White People: What is Your Story?

[Mary Ann]

Ron Green (7,219 posts)

White People: What is Your Story?

How old are you? Did you grow up in an integrated place? How diverse was your town? Do you have any close friends of color? Do you recognize white privilege, and if so, have you sought to understand how it's enabled your life as you know it?

I was 9 years old in the summer of 1957, on a downtown sidewalk in my little Jim Crow hometown of about 40% black folks, none of whom ever went to school with me or could drink from the same water fountain as I or eat at the same cafe. That day a black man, certainly old enough to be my grandfather, stepped off the curb into the street to let me pass by. My initial flush of importance at deference shown to me by any adult became a feeling of confusion that didn't go away for many years: Years of growing up in that little Southern town through the civil rights struggles of the '60s, trying to become an adult by the norms of that world, never really knowing a black person until I went away to college and then served a hitch in the army.

By then my interest and activity in jazz music brought me into a world created by those who'd never been allowed into mine. Being shut out by other players certainly did happen from time to time, and I learned something about the pride of membership in a culture of the creation of a great art. What I didn't learn, until many years later, was the real meaning and power of white privilege.

African slavery is the defining fact of America. It, and the ensuing political and economic malice that followed, so shaped the social structure of this country that despite its enormous resources the U.S. has created what must be called a toxic society. Two nights ago I spoke before my city council in one of the whitest places in the nation (0.4% black rather than 40%) regarding a resolution to repudiate this town's long history of racism and exclusion. It passed, but with watered-down language that wants us to "move on" and not think publicly, or personally about this. Even today, I've read many Internet posts from white people who don't understand that simply being "post racial" is to ignore the hard work that each of us who's not defined by race must do to see what we have been given by our birth and how it has made us.

So what's your story? Is it one experience, or many? How have you worked through this in your life, in your community? Or can we all just get along, and put this behind us?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025916762

This one has some potential . . .

I would take issue with the idea that " African slavery is the defining fact of America." I would say it was the quest for freedome from an oppresive government, excessive taxation, etc.

[MrsSmith]

My story?  There were no black people where I grew up, but there were in the closest town.  I didn't know any personally, the first black man I met was a mechanic, with a job and everything.  I guess that town wasn't so prejudiced? 

My kids grew up with other kids of all races.  They didn't have any more problems with other races than they did with other white kids.  There were a few kids that had problems with skin color...they were the black children of one of my college classmates.   They weren't as well liked as most other black kids because their father taught them that whites would never be fair to them.  I guess that down-south attitude doesn't change even when people move north.

[Mary Ann]

I grew up in a lily white rural Wisconsin town. The only Black guy I knew well in college was from Barbados, obviously from a middle class or even well-to-do family. What I remember well is how hard he tried to fit in with the Black students at the college--probably most from the inner city. He couldn't quite pull it off.

[obumazombie]

My childhood could be described as...

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfAvQp-Uk5I[/youtube]


Martinesque !

[Big Dog]

The details of my life are quite inconsequential.

My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet.

My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament.

My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe.

At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it's breathtaking, I suggest you try it.

[USA4ME]

The details of my life are quite inconsequential.

My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet.

My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament.

My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe.

At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it's breathtaking, I suggest you try it.

 

Man, you ain't right.

.

[J P Sousa]

I was raised in a very white community.

On my way to work at 4 AM one day, I was stopped by a cop FOR NO REASON.

On numerous occasions I would be followed by store clerks FOR NO REASON.

The cop was white.
The store clerks were white.
I am white.

??????   
.

[JohnnyReb]

I was raised in a small southern town that was more black than white before a lot of them moved north to Detroit and D.C back in the 50's ...... what the hell is the use of me telling my story, DUmmies wouldn't believe it any way.

[Carl]

African slavery is the defining fact of America. It, and the ensuing political and economic malice that followed, so shaped the social structure of this country that despite its enormous resources the U.S. has created what must be called a toxic society.

I will say it again,this is all about an effort to declare the Constitution null and void as illegitimate. 

[ChuckJ]

Nearest neighbors was a black family. Best group of people in the world. Best friends in the world. As a child I didn't know I was supposed to be at odds with them because of their color until informed of the fact by democrats. Called foul names by white homosexual, liberal democrat because I remained friends with said black family.

That's my story and it is 100% true and accurate. It honestly wouldn't surprise me to find out that the white homosexual, liberal democrat is today an active member of DU.

[Dori]

There were kids of other races in my neighborhood and school.  I honestly don't remember differences in race ever being discussed at home when growing up and I never gave it much thought. 

[98ZJUSMC]

African slavery is the defining fact of America.

Pound it out your a$$, hippie.  Die.  Soon.   

