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Interesting how this has come up as the 40th anniversary of the March on Washington is being commemorated this weekend.
As a child, I had friends of all kinds: Blacks, Asians, Arabs, Latinos, etc. And I always thought the minority kids were cool--like there was something special about them. It was a fascination of sorts. I didn't think they were inferior...just different in their look (and sometimes their native language). I can remember as a child hanging out with a group of black kids, yelling to everyone to vote for Jesse Jackson for President in 1984.
My parents were what I would call light-to-moderate racists: "nigger" was a frequent word around the house, though my stepdad wasn't calling for their destruction. My mom has had black friends as long as I can remember, but she would still utter the word from time to time.
And my friends and I used the various disparaging remarks--primarily "faggot" and "nigger." I don't think it was because we disliked gays or blacks though; I think it was more because of the power those words held.
As I got older, there were things I didn't understand: affirmative action, the NAACP, "It's a black thing...you wouldn't understand" t-shirts...I had what would be considered moderate-conservative views on those subjects. To the point where I thought I might be cheated out of things b/c I was white...and that's when I started checking "Native American" on anything involving race or ethnicity).
I got mugged twice by groups of black teenagers in the late 80s and early 90s. And while some around me were of the "those fucking niggers!" type, I never held those events against black people in general. This just happened to be 10 bad seeds that were black, nothing more. It did make me afraid of blacks for a while, but that subsided.
But as I went through high school and college, I became more "enlightened." I began to learn more about the history of various minorities and the struggles they had gone through. And I better understood why there are programs like Affirmative Action and why the NAACP exists.
From 1992-97, I worked for a retail chain called Venture (a midwestern Wal-Martesque store that went under in 1998...the sister store of Caldor). Most of the people I worked with during that time were black and female. And it was completely cool...I wasn't a typical whitey to them, and they knew I would treat them no different than white employees.
I think the defining moment of my convictions came in mid-1997. I was working for a bank, and I was sweet on this girl that came in all the time--a black girl. I offhandedly mentioned this to my mom one night, and joked that I wouldn't bring her around b/c of my stepdad. My mother had this look of horror on her face and replied, "What makes you think I would be alright with it?"
Oh my God...I was so fucking livid. But I coolly said that I didn't give a shit what anyone thought, that race wasn't a limiter in who I liked, and then mentioned the crush my mom used to have on a co-worker back in the late 70s--who was black. She didn't think I remembered that...ha!
Amazingly, there were no further problems with race after that. About 6 months later, I started dating Mimi (a Latina) and the 'rents had no problem with it. My parents liked her...and they didn't freak out when I told them we were engaged.
After Mimi and I broke up, I met Rho, who is black. And we've been together ever since. And my parents have never said one cross remark about that...though every now and then, they still come out of their face with boneheaded statements about blacks every now and then.
But if anything, I think it has opened my parents' eyes to all the myths and stereotypes that had pervaded their minds. They're smart people, but they're not intellectuals like myself. They don't think about grand concepts and what lies behind them, you know?
And in the end, they just want me to be happy. And they love Rho...she's like the best thing since sliced bread to them. It's rather funny.
Now, if sperm donor knew my dating history...well, that's another story for another day.
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