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In reply to the discussion: White DUers: Tell Your Stories [View all]The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,674 posts)I grew up in the '50s and '60s in a suburb of a large midwestern city. The only black people I ever saw when I was a small child were porters on passenger trains. When I was about 11, in about 1962, my parents decided my younger brother and I should have piano lessons (I wanted to do it but I'm not so sure my brother did). They hired a piano teacher to come to our house for our lessons once a week - he was the first black person I remember having any direct contact with. His name was Mr. Edwards. I don't think I ever knew his first name. He was very dignified and rather stern; we found him slightly intimidating. Our mother made it very clear that we were to treat him with deference and respect, which we did. I don't know if she hired him as a lesson to us about racial equality (my parents were Republicans but they'd be considered liberal these days), or just because she'd heard he was a good piano teacher. In any event, my first regular relationship with a black person was positive and probably helpful for me as a clueless, sheltered white kid, since he was a professional person and an authority figure.
I took lessons from Mr. Edwards for a few years, then stopped when I started high school, which was also White City. I remember one single black kid in that whole school of about a thousand kids. He sat near me in a history class. He was nice and seemed fairly popular, but I don't know what kind of crap he might have had to put up with that I never saw, and sometimes I wondered what it was like to be him.
College was a good deal more diverse, but once again I pretty much lived in a white bubble, and probably have most of the time ever since. I am not aware of any instances when I was discriminated against in any way because of my race (gender discrimination, yes, frequently, but that's another, different discussion). It has taken me a long time to see the pervasiveness of racial discrimination, and maybe I still don't quite get it because I haven't experienced it. But I am trying to learn and see, and these discussions are very enlightening. Thank you, EffieBlack. I really appreciate your perspective.