Jordan Gray,
Newport News, VA.
For much of my adolescence, I have been deeply involved in an extremely conservative church, as well as portraying a confederate chaplain in a civil war reenacting company. Through my journeys in both areas, I have been called many things, but the most troubling of those terms afforded to me was the term “racist”. To be honest, I believe it hurts almost as much as someone who has been called the N-word. The term was given to me while I was reenacting at a local harvest event. A man walked up to me and stated that I was racist because I was white and portraying the rebels. He went even further to call me a terrorist. I was shocked, and at the moment I was filled with emotion and anger. I believe in the principle of association does not equal causation, so I find it hard to believe or relate to people who think that just because one is reenacting a historical side of an event that they are racist. I mean I have friends in multiple ethnic and racial groups other than my own. I respect them with all that is within my heart, but still the world around us tell us that I am, and they, are racist. The title hurt me, and made me revaluate all of my statements and life to weed out racially inclined remarks or innuendoes. How can we move past or irradiate racism if everyone continues to bring it up as an issue? We live in a world that wants us to take sides. A world that wants us to believe that some are better than others. I am here to stay that I am nothing, and there is not one thing that makes me better or more of a human that the next man or woman. We cannot escape or alter the way we were born. I will always remain “Jordan”, this short, witty, and compassionate white male. It is time we focused on who we are rather than what we are. Nevertheless, I am white, but I am not racist.
