Last edited Tue Nov 28, 2017, 03:31 PM - Edit history (1)
They are bigoted, and occasionally honestly ignorant. They have access to the same information I do.
I come from bigoted, ignorant people, and I learned. Interestingly, it was 1974, at the start of middle school when “forced busing” happened, when I was brought into contact with African American children for the first time, (and no, we didn’t become instant friends, segregation had powerful roots in our psyche’s) and the school curriculum including “black history”, when I, a voracious reader, read books on Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, and Sojourer Truth, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Black like Me, The Diary Of Anne Frank—-oh so many books available. And because I was NOT stupid, I processed that information in the way it was intended, got in huge fights with my parents who would make me cry on purpose by saying words like “Jigaboo”, and tell me blacks were good at sports because they ran through the jungle—saying These things when I was learning about the ancient African Dynasties and things like the Library of Alexandra—all because they were afraid I would find a black boyfriend. (The “N” word was de rigueur around my house since I could remember, except from my Swedish grandparents, who had a softer bigotry)
Those people are me. I know them. I understand them. They don’t get a pass from me because if I know better, and I hope, continue to learn better, all it takes from them is willingness. They are not willing.
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