompted several family “TALKS” about being aware of your surroundings and keeping yourself safe.  .

I have now raised two grandchildren and I live in Rowlett.  Some of my most polite and courteous neighbors are black – helpful, pleasant and have great dignity

My granddaughter has had, for years,  a rewarding friendship with a gay black guy and he has been at my house on untold occasions.  My nephew made friends with some black acquaintances over the school years – they are still friends and one of them even calls me as “Nana.”

Over the years we white kids learned that Mexicans would threaten you with knives, chains and brassnucks.  The black kids would do the same.  Both races would come at you in large numbers- an unfair fight- our WHITE kids didn’t have a chance. Hence, the reason for WHITE people having to carefully educate OUR kids about the threats, insults, name-calling and bullying by the black kids and the Mexicans.  Historically, if you are a WHITE kid, had good clothes, were popular and succeeding well in school, you were a target.

Our WHITE kids have had to learn about slouching and baggy pants, standing tall, speaking clearly and being respectful.   Why would you charge that this is harmful to blacks? My WHITE kid went out the door day after day after day with his  WHITE butt hanging out of his pants – I told him to NOT do it, but he kept on.  He finally has grown out of that, thank GOD.

A year or so ago, my nephew and his red-haired, blue-eyed friend were stopped by the Garland Police in Rowlett.  The policeman said the driver (not my grandson) failed to give a turn signal properly.  The policeman subsequently searched the car.  He called me (he was very rude and forceful) and said…”they both admitted that they were smoking.”  I assumed that he meant they were smoking pot – he gave them both a ticket and made them pay to attend substance abuse classes.   Only the next day did I learn that there was an unwrapped cigar under the car seat – no other tobacco, as the policeman said.  As you can see, WHITE kids are not exempt from the law.  WHITE kids are threatened  daily by our system.  My grandson and his friend were not allowed to “fight the Power”.  This was one example of the injustices any teenager can experience in this world – no matter the color of their skin.

Before you assume that black kids, Mexican kids, Chinese kids or WHITE kids are automatic victims in today’s world, you might want to re-evaluate your prejudice (emphasis mine, CM).”

Ms. Oh So Superior,

Rowlett, TX

O….kay. If none of the above pi$$ed you off to the highest of pi$$tivity, ask a non-white friend to point out the multiple elements of piety and BS. Here is my response and suffice it to say, I dropped the mic on her clueless behind. Read on and yes, please, leave your thoughts……

______________________________________________________________________________________

Hello Ms. Superior*,

thank you for reading my article and for your very thorough summary of your experiences with various ethnic groups: after reading your POV and your assumptions, I’ll offer my response…..

Because of time and space constraints, I couldn’t go into all of the details, facts/stats, but rest assured that since I’m married to a Black man, was raised by a Black man and have been Black all of my life (nearly half a century and counting), I’ve seen MORE than enough evidence first-hand of how we are profiled and harrassed MORE OFTEN THAN MOST. I never said that we were the ONLY ethnicity that’s faced those issues, but I do know that it’s happened in dispproportionate numbers for DECADES, if not CENTURIES when it comes to African-Americans.

Also, I don’t recall having met you before, so I resent the knee-jerk assumption you made calling me prejudiced. In the text of my column, I never stated that Blacks were the ONLY ethnic group to have issues with bigots or that we are incapable of being ones ourselves, I simply stated that we have a unique burden in society that others don’t, given our history in the US (with our ancestors being forced here against their will to be slaves that got nothing in return for their free labor except unchecked genocide and inferiority complexes). As poor as your family was Ms. Superior, I can practically guarantee that they (or their ancestors) didn’t arrive to the US in chains and suffer inhumane indignities, assaults or fatalities that were all but endorsed by a government that treated them like livestock and didn’t see them as equal citizens under the law.

I live in a diverse neighborhood: my neighbors are Korean, Hispanic, Chinese and yes, even white. I’ve had many friends of all groups over the years, but none of these positive experiences have isolated me from having endured the following…..

-being REPEATEDLY tailed around stores as other white shoppers are free to browse without a second glance

-encountering surprise when people learn that I’m married and not a single parent (as if that social condition is unique only to being black)

-having a doctor look at my newborn daughter and say out loud that she was  ‘too light’ to be my child

-get asked ‘how did you learn to speak/write that way,’ as if it’s a magic trick when Blacks are smart and articulate at the same time -being called a ‘nigger’ or ‘colored’  TO MY FACE, being told ‘you niggers don’t belong here’ and other random insults

Yes, ANY teen/child of ANY ethnicity can have a hard time with other kids or with authority, but if you happen to be Black, there can easily be DEADLY results that whites like yourself won’t have to endure (due to the negative expectations preceding the contact with the Black man/woman/boy/girl in question that ‘justifies’ the dangerous or deadly behavior of the bigoted that are against them, even if the other person did nothing wrong.

You might consider yourself to be ‘open-minded,’ but the tone of your letter displays a woman that believes if she doesn’t personally see or live a particular reality, it doesn’t exist. What saddens me is that many whites still seem to expect every group to behave or feel just as they do (without the benefit of life-long ‘white privilege’) and are shocked that ANY sort of violence or mistreatment can occur against THEM—-as if nothing that whites in history have ever done could warrant such horrible treatment ,and only THEY have cause to racially profile or lash out (I’m not condoning those horrific experiences you described or discounting them, just telling you my opinion as to why they probably occurred).

You will probably dismiss this as more bigotry Ms. Superior, and you’re entitled to do so—but speaking as someone who’s lived as a life-long member of a perceived social and political underclass, there’s a HUGE difference between being the ‘automatic victim’ of occasional suspicion/rudeness and enduring a lifetime HABITUAL harrassment or waiting until the 70s to FINALLY be ‘granted equal rights’ as if they were favors and not simply the right thing to do with fellow taxpayers and human beings (I also guess that, in your POV, the Blacks, Hispanics and others were supposed to be grateful to live in those projects, where the benevolent powers-that-be dumped guns, drugs, booze and cigarettes and little else while choking off jobs, education, opportunities, municipal services, and everything else, resulting in criminalization of petty crime to mask the neglect and people that strike out at others because they feel powerless to do much else.).

The various scenarios outlined in your letter are, besides the results of poor upbringing or mental issues, SYMPTOMS OF DOWNTRODDEN PEOPLE SNAPPING WITHIN AN OPPRESSIVE, ELITIST AND EUROCENTRIC CULTURE THAT THEY DIDN’T CREATE, and not once in the text above did you display any disdain at THAT inherent unfairness, the inhumanity of white racism or protest the inequities that non-whites endure in this society. There can only be 2 reasons why, Ms. Superior: you’re either unaware of the luxuries that white privilege affords you, or worse, you simply don’t care. And that’s another harsh reality that our kids have to be uniquely and consistently prepared in advance for.

DISCUSS……