I am mixed-race gay man
Paul Avery,
Chicago, IL.
I am part Mexican and Black, live in Chicago, going to City Colleges, wish I could leave earth for a planet where gay men made up 80% of world population.
“Outnumbered” by other humans??? Perplexed, mystified!
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???
All Black City, America please wake-up.
Sandra Pfeifer,
Simpson, IL.
This is East Saint Louis, Illinois, an all Black city, where the American Dream took a wrong turn, leaving an entire city without resources for over 30 years. For Black American’s, in a country that profiles their failures with staggering statistics, effecting positive change on the local level is a daunting task.
The African American population of East St Louis has witnessed extreme racial prejudice, isolation, segregation, abandonment, lower pay, poor schools, wide spread poverty, corruption and joblessness, yet, a spirit has survived, a spirit of culture and community and an example of grassroots efforts that deserves to be honored and taught.
What has survived in East Saint Louis speaks to the depths of the human spirit, the fundamental need for human dignity, and the right to belong within a community, no matter what the circumstances.
East Saint Louis today may have one of the rarest genuine cultures of our time, something uniquely authentic, with its own voice and logic and worldview. No melting pot of people and cultures, no capitalist/corporate infrastructure –instead a monoculture, born out of a nation’s racial ignorance and the fundamental need to belong; where surviving and thriving are heroic efforts. Sleeping under the blanket of poverty, hidden from the view of a racist nation, there is a city that holds within it’s cultural bounds a most striking truth.
By acknowledging the importance of this cultural phenomenon and fostering a spirit of good will and hope we have an opportunity to bring to light some of the accomplishments, true history, and intrinsic value of a culture whose American experience has been vastly misunderstood and overlooked.
Fighting against being stereotyped.
Nichole Wesson,
Long Beach, CA.
I grew up what I believed to be middle-class in Dallas. I attended private, Catholic schools from kindergarten through 12-grade high school graduation. My high school class was 1/3 African-American, 1/3 white, 1/3 Mexican/Hispanic/Latino. I have done well in my career and recently returned to school to get my B.A. degree.
Nevertheless, I am stereotyped. Because I am African-American I must be (fill in the blank). As an African-American I should know (fill in the blank). Or, because I am African-American it is OK to discriminate against me.
As an African-American I feel I have to be prepared to fight against or be prepared for discriminatory treatment. I think about what to do if a police officer stops me. I remember being discriminated against trying to get an apartment in the Bay Area. I know what it is like to be disregarded and dismissed as I wait for service in a restaurant. I have experienced someone following me around a department store because they thought I would still something when all I wanted was to buy a handbag.
I, like so many other African-Americans, can see myself as the victim in the many incidents that have been so prevalent of late. I understand the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement in response to the killing by police officers of unarmed African-American men and women. I have witnessed the increase of prejudice and discrimination against all minority groups. I read the racist comments in social media and online media sites, some from people I thought I knew because I worked with them. I can’t help thinking about the vicious murders of African-Americans attending a prayer meeting at a church in South Carolina because of the murderer’s racist beliefs when I go to church.
I feel a responsibility to represent my cultural group at church to a population that may not see African-Americans in a positive light. I believe many have limited exposure to African-Americans probably only at work but never get to know African-Americans on a personal level especially seeing the demographic of African-Americans in Orange County is less than 2% (according to Census Reporter). I feel a responsibility to help change the narrative. I feel it is important to teach people why these issues and how these issues affect us. Plus, these issues affecting African-Americans are not one people groups’ issues. They affect our society and communities.
The difference between realism and racism.
Danny Denzler,
Wichita Falls, TX.
There’s a difference between being realistic and being racist. Police profiling isn’t racist. Look at the facts. Who commits the most crime even while being less than a 1/4 of the population? Personally, I know that not all blacks are bad, just like all whites aren’t good. I will say that not all black people I’ve been around have been rude, but most rude people I’ve been around have been black. I believe that their hip hop culture breeds their attitude and behavior. They need to change things from within and stop playing the race card. That’s how race relations will improve. I’ll end with a question to ponder…. if your daughter was forced to walk home alone at night and could walk through a black neighborhood or a white neighborhood, which one should she choose?
I was mugged by a “victim”
Jonathan Osmundsen,
Washington, DC.
I appreciate some of the coverage that’s focused on the Baltimore riots, and issues that influenced an explosion of pent up anger. That frustration is valid, those wrongs must be corrected. Here’s the “but”…
I’ve not heard one NPR story that mentioned the burning of a 60-unit building by rioters, which a church had intended for local seniors. I find it very frustrating to hear a person complain about racism, and then turn around and behave in a racist manner. Burning a business because it’s Korean, or Chinese, or anything else but ones own race is racist, isn’t it?
Yet this is something that, if I bring up as a white person, is automatically discounted as “out of touch” or somehow racist. I’ve been mugged several times growing up in NYC in the 70s. I’ve had friends who were victims of crime in NYC, DC, LA. Each time it was by an African American male.
Finally, when I was on a Grand Jury, there was another common element to the story. In bad DC neighborhoods that were majority African American, nobody ever saw or heard anything related to crimes. Somehow, it’s seen as a stand-up thing not to snitch, but that gives a pass to criminals and murderers who got out of jail, and returned to being that small percentage of a population that keeps the neighborhood down. Not the police, but the criminals (who are then excused because of the environment in which they were raised).
I understand that we need to help out this high-risk group of men and support that effort. But part of supporting the effort is embracing the whole of reality, even if that makes for a difficult conversation that might even risk branding one racist. I don’t think I am–if I was, I’d hope to grow out of it and mature my perspective. I guess that’s what I’m trying to do.
I’m sorry but it wasn’t me.
Margaret Hayes,
Hopkins, MN.
I went to a school that had a large minority student population. I always loved and was proud of my district because of it’s diversity, but for many years I was personally victimized and frequently bullied because of my “white-ness”. When many students saw my skin color they personally blamed me for all of the horrible traumas their ancestors had to endure due to ignorant racism. I truly feel bad for these things and believe that racism still remains a huge problem that needs to be discussed and fixed, but I singlehandedly was not the one who created all of these injustices.
It’s not racist, it’s segregated here.
Amanda Rae,
Houghton, MI.
I go to college in a very predominantly white city at the northern tip of Michigan. Here the student population is massively more diverse than the town around it. There are few black people but many Chinese and Indian students. There are no rules separating the different groups but we see little mixing. Each area of the library, groups on campus, or even parts of buildings are common for separate races. Here there is less outward racism than the systematic. There is a complacency with the separation and an expectation for it.