It, and the ensuing political and economic malice that followed,  so shaped the social structure of this country  that despite its enormous resources the U.S. has created what must be called a toxic society.   

Created by LibEralS.   Die.  Soon. 

[HawkHogan]

My story: Each time I read a Dummy post, I become more conservative. 

[Ptarmigan]

I am really sick of hearing White liberal guilt. It is self hatred. 

I get along with everybody.

[BattleHymn]

Dude.  DUDE.   

[BattleHymn]

I get along with everybody.

Everybody?

[Mr Mannn]

Everybody?

You're no bunny till somebunny loves you...

[Zathras]

The details of my life are quite inconsequential.

My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet.

My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament.

My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe.

At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it's breathtaking, I suggest you try it.

Can I borrow......1 MILLION DOLLARS?

[SVPete]

I posted this on another forum in a thread of the same topic:

How old are you? Did you grow up in an integrated place? How diverse was your town? Do you have any close friends of color? Do you recognize white privilege, and if so, have you sought to understand how it's enabled your life as you know it?

I was 9 years old in the summer of 1957 ...

Answering his questions - whether he thinks them devastating or diagnostic, I neither know nor care - straight up:

* I'm about 6 years younger than him;

* The town nearest my home was integrated; the schools I attended were integrated; my parents grew up in that town and attended those schools in the 10s, 20s and 30s, and the town and schools were integrated then; FWIW, the town had Europeans, Blacks, Hispanics, Chinese, Japanese, Amerinds, Koreans, and Indians, that I can remember;

* White "privilege" played no part in my life, and I don't think it exists, except as a figment of race-baiters' foul imaginations; the schools I attended were integrated, and minorities participated fully in all the various aspects of student life, as they saw fit; the same was true at the for-profit college I attended; the same has been true at every company for which I've worked; the same has been true of every church I've attended, except, at the time, for my parents' church, which had started using English in services some 15 years before I was born. Among the largest-scale family farms (pretty much all were, then), at least three families were minorities.

So, I have a rhetorical question "for" him. If racism is so utterly pervasive and systemic in the US, how were the experiences of my upbringing and of my adult life possible?!

[DefiantSix]

I was born and raised a Navy brat.  I rarely lived on base, but my neighborhood(s) growing up was largely populated with the families of my dad's shipmates. Blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, American Indians; you name it, they were there.  And you know something, not a damned one of us were acceptable to the white-bread, lazy-assed civilian population around us, so when somebody's baby was sick at 03:00 in the morning, when the civvy kids tried to jump the new kid in the DesRon, when mom's car broke down 5 weeks into a WestPac deployment, when the sink clogged up, all we had to rely on was each other.

So the lazy-assed leftist ****s who were just as useless then as they are now can take their assertions that we're all racists, and cram it up their butt buddy's glory hole as far as I'm concerned.

[Ptarmigan]

Everybody?

Bunnies are Satan's spawn. They don't count.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Yes. I used to work in the Academie Francaise, but it didn't do me any good at all,
Aaand I once worked in the library in the Prado in Madrid, but it didn't teach me nothing, I recall.

And the Library of Congress you'd have thought would hold some key,
But it didn't, and neither did the Bodleian Library.

In the British Museum I hoped to find some clue.
I worked there from nine till six, read every volume through,

But it didn't teach me nothing about life's mystery.
I just kept getting older, and it got more difficult to see,

Till, eventually, me eyes went and me arthritis got bad,
And so now I'm cleaning up in here, but I can't be really sad,

'Cause, you see, I feel that life's a game. You sometimes win or lose,
And though I may be down right now, at least I don't work for Jews.

 

[Big Dog]

Yes. I used to work in the Academie Francaise, but it didn't do me any good at all,
Aaand I once worked in the library in the Prado in Madrid, but it didn't teach me nothing, I recall.

And the Library of Congress you'd have thought would hold some key,
But it didn't, and neither did the Bodleian Library.

In the British Museum I hoped to find some clue.
I worked there from nine till six, read every volume through,

But it didn't teach me nothing about life's mystery.
I just kept getting older, and it got more difficult to see,

Till, eventually, me eyes went and me arthritis got bad,
And so now I'm cleaning up in here, but I can't be really sad,

'Cause, you see, I feel that life's a game. You sometimes win or lose,
And though I may be down right now, at least I don't work for Jews.

 

 

[Big Dog]

Can I borrow......1 MILLION DOLLARS?

It will take me a little time to get it.

First I have to threaten to destroy the world with something I call a...



..."laser beam".

[txradioguy]

DUmmies are once again engaging in narrative blogging. Similar to narrative journalism where they look for "stories" to fit a particular stereotype so they can go "see I was right".

This time they are wanting to prove that most whites don't understand the black "struggle" because we didn't grow up around anyone  but white folks.