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.
