When I first read this story in Princeton Alumni Weekly [1], it reminded me so much of my own upbringing. My parents grew up in inner city Detroit and Gary, but fortunately came of age in the 70s, at a time when higher ed was becoming much more inclusive. This gave them the means to get out, just as those cities were beginning to crumble. They raised my siblings and me in a nice upper middle class suburb of Chicago. Like the author and his wife, my parents raised us from a very young age to know a behaviors to exhibit around authorities and non-black people, so that we would appear as non-threatening as possible.
Reading the story brought back a memory I'd almost forgotten. My father, a lifelong golf fan, sent my brother and me to golf camp in Wisconsin. I was probably about 14 and this was right around the time Tiger Woods first went pro. So golf suddenly seemed like a viable sport to young black kids like us -- it had been less than a decade since Augusta National had admitted it very first black member. At camp, I remember hearing the word "nigger" yelled at us from a truck speeding by a road adjacent to the course. My brother and I had never experienced such racism up until that point and were basically frozen. One of our teammates thought quickly and yelled "rednecks" back at the truck, and to our teenage minds, the score had been more or less evened. No one ever talked about what happened, and we sure as hell didn't tell my father, who likely would have been as upset as the author of this piece.
I can't say that this particular event stands out as a watershed moment of racism in my life, however. Far more frustrating were the countless microracisms I endured growing up. A feeling (and reality) of not belonging socially, exclusions from group outings, always standing out like a sore thumb, off-color remarks, overt distrust from friends' and girlfriends' parents, and so forth.
It wasn't until my late teens that developed the confidence to turn my difference into a strength in many cases. Developing that ability allowed me to be much more successful within the dominant culture, although it's never too long an interval between overtly racial situations. In my twenties, I've been questioned by police specifically on account of my race and I once had to date a girl secretly because her father had told her he would disown her for dating a non-white guy. At a middle class suburban bar,a totally random guy I'd never seen before tried to fight me after telling me a "a nigger fucked my wife".
But I'm on the very lucky end of the spectrum. I've benefited from all sorts of privileges in my life. So many minorities face an intersection of circumstance that can deprive them of privilege. We can never fully banish discrimination, but I share this in hopes that people will read one person's experience, understand that these issues are very real, and want to learn more.
Reading the story brought back a memory I'd almost forgotten. My father, a lifelong golf fan, sent my brother and me to golf camp in Wisconsin. I was probably about 14 and this was right around the time Tiger Woods first went pro. So golf suddenly seemed like a viable sport to young black kids like us -- it had been less than a decade since Augusta National had admitted it very first black member. At camp, I remember hearing the word "nigger" yelled at us from a truck speeding by a road adjacent to the course. My brother and I had never experienced such racism up until that point and were basically frozen. One of our teammates thought quickly and yelled "rednecks" back at the truck, and to our teenage minds, the score had been more or less evened. No one ever talked about what happened, and we sure as hell didn't tell my father, who likely would have been as upset as the author of this piece.
I can't say that this particular event stands out as a watershed moment of racism in my life, however. Far more frustrating were the countless microracisms I endured growing up. A feeling (and reality) of not belonging socially, exclusions from group outings, always standing out like a sore thumb, off-color remarks, overt distrust from friends' and girlfriends' parents, and so forth.
It wasn't until my late teens that developed the confidence to turn my difference into a strength in many cases. Developing that ability allowed me to be much more successful within the dominant culture, although it's never too long an interval between overtly racial situations. In my twenties, I've been questioned by police specifically on account of my race and I once had to date a girl secretly because her father had told her he would disown her for dating a non-white guy. At a middle class suburban bar,a totally random guy I'd never seen before tried to fight me after telling me a "a nigger fucked my wife".
But I'm on the very lucky end of the spectrum. I've benefited from all sorts of privileges in my life. So many minorities face an intersection of circumstance that can deprive them of privilege. We can never fully banish discrimination, but I share this in hopes that people will read one person's experience, understand that these issues are very real, and want to learn more.
[1] http://paw.princeton.edu/issues/2014/10/08/pages/7596/index....