Blogs I’ve been reading lately have been about the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s famous speech. I wrote a comment on one of those blogs then decided I needed to post that comment here.
“When my daughter was young, back in the 70s, I did a program for mostly white kids using Fisher Price people to show how they were all kind of the same but kind of different–clothes, hair styles, skin color, etc. The mother of an adopted Korean daughter thanked me for that program. Then I did that program for kindergartners who were mostly black–they didn’t get it. There were so used to seeing the differences they couldn’t see the similarities. Broke my heart.
As an adult I was with a group of friends one day when one of the guys made a comment about us not all being caucasian. Surprised, I asked who wasn’t. He said he was Eurasian. I had never noticed.
Apparently it is easier to not notice if you are a member of the group not often discriminated against.”
When my brother was in third grade he had a birthday party to which he invited his best friend from school. The child said he could not come. My brother was heart-broken. My Mom called the boy’s mother to reinforce the written invitation. Finally, the mother said my Mom did not know that her son was a Negro. Mom said of course she knew but he was my brother’s best friend so we really wanted him to come to the party. His mother said in that case he could come. How sad to be afraid to let your child go to a friend’s house for fear of discrimination.
It was years later before I realized that incident may have been the catalyst for me being invited to visit my black school friend’s houses. I played with everyone so I didn’t know there might have been something special about those invitations.
I am so glad I was raised to be color blind.
TTYL,
Linda
Being raised in Montana we really weren’t exposed to other races. We had a Mexican family in town as well as an Asian family and they weren’t any different than the rest of us. At least not that we knew of. They were just people. And that’s how I’ve always been.
How sad those days were. So glad for the most part we can all see past that…I hated to not have had so many of the ethnic friends growing up! May we ALL march on!!
Like Sandie I was raised in Washington and the only exposure I had was through my father’s memories of growing up in the South. I’ve also discovered if one continues to look for the differences, that’s what he’s going to find. In the same way he’s not going to see the similarities.
Love the “color blind” comment, Linda. Excellent!
Paul grew up in a 50% black school; I had about 3 blacks in our large school. Both our parents did an excellent job of teaching us to respect, love and care for all. We passed this on to our children. Many of Carrie’s best friends are non Caucasians. What a wonderful diverse group of young adults.
Thanks for a wonderful post.
Linda,
This post moved me enough that I reblogged it
I have a dream – The Sandcastle
You may have left your comment on other blogs but what you wrote above is what you wrote on my blog .. and so I’ll just post my response to your referenced blog and comment… 😉 in case you don’t go back to read responses…
Morning, how cool was that, Linda. good for you. interesting … so used to seeing the differences they couldn’t see the similarities… wow
When I was working in the corporate world … I worked with and beside and for all manner of whoevers. never even batted an eyeball until a trait or characteristic of whatever race they were came out… loved it.
like my being southern… ever once in a while I had to come on out with a southern thang just to remind ’em … like … do tell or I swanee or fixin to do this or that or y’all have a nice weekend hear? hahaa
I’m glad I like people. I really am.
what an inspiring post.
my mother was from upstate new york. she did not have a discriminate bone in her little body.
once she and i (i remember this though i think i was only about 4 at the time)… we had been shopping in downtown oklahoma city.
EVERYTHING was segregated. drinking fountains. busses. everything.
we were taking a city bus back to my grandmother’s house where we were staying.
we walked to the back of the bus. they used to have seats that went across the back.
there was the cutest little black girl just my age back there and i wanted to sit by her and ‘play and talk’ and so mother and i walked to the back and sat by the little girl and her mother.
the bus driver STOPPED the bus. he walked back. and in front of everybody on that bus said . . .
to my mother . . . “you’re a white woman. you can’t sit back here. this isn’t for our people.”
my mother said she was just fine “thank you. but we’ll stay here.”
he said “you don’t get it lady. you either move to the front of this here bus or you get OFF it.”
my mother and i walked to the front of the bus and got off.
we walked over 2 miles home. (couldn’t afford a taxi!) but it was a lesson that i’d learned for the rest of my life.
i am color blind. and i owe it to a little mother who made a courageous stand that day in front of a bus full of bigots and blacks.
When I was an apartment complex manager, two men came in to ask about a two-bedroom apartment. I only had a few studio apartments that week. They right out accused me of saying I had no two-bedrooms because they were black. It was the first time in my life I had been accused of racism and it really shook me. The colour of their skin hadn’t registered with me.
(I convinced them to leave me their information, a two bedroom came up shortly thereafter, they passed all their credit and reference checks, and they wound up being awesome tenants. So the story does have a happy ending.)
I made my way to your post courtesy Peter of Life Unscripted. Many thanks to Peter for sprinkling bread crumbs on the path to your door. 🙂
Canadians find the whole race thing so weird, at least from the black perspective. My husband had a white mother and African father, he grew up on the prairies, in a small town, not knowing he was “black” until 7 or 8 years old. Our family is in Vancouver, when my middle son was 2 or so years old, we were at a playground when suddenly out of nowhere an Asian boy about 6 came up and flattened him to the ground. My son had the wind knocked out of him, was crying as this boys sister came up and said something to him in Mandarin. This little boy looked me straight in the eyes and snarled “I will not say sorry – he’s only a whitey”. (genetics delivered more of my Irish family to middle son) Holy crap!
Loved your post and am now an eager follower of your blog. This was my post on MLK…
https://notestoponder.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/what-are-we-afraid-of/
Coming from a person of color, the term color blind is offensive. I want you to be aware of my color so you can fight against oppressive tactics used against me and be an ally to me. I am different from you and that’s okay like you stated but don’t be blind to my color just accept it like I accept you 🙂