Yes, that's click bait. But Selma's anniversary has had me reflecting a lot these days on my racist background. You see, I grew up in a horribly racist household. When I was in my early thirties, my dad got crippled by an alcohol-induced car accident. Slammed into a toll booth in Illinois doing 50 or so. When I came to help him out, I'd push him around in his wheel chair at his Chicago South Suburb Jewel supermarket, and he'd warn me not to get in line behind the niggers because they always had food stamps and slowed things down. I realize that we white folk are supposed to self censor and avoid saying the "n" word. But I heard that word every day, and I can't tell my story without saying it out loud. I doubt many African Americans can believe it when I say it, but the word still makes me hurt very deeply. I feel, in fact, that I endured a form of child abuse because I was not only forced to hear that word daily, but I was supposed to also not experience a central part of American culture. Read on for how I reacted to this.
I'm 56 years old. The demographics say I should be holding onto my racism. The truth is, I am. There are still times I look at a police report and think, "probably black guy" before my core being has a chance to self-slap. I still fight the urge to cross the street when I am walking towards a black guy in any area somewhat isolated. I still have many, many prejudices that were pushed deep into me as a child. My mom would tell us stories about how she was beat up by "niggers" every day coming home from school. My dad would harp on a variety of character flaws that seemed to be inherent in the DNA of black folks. It was non stop. We didn't live in a cushy suburb, it was working class and maybe, if it is even possible to rationalize racial hatred, they were just scared somehow because the "black" neighborhood always seemed to be right around the corner, and encroaching (yes, that's a bad thing in my family world view). One day, my mom and I had a screaming, almost violent argument at the dinner table. I threw food and basically said, "I have had enough!" Something, maybe God as I understand him, told me that this was all crazy talk. Something snapped inside me, and I'm sorry to report it was the first time I ever wanted to hit a woman, and the last. I calmed down, nearly in tears, but my 16 year old brain was exploding with fear and confusion. How could two people who did a reasonably good job of taking care of me have such an attitude towards an entire group of people? Like my mom, I, too, was bullied by a black kid in my school. Anthony Thomas really, really disliked me. He disliked me because I was white. He disliked me even more because I was weak. I was scrawny, 5'8 at the time, maybe 120 pounds soaking wet when I was in middle school during those bullying episodes. He'd always find me. I'd be sure he wasn't around, at school, and sure enough, there he was. Pushing me, hitting me, telling me I was nothing. Fast forward two years and Tony and I are sitting on the school bus together. "When the race war comes, I won't fire at you, dude," Tony said. "But what will you do?" I asked. "You'll have your side and I'll have mine. Me, I think I want you to shoot me if it comes to that." I don't think I can possibly explain in one diary how our dynamic changed. Basically, Tony listened to reason. I kept barraging him. Why are you picking on me? This is really fucked up, dude. Eventually I guess I just wore him down. Eventually, we became friends. It wasn't a lifetime friendship or anything, it was really a flash in my life, but it was my first real personal experience with redemption and the realization that, at our core, we humans are good, decent people, and that the loud footprints created by violent men are the result of some kind of demonic infestation that feeds on fear and, in its final incarnation, drives us to drink and fight. Then came Walter Williams. A transfer out of Mendel High from Chicago's inner city. I was a freshman in high school by then, and we became best friends almost immediately. Walt was 300 pounds of not too much body fat, and the sweetest dude you could ever know. I lost touch with Walt shortly after I went to college, but I can guarantee you this: There is no way he is not doing good works for someone, somewhere. You hear a lot about "he's a nice guy." Walt wasn't just a nice guy. His soul enveloped you, took you in, and you wanted desperately just to be in the same room he was in. He wasn't charismatic at all. He was quiet, but his soul filled the room. My favorite memory of him was when we went to see The Excorcist together. Imagine a huge black guy holding onto a skinny white boy for dear life. And me hugging back. We were terrified. Maybe that is how I escaped my family's racism. Maybe it was just so simple. Just hanging out with a couple of black dudes. When Obama won, of course, I cried. It was a damn spigot. Stop crying, I said to myself, tears running down my cheeks in disbelief despite the poll numbers. I was so sure that the monsters that hate black America would somehow succeed at stopping this. That he won tells me that there is something in him the powers that be like, because at heart, not only do I need to fight irrational racist dogma in my thinking, I need to push back against my inner conspiracy theorist that loves stories about the Trilateral Commission and other such niceties. Today, there is a backlash against Obama. The elephant in the room is that he is black. His poll numbers would be much better if he could just change the shade of his skin, at least for TV. But you know what? He did it. History will remark that he was a great president. Not a good one. A great one. There is no arguing this. Is he the progressive some of us wanted? No, he really isn't. He himself said he was a blank slate. He's a pragmatist, not a visionary. But his legacy touches me very deeply almost upon waking every morning. I love Barack Obama for reminding me every day about my own ingrained prejudices, and how a human can rise against the hatred of others. He is our greatest president. And history will prove me right.