perplexed Archives - The Race Card Project

“Outnumbered” by other humans??? Perplexed, mystified!

December 6, 2021December 6, 2021 choice, chose, community, equal, Hispanic, human, Julie Murphy, Minority, mystified, National Geographic, NJ, outnumbered, people of color, perplexed, Plainfield, population, public schoo, shift

Julie Murphy,
Plainfield, NJ.

I wrote this in response to the excellent article in Nat Geo. White people talk about feeling outnumbered by other races. How do they think people of color have felt for hundreds of years? 30 years ago I moved to a town that was predominantly black and sent my daughter to public schools where she was one of less than five white kids in her grade. I chose to live here because I thought it was better to live in a diverse community rather than an all white one. I chose to send my daughter to a school where she was a minority because I think all of us should experience that and learn to connect with people of all cultures and backgrounds. Our town has had a huge shift in demographics with the Hispanic population now being almost equal to the black population. Whites make up a very small part of the numbers. When whites talk about being out numbered, i am mystified because I chose to be outnumbered and love it. Why can’t people see others as humans who have much more in common than difference???

“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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