generation Archives - Page 2 of 2 - The Race Card Project

Last Jim Crow Generation In Charge!

September 19, 2016September 19, 2016 charge, Cleo Brown, confront, fear, generation, Jim Crow, opposite rac, SC, solve

Cleo Brown,
SC.

I and others in our late 50s and up are members of the last generation of children to grow up under the “Jim Crow” legal system that required EVERY white person to discriminate against EVERY black person, whether or not they were racist. This extreme inequality left a residue that caused us not to immediately “see” another person, but to first see what we thought the other person’s race represented. We could see people from different races doing the same thing and think two very different thoughts about them.

We are the children whose relatives were lynched or shot and we are also the children whose parents did the lynchings and shootings. We are the children harassed while integrating white schools and we are also the children who did the harassing or whose parents funded lawyers to maintain an inferior education for some. We are the children whose parents’ livelihood and reputation were destroyed via the media and we are also the children whose parents wrote and spoke to move the masses to hate in order to achieve personal agendas. We are the children of almost a whole state of black parents who lost their right to vote in a single year and we are the children who as adults have applied their parents’ tactics into gutting the Voting Rights Act this year. We are the children who feared the fiery cross and we are also the children who stood hand in hand with our fathers encircling the cross. We are the children who may have never gone to school with anyone of the opposite race. Now we work side by side and we (and those we mentor) teach and supervise and make employment decisions, we are jurors and judges, and we set policy and political agendas. After all, we are of the age to be in charge, to set direction for others, but for many, our childhood Jim Crow foundation still frames our world view because we failed to challenge (or even acknowledge) what Jim Crow taught all of us and what has become a part of our automatic response system.

WE CAN’T SOLVE WHAT WE ARE UNWILLING TO ACKNOWLEDGE OR CONFRONT.

My parents don’t believe racism exists.

April 28, 2016 generation, Julia, Monmouth University, parents, racism, USA

Julia,
Monmouth University

Generations: slaves, maids, marching, why?, what?

January 30, 2016 Albuquerque, change, Family, generation, Louise S. Malone, maid, marching, NM, point of view, SC, slave

Louise S. Malone,
Albuquerque, NM.

My family were originally slave owners in South Carolina. I watch the point of view change with each generation.

My generation should know better

January 19, 2016January 19, 2016 america, Ann Marie, College, generation, know better, Martin Luther King, MLK, San Diego, segregation, USA

Ann Marie
USA

I didn’t understand how much racism still existed in America until I moved to Missouri for college. As a white female, second year college student and only 19 years old, I am absolutely disgusted with the racial slurs I still hear today.

Coming from San Diego, I grew up with Latino friends all my life and I am still dating the black man that I met in my high school college algebra class 4 years ago. I grew up in a nonjudgmental environment where “race” was never a factor in my life. As you can probably already guess, moving to the mid-west was a bit of a culture shock.

The ignorance that still lives on in my generation disgusts me and I cringe every time I hear a judgmental slur about someones skin color. Whether they are joking or not, I still do not understand why those thoughts even pop up in their minds. We have been taught about the negative effects of segregation and discrimination all our lives, but somehow the people in my generation haven’t learned from the mistakes that were made 50 years ago.

Thank you all for your stories; your words are very encouraging. I hope to see the day when we finally make Martin Luther King, Jr. proud and live in a place of racial equality.

Change will take another generation

March 19, 2014March 22, 2014 change, criminal, David Bennett, generation, Park City, UT

David Bennett
Park City, UT

I am a criminal justice consultant. I was working in a major southern city and an elected official said to me, “How do you expect a white person to come in here and have any credibility.” This is NO different than what the whites did to the blacks that is now occurring the other way around.

My grandmother was mix, I’m white.

June 10, 2013February 14, 2022 generation, Grandma, grandmother, Kat Sabine, mixed, passing, Phoenix, white

Kat Sabine
Phoenix, AZ

During my childhood, I was raised to believe that I am Caucasian. I found out through a health crisis that what I suspected about my grandmother as “passing” was true. In her abusive marriage to my grandfather, she lived as a white woman whom he institutionalized in mental health facilities when she tried to tell people she wasn’t Caucasian. I now identify as being “mixed race;” I don’t want for her to be invisible even as I am cognizant of my own “passing”.

I can’t speak my own language.

May 21, 2013May 21, 2013 ace, CA, can’t speak their own language, Dominic Lim, Filipino-American, generation, language, Oakland, shamer, speak, Tagalog

Dominic Lim
Oakland, CA

Like many 1st generation Filipino-American children, my parents never taught me Tagalog (Filipino), because they wanted me and my siblings to speak perfect English. And though I appreciate that they wanted to protect us from racism and bullying regarding any sort of accent we might get from learning Tagalog — I’m saddened by not having that connection with my racial heritage, and in some ways, feel angry towards the apparent race-shame my parents exhibited in not teaching us our own language.