A journey through language and space.
Grace Morse,
New Orleans, LA.
Aspen X
I chose those six words because reading and writing (within travel) are some of the most important aspects of my life.
Black mother. White baby. Didn’t matter.
Christine Mitchell,
Reading, PA.
I’m a black woman married to a white man but still, imagine my surprise in the delivery room when my baby came out white. Not “white” like black babies are often very light skinned until their color comes in, but white.
They put our bracelets on so our babies wouldn’t get mixed up but in the inner city ward of the Philadelphia hospital, we were all black mothers and no one confused their child with mine when they wheeled them in for feeding and baths.
As I looked at this child with blue eyes and blond hair I realized that I had to have some recessive white genes in me somewhere for her to be this fair. And, as my fingers traced her chubby legs, inspected every inch of her body as new mothers do, and watched her greedily latch on to my dark brown nipple, I also realized that it didn’t matter. She was a beautiful baby. She was our baby and her color just didn’t matter.
I’d say race matters as a society that has a very recent history of systematically oppressing people of color, and laws need to be passed and enforced to correct that injustice. But race doesn’t matter as far as who you love.
Now she’s a grown woman with her own children and if it’s possible, I love her more now than I did then.
Reading actually helps quell racist thoughts.
Jules Jeung,
Union City, CA.
At this very moment, as I write this, destruction is going on in Oakland due to the decision of the grand jury in the Michael Brown/Ferguson case. I grew-up in Oakland.
I hate having negative thoughts about another race and their experience in this country. I hate feeling like a racist. But sometimes those thoughts just crop up out of anger, frustration, and misunderstanding. Coming to this site helped me get my thinking back on track tonight. I know there are many people who feel like me—they see, hear and experience things that make them think negatively about another race, but really, truly do not want to feel that way or think that way. Let me tell you, reading really helps. There are some great sites and great blogs where you can read some brilliant and eloquent discourse about racism and the experiences of minorities in America. It really, really helps.
Me racist? But I teach ESL!
Lynn Schaefer
Conway, AK
As a university-level ESL teacher, I interact with students from all over the world every day. I am well read in the areas of cultural differences and intercultural communication. Yet recently I have come to realize that I don’t know as much as I could about different cultural groups within my own country, such as African Americans, LGBTQ persons, the elderly, the poor, and so on. I’m in the process of getting a master’s degree in psychology and counseling. As a counselor, I will need to be (and want to be) sensitive to all of these groups.
Many southern Negroes never learned reading
Ted Hochstadt
Falls Church, VA
This is approximately what my mother said to me when I asked her why our African-American cleaning woman could not read the word I asked her about from my second grade reader. The conversation with my mother occurred in Brooklyn, NY almost 65 years ago, but I still remember that my mother went on to talk about “Negro” sharecroppers, segregated schools, and the black migration to the north in search of employment opportunities for themselves and educational opportunities for their children.
