Racism is an ugly word and an evil truth. Although, I was experienced this evil at an early age, it is still uncomfortable to discuss. I did not have terrifying nightmares which would have originated in my amygdala, but at the time of this incident I could say that a shock of fear and confusion swept over me like a dark cloud. I am certain, my amygdala responded to my facial expressions more than to words (Berger, 2009, page 229) as I was speechless to what had just happened to us. Memories are fragile in early childhood because the hippocampus is still developing (Berger, 2009, page 229). I know this to be true however, in this case it left such an indelible impression I have never forgotten the occurrence.
As a young girl born and living in the Southwest region of Florida, my older cousin took me for a city bus ride downtown. She said come let us cross the street and get something to eat. I was very happy to be with my cousin on this excursion and the thought of going into a restaurant I’d never entered was exciting also. We walked up to the restaurant and she opened to door for me to walk in and just like a flash of lightening the Caucasian cook flew across the counter to stop us from entering! He pointed his finger and yelled at us, for trying to come in the front door in the first place. He said, “You can’t come in here! You folks know you can’t eat in here, if you want something go to the back door!”
As a result, my self-esteem was shattered and I felt shame as others looked on. It was just as Erickson described, shame means that people feel that others blame them or disapprove of them (Berger, 2009, page 279). These were the ramifications of being innocently rejected.
On the other hand, I do not recall my cousin’s exact response to the cook, but it wasn’t pleasant. As an enactment of primary prevention, she lovingly held my hand and we walked away. Once we were home, she fixed me the best sandwich I had ever eaten. I am sure her home cooking exceeding anything we could have ordered at the restaurant. Consequently, I can still feel her love and compassion for me, she knew I was crushed and she needed to do something special for me. This was a very smart move on her behalf, because I am inclined to believe this was the beginning of the coping process of this torturously degrading encounter.
Since that time I have encountered other racist incidents. However, I believe I survived them because of my cousin’s initial handling of the aforementioned. Although, her first reaction to the cook was to retort, what I most remember is she did something positive for me. Therefore, I am inclined to do something positive for myself or someone else within the same category in which the discrimination occurs. Also, whenever I am confronted with racism, I rarely acknowledge it. I never let the opponent know that it is getting to me and it usually doesn’t because I am so above that now. For example, a while back my mother and I was shoe shopping in the mall. The store was crowded because of a sale event. A clerk went to get a pair of shoes for my mother try on, she did not return for a while. So, another clerk noticed us waiting and asked if she could help and we told her what we wanted as well. Suddenly, I heard the store manager, (a young white male) yell at my mother when he discovered two clerks were waiting on her. He blamed her for wasting one of the clerk’s time, which was really caused by insufficient training. The clerk never asked if we had already been helped. Nevertheless, with other customers looking on, I gently took my mother’s hand and said, let’s go. Ultimately, he lost because we took our business elsewhere and so did some of his other customers.
Haiti is a nation of people I hold a special affinity for because my husband is Haitian-American. Thus, I have the opportunity to visit there and witness racism first hand. Uniquely, racism in Haiti is unlike racism in the United States because it is against the same race rather than between the races. What I discovered is it exists between the educated and uneducated; the lighter colored skin against the darker skin toned the upper class against the lower class, and the wealthier against the poorer. We accompanied my brother in on a visit to the hospital to get his injured hand attended to. I could not believe my eyes as I noticed close to a hundred people waiting in line to for medical assistance. Many of the people were pregnant women! I immediately got upset, I walked to the front of the line with people looking at me in shock; a U.S. Marine was guarding the entrance. I questioned him about the women almost faint from standing in the long line. He said he was following protocol! This was years before the earthquake. My brother in law was of lighter complexion and he was allowed in before the darker skinned pregnant ladies! I was furious and felt totally helpless in regards to those women.
Additionally, my mother in law was denied a visa to visit the U. S. on several occasions because they claimed she lied in the interview. The bottom line was that she did not offer them money (under the table) to grant her a visa. Maxwell’s report indicates a wider scope of the root of Haiti’s racism in connection with their poverty. He explains the underlying problem to be related solely to money owed to the World Bank in which was scrounged by the elite, but the poor are robbed to pay it back at an astounding one million dollars a week! This he says could feed the whole nation and be used to establish jobs for them. More so, in his article Vedrine (2007) reiterates, “I myself felt as a foreigner in my own native Haiti, when I could not live in certain areas or attend certain schools. This is a so –called “Black country” where most dark skinned people are being mistreated because they are poor, low class, uneducated; in another word, the underdogs.” A more astonishing account of Haitian racism as told by Verdine is that a close friend of his from the upper class in Haiti had relatives who tried to get their daughter to divorce her dark skinned low class exceptionally intelligent husband to marry a poor white Brazilian in attempts to save the lighter skinned race. Now that is utterly preposterous deception. As I see it, there is only one race and that is the human race.
In conclusion, racism is and ugly evil that hurts and destroys lives. No one can win or honestly succeed by hating or degrading others. Everyone should avoid racism at all costs. The bottom line in my understanding is racism is the purest form of ignorance. To hate and discriminate against someone because of their outer appearance is absolute deception. Should the discriminator take time to know the discriminated it would more than likely dispel the hatred. Discrimination for racial reasons is foolishness. Thank God it is much better now because races are communicating and getting to know one another.
References
Berger, K. S. (2009). The developing person through childhood (5th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
Maxwell, J. (2008). Haiti: Racism and Poverty. NewsAction.net.
Verdine, E.W. (2007). “Racism lives here and in Haiti”. Boston Haitian Reporter, Vol. 6-10. Retrieved from http://www.potomitan.info/vedrine/racism.php
Hello Linda,
ReplyDeleteI can appreciate your experiences on racism, I once was offer to attend a Klan’s meeting, the funny thing is that I would have messed their minds up had I took on the invitation. (My husband and our children had been in our new home for a short period of time, the invite was meant for the pervious family. I have had many experiences of racism before that, but I guess that I never wanted to believe that the racism really had followers but it does. One thing that I have learned is that no one is exempted from experiencing the wrath of racism no one!! But how one reacts to racism makes the dividing lines!!
I agree that racism is something we don't like to talk about, but it is happening in schools everyday. Racism is a stressor for children in the classroom and at home. The way they feel about themselves is the way they are going to perform in class.
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