The honest face of racism

by Lucinda Ulrich

Daily Lobo columnist

As a passionate young teacher working with at-risk teens, I taught myself to practice non-judgment and to avoid stereotyping people based on the color of their skin. Naively, I thought I would change the world this way, one student at a time. What I wasn't prepared for was the attitudes and emotions that had been handed down generation after generation that my students now carried with them like a mantra.

One day during a rather heated discussion about race, one of my African-American students stood up, pointed her finger at me and screamed, "Your people enslaved us."

I was at a loss for words, and the class exploded. Finally, I was able to stammer, "I'm sorry that happened. It was a horrible time in our history. But it was my ancestors, not me, who did that to you, and even though it wasn't my family, I still feel bad about it. At some point, however, we have to put this behind us, heal and move on."

That seemed to pacify everyone for the moment, but it really bothered me. Later I discovered that some of these African-American students who had so much anger toward me because I was white had been taught to feel that way by their families, just like my ancestors had been taught their attitudes toward African-American people. I realized that hatred is a vicious cycle - hate and racism feed and breed more hatred and racism.

Not long after this incident, I was waiting on who I thought was a nice African-American couple at the restaurant where I also worked. They ordered drinks and appetizers. They also ordered entrÇes to follow the appetizers. The place was packed. I put the bar order in and rang in the appetizer order. Meanwhile, a white couple sitting next to the African-American couple got their cocktails first. This enraged the woman. I tried to explain that their drinks took longer to make, but she would not be appeased. She was convinced I was racist.

Admitting defeat, I hunted down my manager with my tail between my legs. I couldn't get over the fact that someone who doesn't even know me would accuse me of being racist. My manager told me to calm down, but I was incapable of calming down. She told me to go to the table and apologize. Apologize? For doing my job? My manager, unable to reason with me, gave the table to someone else.

Some people call this reverse racism, of whites getting a helping of the crap that they dealt to the African-American community for generations. I don't consider myself racist, although I suppose if I got really honest with myself, I am sure that I still have some racist DNA in my bones passed down by my grandmother on my father's side.

I'm not sure which is worse: to be racist, or to be in denial about your racism. If we're all being honest, we have to admit that we are all racist in one way or the other some of the time - regardless of how enlightened, educated or evolved we think we are.

Not too long ago, I was walking down the street with my 18-month-old daughter. In front of me was a group of young Latinos, dressed in what appeared to be gang paraphernalia. I stopped in my tracks, and for a moment I was scared. What happened next was my daughter threw one of her toys out of her stroller and cried because it was on the sidewalk. Just then one of the people I was afraid of came up to us, scooped up the toy, and gave it back to my daughter with a smile.

"Thanks," I said.

"You're welcome," he replied. "She's cute." Then he walked away.

Collective lessons like these occur every day in the streets of every city in the United States. They are the stuff of many cultures stirring and crashing into each other in the melting pot, the offspring of the great experiment, children of the melting pot that became America. I am often reminded how far we have come, and I often realize how far we have to go. It is up to all of us to make a stand in our everyday lives. Every time we hear a racial slur, we need to speak up, and every time we jump to conclusions based on someone's race, we need to think before we act on our assumptions.

If not us, who? Change has to start somewhere.