On being the "token white chick"

Sometimes I walk into the store and feel people staring at me.  I wish I could attribute it to good looks, but I can’t- it’s simply because I’m white. In my neighborhood I don’t, and can’t, blend in.  I go places and puzzled eyes seem to ask, “What is that white chick doing here?”  There are times when my presence seems to disrupt the chi of the room, other times people seem amused, but most of the time  people take a fleeting second to register my skin color and then continue on with what they’re doing. Yes, I am the minority here in my part of town. But in my case, as a white lady, I’m not treated with prejudice or suspicion, just differently. I obviously can’t say I know what it feels like to be black or Latino, but I can say that I’ve gleaned understanding and empathy for those who stand out. 

I live 2 miles north of the DC border, in a city where hundreds of thousands of people exist sorted by skin color.  The racial divide is ridiculous. It’s sad, sometimes even a bit eerie.  It’s the same phenomenon that plays out in most major U.S. cities - Chicago, NYC, L.A., Philly, Atlanta. It’s nothing that hasn’t been happening for hundreds of years, just now it’s in my back yard and on my mind.

Our home here is 4 houses away from an obnoxiously loud train track.  The track is a landmark previously used to racially segregate the city. There was a time where people on our side of the track weren’t welcomed on the other side of the tracks.  When I drive over the tracks I often think about how people my parent’s age attended segregated elementary schools in this neighborhood. I have friends with families that attended Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, just 5 miles away from here.  Decades have passed since those uncomfortable days, but there still seems to be a metaphorical racial dividing line in this city.   We are still so segregated. 

 I’ve always lived in places where minorities were so scare, they blended in seamlessly.  In Alaska, Utah, or DeWitt Michigan people certainly aren't fighting about race, but that doesn’t mean prejudice doesn't exist.When I moved here  I realized that I was defining myself too much by my Caucasian-ness.  The longer I live here the easier it is to stop categorizing people as black, white, or Hispanic, but it takes work.   While I'm less phased now by being odd one out, there is something about not ''fitting in'' that still makes me feel less at home.

It is a sociological fact that people gravitate to others like them.  People are more comfortable with people like themselves. It is why hipsters love Portland, Jews congregate on the East Coast, and why many Mormons I know will never, ever, leave Utah. But for some reason, to see people every day matching up by skin color and then retreating to their own separate worlds, feels wrong.

Shamefully, almost all my friends here are white.  My favorite stores happen to be places REI and Whole Foods- places that magnetically draw white people.  I worship at a very ‘’culturally white’’ church where all my leadership, bottom to top, are white and male (this deserves its own blog post.)  Although I’m immersed in diversity, most of the people I socialize with aren’t very different from me.  They usually have with 1-3 young kids (just like me,) are middle class (just like me,) and college educated (just like me.)  There is no doubt that maybe I’m part of the problem too.  I’m not exactly sure what it takes to be equally as comfortable around people that are different. I’m not going out of my way to associate with my demographic clones, it just happens.  

 It may not be PC to say this, but I love that Liam goes to school in a black community. Liam is learning lessons that can’t be taught from books. Virtues like acceptance, cultural curiosity, and embracing, not ignoring, diversity.One of my favorite things that Liam’s teacher said about him was Liam “didn’t see (her) as a "black lady" and him as a "white boy." To him, we are the same.”

This is a picture Liam did of himself. He made himself brown, like all the other kids.