Let's Talk Race--on and off the Bus

I found this blog -- blackamerican.blogspot.com -- written by a black woman with kids living in Portland. She deals mostly with race, being black in (very) white Portland, etc.

Reading it got me thinking about race.

One of the annoying things about Portland--and I'm mostly positive about my new city--is how gratingly p.c. people can be. So many of us are afraid. Afraid to approach a black person because we are white. Afraid to say the wrong thing. Afraid to ask a question that must might be construed as racist. So we either make assumptions that are never challenged -- or we all jump on the "we need more diversity" bandwagon without just having one honest, open conversation with a person of a different color.

I'm guilty of this, too -- yesterday on the bus, I sat next to Clarence, a young-ish guy listening to music on his iPod. I figured -he's black! he must be listening to black music! -- so I asked him. Turns out it was Mastadon. Blew all my preconceptions off the bus! And, no, he didn't bristle at my starting a conversation with him--this older, white woman--he even got off at my bus stop to talk some more...turns out he's a computer science major (which accounts for Mastadon, I guess, another stereotype geek=heavy metal), and he gets on the #56 bus to ride downtown to catch the still-empty #44 back out to PCC Sylvania -- he hates crowded buses that much.

We Get Given What We Believe Most
Sometimes I think we see what we believe. I take a class at PSU and I'm old enough to be the mother of most of the students. Some days I just feel old and those are the days the pert, blond girls brush by me as if I were invisible. These are the days I think the younger people in my class resent me for being there.

Is it true or am I just projecting my belief that I am old?

I have black friends who say their lives have been shaped by racism. I have black friends who say it has been irrelevant. I've heard white people blame Mexicans for their economic problems.I grew up in Germany when Turkish workers were the underdogs. (And a lot of Germans treated their dogs better.) I think sometimes people find race to be an easy hat on which to hang their disillusionment with life (and themselves). It's SO simple to blame it all on "you know, black people who want it easy," or "those lazy Mexicans who just want free health care" or even, "white people who don't care about race."

Get Me My Grits, Heifer!!
Last year my daughter and I spent several months in New Orleans on our own helping two families gut/de-mold their houses in the 9th Ward - we went from sleeping in our car to living in a FEMA trailer with an extended family. (The whole family actually consisted of 2 parents, 11 kids and 36 grandchildren--all living within a few miles of each other before Katrina.) Anyway, as we ripped out walls and sprayed de-molding bleach and struggled in and out of sweaty Tyvek bodysuits, we talked -- relationships, bodies, family, money, tv shows, sex, poverty, NOLA, the neighbors (who weren't there, so it was more fun to gossip about them)...and, of course, race.

The closer we got - and you get close standing in someone's moldy house hearing about their lives pre- and post-Katrina -- the more doors opened on stuff blacks and whites don't usually share with each other. How does it feel to watch TV when everyone is white? Do you think the movement of (mostly) blacks out of NOLA after the flood was a plot by white America? Why do so many black women down south look so gorgeous but eat like shit--and the reverse is true for so many white women up north? (We loved our generalizations!) We argued about religion. We talked about how families--esp. up north--end up scattered all over and only see each other occasionally. We went out to eat at all-black neighborhood places and went to church where my daughter and I were the only white people. (I had the sensation of my white skin being exposed and shiny and I wanted to cover it up...)

A white Housekeeper
We also laughed about me doing all the family laundry--finally, a white housekeeper! We laughed about Roosevelt (the dad) yelling at Martha (his wife) and me to "Fix my grits, heifer!" Later when I told a white women in Biloxi--where we volunteered in a Vietnamese neighorhood--that Roosevelt had called me a "heifer," she was outraged that I had "allowed it." (Oh, I'm sorry, you're right, let's only discuss things that don't offend anyone ever...)

To me, it was all part of the be-yourself-black-and-white friendship we still have today with Roosevelt and Martha and their family. Isn't that what we want after all? Not blindness to color, but enrichment by color...?

Some Last Thoughts about Race
I've got black neighbors down here in SW - I've stopped to say hi to all my neighbors, introduce myself, invite people in, etc. My grumpy white neighbors complain about druggies stealing their flower pots (?? but they didn't take their flower pot made from an old toilet--those druggies are so discriminating!) One neighbor - black - came by one night, drunk, to borrow money.

Did I think, "Oh, he's black and drunk, so typical??" Or "they're white and crabby, so typical of old white folks"??

No. I thought, "Everyone has a story. Some are lonely. Some are hiding who they really are. Some drink. Some yell at their kids. Some stay home with all their curtains closed because they see junkies everywhere..." Another neighbor - also black - came over in the worst rain and snow to tell me I'd left my car door open. Sweet. I've had some truly trashy neighbors - one guy (white) would pee against my house when he got drunk. (I can laugh about it now, but it pissed me off then.)

Enough, Already!!
Anyway, Smartass Teen Blogger in House just told me the best blogs are short - some days I just can't stop writing...other days I hate the computer...