My Thoughts On Racism In America

[Rico]

My Thoughts On Racism

Racism. Nothing in Satan’s arsenal against mankind is more powerful than racism. It is the very essence of hatred. It has the power to manifest itself in the most vicious and unholy of ways. Racism can rear its ugly head blatantly, such as the hundreds of years this country suffered because of slavery. Lynching, rapes, beatings, and denial of basic human rights are just a few examples of the atrocities committed because we fell victim to the power of racism. Racism also has the power to make its presence known in subtle ways. A fleeting thought of resentment towards someone for no reason other than the color of his or her skin, that disapproving glance towards a mixed couple, the fear we feel when we are outnumbered by a group of people from another race. In one way or another we have all been touched by racism.

Racism is a cancer, determined to destroy everyone and everything in its path. It is truly no respecter of person, for the rich and poor, white and black, saved and unsaved among us have been trapped in its snare. Our corporate structure, our economic structure, our class system, our law enforcement, our very government has been influenced by this cancer in some form or fashion.

Sure, we’ve fought against it. We recognized our sins and set the slaves free. We’ve put programs into place to right the wrongs of the past. We’ve passed laws against discrimination on the basis of race. No one can deny the progress we have made in America. Still, racism lives among us. We go to work eliminating it from one area of society and it rears its ugly head somewhere else. The peace we so desperately search for, the equality so many have fought for, the eradication of this evil called racism eludes us. It is such a cunning and devious enemy. We are caught in the middle of a war against Satan himself when it comes to dealing with racism in America. It is the war we absolutely must win in order for our society to survive.

I am going to share some of my own experiences with racism, and I will make some observations based on discussions I've had on racism. I am in no way trying to exclude other races, but the bulk of my experience in discussing racism has been with white people and black people.

My Own Experiences

Let me begin by making you aware that I am a white Puerto Rican. The overwhelming majority of people I meet would never guess I am Puerto Rican because I don’t speak English with an accent, and I don’t look the part either. I spent the first 8 years of my life in Gary, IN, a city that is predominantly black. We moved to a predominantly white city called Hobart, where I lived until I turned 13 and moved back to Gary. At 18 I moved to California and at 23 moved back to Gary. From there I moved further south in Indiana, and I now live in Southern Indiana, right along the Ohio River. I have experienced different forms of racism all throughout my life.

So, how have I experienced racism? My first taste of racism was when we moved to Hobart. My sister and I were the only Puerto Ricans in an all white school system, so I fought my way through school until the 8th grade. I had to deal with being called a spic, a wetback, confused with being Mexican, and even denied “A’s” in some classes for no other discernable reason other than because I am Puerto Rican. No, everyone wasn’t guilty of treating me like dirt because of being Hispanic, but it happened enough that I grew to hate living in that town.

When I moved back to Gary, at 13, I had trouble with many of the black kids at the High School. The black folks in Gary got along with the Puerto Ricans, but because I don’t look Puerto Rican, the assumption was that I was a white boy, and that made me fair game for fights, being called a honkey and other names, etc. Basically, I went through the reverse of what I had been going through in Hobart. Even though my preference has been for those gorgeous black women I have always liked, dating one was completely out of the question during my time back in Gary schools, unless I wanted to get jumped and beaten up.

My time in California was basically racism free, and I can’t remember any incidents worthy of mention. California is where I met my current wife, who is half black. I will be honest with you; she doesn’t have a clue that she is black. It’s been a sort of running joke between us these years we’ve been together, because, when we really started dealing with some serious racial issues, she honestly could not understand why, because no one in her family had ever been black except for her dad. (I know it doesn’t make sense to you, but you just have to know my wife.)

The year and a half or so my wife and lived in Gary, after moving from California, were difficult for me because it seemed like the disgust the black folks had in Gary towards white people had increased. The black folks I knew in California didn’t have this same attitude, so it was hard for me to adjust. We finally decided to move out of Gary, for several reasons, but one of them is because I didn’t feel comfortable living there. The racial tension was something I simply did not want to deal with. Little did I know what was waiting for me when we moved.

We ended up in a small county in West Central Indiana. We moved there because my dad had bought a house there, and it was a good place to go fishing and enjoy nature. We weren’t there three months before the problems started. I started having problems at work because some of my co workers thought it would be cute to nick name me Chico, and I didn’t like that nick name. Coming from them it felt like an insult. It didn’t help that one of them thought it would be a good idea to threaten us with burning a cross in my front yard. I bought a shotgun, for the first time in my life, and gave my wife instructions on what she needed to do if a group of people showed up to terrorize her and my son (who was less than a year old at the time) while I was at work. Fortunately, my dad had some friends who knew who it was that was making these threats and took care of the situation for us. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only incident we had to deal with.

My wife and I rented a lot we were planning on moving a trailer on to. We signed the papers, paid the deposit and the first month’s rent, and proceeded to make our plans for the move. A couple of days later the landowner showed up at my job, gave me my money back, and told me she couldn’t rent us the lot. She gave me a letter that explained that her phone had not stopped ringing since she rented us the lot. You see, we went into the local bank of this town she lived in to have the papers we signed notarized. Those people took one look at my wife, realized that I was Hispanic, and decided they didn’t want our kind moving into their little town. So, the phone campaign to this lady’s house started and did not stop until she agreed not to rent the lot to us. We could have taken her to court and won, but we’re not those kinds of people.

There were other things that happened to us while living in this county, but what hurt us the most is the racism we had to deal with at church. That’s right. I said at church, and I mean an apostolic church. The pastor thought it was ok to use the “n” word from the pulpit because he had lots of black friends and they knew he didn’t mean anything by it. Well, if the pastor thinks it’s ok to use derogatory terms like that you can imagine how free some of the brothers felt in the church to just be themselves, racist as they were. After one brother got upset with me about something, he came to my house, while I wasn’t home, and scared the daylights out of my wife with his screaming about her n***** husband! He and I almost came to blows in the church parking lot over his display of ignorance.

Racial jokes were ok there, segregationist rhetoric was ok there, and using the “n” word was ok there. Keep in mind; it wasn’t everyone in this church. It was just a few who thought they were better because they were white. Many of the people in this church were very good people who did not have a racist bone in their body and would never stoop so low as to treat anyone that way, let alone a brother from the church. It took some time, but I eventually talked the pastor into dealing with the racism that was going unchecked in his church. At least, I like to think I did. He eventually quit cussing like that from the pulpit, and I was glad because I loved him. We ended up leaving the church for other reasons, but I was glad I was gone once I made the decision to leave.

There have been other types of racism I have had to deal with as well. I’ve been pulled over before and the car and my person searched only after I produced my license and the cop saw my last name. It’s amazing how some cops’ attitude immediately changed when they found out my last name. The cordiality stopped, and they went from being the good cop to the bad cop in a flash!