I never think of you as Asian.
Virginia,
Cambridge, MA.
I’m half Filipina. And I’ve always thought of myself as half. But one day at a faculty meeting a colleague told me I “passed” as white. It’s bothered me ever since.
We have so far to go.
Bonnie Shoultz,
Syracuse, NY.
I was a young person during the 1960s, and dreamed that this country would overcome its terrible history of oppression and enslavement of whole groups of people based on their race, culture, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and class. We have made many changes, but oppression and murder of people who are not white, straight, and safe economically is still prevalent. We must continue to support bridge-building, meaningful cross-group communication, and ways of giving real help to people who would otherwise not have the chance to develop themselves educationally and economically. Our culture must change dramatically–it has changed dramatically since the 1960s but we still find that, for example, one third of African-American men will be incarcerated at least once during their lives. Systemic racism and profiling creates the conditions for this and many other ways in which people are kept down.
Whites have much to answer for.
Paul Burnam,
Westerville, OH.
I am a 68-year-old white male. I am so, so tired of hearing about whites who think they are being persecuted such as those who posted to The Race Card Project about the mistreatment of whites. I heard all this again on “All Things Considered” on March 13 when Michele Norris was interviewed. What I mean in my “Six Words” comes from my mother telling me when I was in my early 20s that she and my father selected the neighborhood to buy their first house because it would insure that my brother and I would not have to go to school with African Americans. I was disgusted by a white minister or chaplain who was organizing a memorial services for the wife of one of my wife’s former faculty colleagues. We entered the retirement community with my wife’s African American colleague and her husband. As we were signing in at the receptionist’s desk, the chaplain came up to the husband of my wife’s colleague and asked him if he would help put up chairs. He just assumed any black man present was there to do manual labor (the gentleman was dressed in dress slacks, a sport coat, and an open-neck dress shirt).
I also want to acknowledge Michele Norris’ efforts in making me aware of white privilege in the focus groups she and Steve Inskeep did in Des Moines, IA and York, PA during the 2008 election. The comments of a book publisher in Des Moines about being tired of having her tax money be used for school lunches and a female factory worker in York who wondered out loud if she would have to walk in the street if Barack Obama were elected crystallized how upsetting white privilege is to me.
East Shore, White Shore: Segregation lives
Mechanicsburg, PA.
Messiah College, Faculty.
Just look at race by census track. The “West Shore” is over 90% white pretty much all over the place, while the “East Shore” is much more diverse and white is the minority in Harrisburg. We lived in Lemoyne, right across the river from the city, and saw a Dixie/Confederate flag flying on a pole in a backyard less than a block from our house. As an adoptive father to two biracial kids, this was deeply unsettling. We are north of Gettysburg and the Mason-Dixon line, but at times it is hard to tell.
White girl minority in black city
Barbara Fought,
Jamesville, NY.
Faculty
The most impacting cultural experience for me related to race was when in the 20s I lived in Detroit, a majority-black city.
