I’ve been derelict in my blogging over the last several months. There are probably dozens of reasons that I could site for this, but none of them really matter to anyone but me. The reason I am writing at a quarter after midnight less than a week before Christmas after months of silence is because of a discussion I had with my aunt this evening—or yesterday rather. One of my young cousins just got a facebook page and my aunt wanted to see her page—she likes to know what we’re all doing at any given moment, but she doesn’t want to have her own facebook page. She didn’t have any major problems with the page…until she got a look at my cousin’s pictures. Now, I know what you’re thinking—she must have one of those scandalous bathroom pictures and a ton of make-up, but that isn’t the case. What bothered my aunt was the type of friends that she had, none of whom were white like her. (Unlike my own response, which was one of both surprise—the little brat’s got a really diverse group of friends—and one of pride.)
My aunt, it seems, has gotten rather racist over the last four decades because my mom swears that she had Hispanic and Black friends when they were teenagers. She was absolutely sure that these kids, who looked rather wholesome to me, would get my sweet, impressionable, twelve-year old cousin in trouble. Let me tell you, you couldn’t have picked my jaw up off of the ground with a forklift. What exactly would Hispanic and/or Black kids do that could get a little white girl in trouble? Most of the kids I knew at my cousin’s age were all white. Each and every one of them was trouble. The year I turned 12, a bunch of the kids in my class (all of whom were whiter than white) were caught drinking at the school sponsored Fashion Show (one of these kids actually stole the alcohol from the restaurant and got so drunk that he was unable to come to class the next day). At the same function, most of the girls in the grade above me were caught smoking in the bathroom. A few years prior to this, one of the girls a year older than me got in trouble because she managed to get onto the internet and do some really inappropriate things while on there (the rumor at the time was that she was having cyber sex—I don’t know how true that was; she was only in 5th grade, however, if there was a girl that would have had cyber sex at the tender age of 10, this was the girl).
In high school, my social circle grew to include Black, Hispanic, and Indian kids—all of who were in my honors and advanced placement classes. The reason these kids became my friends was that they were the ones in my classes. These were the kids that I had the most in common with—we had the same teachers, classwork, and homework. We all had the same gripes. A few of my friends were white, but the majority was not. Why was this? The white kids were all in the remedial classes. Most of them couldn’t read See Spot Run let alone Moby Dick. They were also the ones that would set the local park on fire at least once a week. Several of them got pregnant and dropped out before we managed to make it to Senior Year. If these were the kids I was supposed to hang out with, I wonder what would have happened to me? Would I have graduated from high school, gone on the college, and eventually obtained my Masters Degree? Probably not. I would probably be a stoner with a gaggle of brats—all with different fathers–, who was fired from the local McDonalds because I couldn’t maintain focus long enough to flip a burger. It is safe to say that I am really glad that I didn’t hang out with the white kids in high school.
I have nothing against white people. Most of my current friends are white for the same reason most of my friends in high school were Black and Hispanic—they were the people I went to grad school with and so they are the people I have the most in common with. It just makes me so mad when someone who seems like a good person suddenly says or does something so completely insane. The thing is that this is not the first time my aunt has said something so stupid based on race—when I was looking for roommates in Boston, she told me to stay away from the Black girls because they bring their Black guy friends over. She claimed that was bad because they would get me in trouble. I’m not quite sure what kind of trouble they would have gotten me into, but apparently it was scary enough that she warned me away from them. My brother, my cousin, and I have also been told never to bring a Black boy or girl home with us and that we are not allowed to marry a Black person because we would have mulatto kids and that would be unthinkable. What??? Why? President Obama is bi-racial; is there anything wrong with him? (That is a whole other can of conservative worms that I don’t have the inclination to open right now.)
I just don’t get people. What is the difference between a white person and a black person? I don’t see it. How do others?
