Fort Lauderdale Archives - The Race Card Project

White child calls black man Dad

July 18, 2023July 18, 2023 black man, creack, dad, FL, Fort Lauderdale, Grandma, grandmother, white child

Morgan
Fort Lauderdale, FL

My now three and a half year old brother named Kendall was born to two crack addicted parents. My grandmother now has full custody of him and is his Mother figure. My grandma goes a few times a week to the Walmart across the street to do her grocery shopping. Benny is a young black man with long dread locks and gold teeth. Works in the produce area and always lends a smile and a good word to everyone he walks by. My grandmother met Benny and could not tell him (or his supervisors) enough how kind he is. Over some time my grandmother and Kendall got to know Benny. She told him about my brothers parents, or the lack there of. Benny told my grandmother that my brother could call him Daddy. Ever since my brother could talk he has still been calling Benny his Daddy, telling him he loves him, bringing him gifts, and even wears a wig (That my grandma made for my brother) to match Bennys dreadlocks. Benny even keeps a picture of Kendall proudly displayed on the mantel in his living room. A difference in skin pigment could never keep this pair a part. 🙂

Do Not Assume Who I am

May 18, 2023May 18, 2023 Dillon Harris, FL, Fort Lauderdale

Dillon Harris,
Fort Lauderdale, FL

People assume I am Hispanic and I am often treated with the same discrimination that actual Hispanics are. Nobody should have to go through discrimination or racism. It is uncalled for and rude. We need to all work together to put an end to discrimination.

FORCED here. BUILT America. NO Equality.

April 11, 2023April 11, 2023 america, equality, FL, forced, Fort Lauderdale, Ken Plummer

Ken Plummer,
Fort Lauderdale, FL

…Nothing but RACE

If you’re Dominican, then you’re Haitian!

March 3, 2022March 3, 2022 customs, Dominican, FL, Fort Lauderdale, Haitian, Jessica Carmona, mixed

Jessica Carmona,
Fort Lauderdale, FL.

People always insist on the fact that because I am from the Dominican Republic I’m Haitian. No. I don’t think this is so because I don’t follow any of the Haitian customs and I’ve never even been there. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with being Haitian it’s just that I consider myself a Dominican, someone of various mixed races. I like to say that I am multiracial because that’s exactly what Dominicans are. And that is what I am!

“Russia? Never been,” mom said, perplexed.

August 24, 2021August 24, 2021 Eileen Spiegler, first generation, Fort Lauderdale, Hialeah, Jew, modest, mom, old world, perplexed, Russua, South Florida

Eileen Spiegler,
Fort Lauderdale, FL

My parents were both first-generation American Jews — their parents moved to New York from Romania and Russia. Before I was born, they moved to South Florida, another “promised land” of sorts, in the hope of giving their children a better life. They were the first to move into a new neighborhood in Hialeah. The modest houses quickly sold, and my parents quickly realized we were the only Jewish family. The neighbors were suspicious, hostile, and occasionally frightening. But my parents stayed. One day, when I was about 6, I was playing in the back yard while my mother hung laundry on the clothesline. A woman who lived next door came outside. When she saw us, she yelled, “Go back to Russia!” Of course I had no idea what it meant. My mother, who had fled her mother’s refusal to speak anything but Yiddish and what she called “old-world ways,” looked like she’d been slapped. She had never even been outside the U.S. This was her home.

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