I wouldn't consider
myself racist, a sexist, a homophobe, nor do I have any preconceived
perceptions about anyone's religion, socio-economic status, or education. In
all honesty, the only group of people who I have clumped into any sort of box
and think anything in particular about before I meet them, is EMT's. Everyone
that I have met have been goofy, kinda weird, SOB's who know how to party! They
love their jobs a little too much and their lovers even more. They are strange
as hell but awesome for a good time.
However, going back to
my first point, while I don't honestly think badly of person based on whatever
qualifiers they choose to assign to themselves, I am far from politically
correct and find it mildly entertaining to make jokes referencing any number
taboo topics. Most commonly I joke that "I'm not a racist, that would
imply I prefer one race over another, I don't, I hate all people equally."
it's partially true, lots of people annoy me for any number of reasons, mostly
for being or acting stupid, I feel that in an age of information literally in
the palm of your hand, in the wake of so many people fighting and dying for us
to have equal access to that information, in a country where despite its
multiple short comings every man, woman and child has the freedom to inform and
cultivate themselves, there is no excuse for ignorance. Not even where you come
from, yes in some places it may be slightly more difficult for one to gain
access to continual information as others, but there are still ways go gain it.
Don't be lazy!
As part of this I am
quite aware of the jokes and comments that I make around young and
impressionable minds, I'd say about the only people I feel the need to censor
myself around are my nieces and nephews, their minds are little sponges for
information, I don't want to corrupt them with false information. I truly
believe that hatred and negativity is something that is learned, and that given
the right circumstances that people could see all these "important"
differences as nothing more important than something as trivial as eye color or
height.
Evidence:
When I was 3 years old I
attended a daycare in a diverse neighborhood. The variety of race, religion,
class was pretty varied, but this a realization that I made only years later
when I moved to a much more gentrified school district, where all (most) the
kids in my classes were white middle to upper class, catholic kids with married
parents and at least one if not more siblings. Their parents were white
collared or owned small businesses. Now these weren't bad people by any stretch
of the word. They were good people, the kind of people who had weekend
cookouts, with kids swimming in the in-ground pool, and the dads chatting about
their golf games, while the moms exchanged casserole recipes and gossiped
about who was caught with an imitation Louis Vuitton purse at the
last monthly PTA meeting.
Granted I am
exaggerating a bit, but it’s all in jest, I assure you they were mostly really
nice people. Some might have fit that mold I set, but not most.
It
was around the time that I was still in day care when I realized for
the first time that there was something different about some people in regards
to their skin color. And I don't mean in the way that I was not concerned that
some people had different color skin than I did, I mean in the way that I
apparently never even noticed that the differences were all that different.
My mom had taken me to
Ames, which in the late 80's was my second favorite store, due to their very
impressive back to school section that remained year round (I've always had a
passionate love for office supplies, the best gift I could receive on
a birthday or Christmas was a new set of Bic clear cased, black, ball
point pens and an empty notebook, it offered so many possibilities!), and their
very decent sized toy sections, because let’s face it I was three! Ames
was only second to Woolworth's which automatically won because not only did we
have to take the Highway (another odd love of mine) to get there, but
because it house a diner counter, which in
my opinion should be a requirement in all stores, and a beautiful
staple of the past that I am sad to see gone every time I walk into a
Wal-Mart or Target.
I have always been the
type of person who when presented with a social setting with a group
of my peers I clam up, but while sitting in line to check out at a store, I
will not only strike up a conversation, but will feel less than uncomfortable
to ask you mildly personal questions. Like I said before I am not much
for censoring, or filtering my thoughts, and I have always been
that way.
On one particular
afternoon, when my mom and I were waiting in line to cash out our purchase, a
man got in line behind us with some cans of paint.
"Hi! My name is
Mae." I greeted him, aware of stranger danger, but confident in not only
my judge of character but my mother’s close proximity.
"Hello, how are
you?" he replied politely.
"What are you
buying?" I asked him in what I am sure was a precocious and
remarkably adorable tone.
"I am buying some
paint." He answered.
"What for? What are
you going to paint?" I continued with my interview.
"I am going to
paint my skin." he replied.
"Why would you do
that?" Me again.
"So that my skin
will be like yours." He laughed.
I imagine this may have
been the first time in my then short life that I was at a loss for words. I
looked at him like he was nuts, not sure at all what he was talking about. I
examined him, and his skin trying to figure out what he was telling me. Then it
hit me, my little mind made the connection of his words to what exactly we
looked like. He was a tall man with dark skin, a much deeper shade than that of
my olive tan, I had acquired in the summer sun.
"Hey! Why is your
skin not like mine?" I recognized the difference, but didn't
fully understand it.
"It’s just how I
was born.” He answered me honestly. And it made perfect sense to me. No more,
no less of an explanation was needed, we were all born with different traits
and that was something I understood, much to my relief now considering my
phobia surrounding identical twins.
He asked my mother if I
had ever seen a black person before. She informed him that there were kids of
all different races in my class at school, and that I must not have ever
noticed that fact that there was anything different about us.
This was apparently the
first time in my life that anyone had called attention to the fact that there
were people with significant variation in physical traits, and that they might
have mattered to some people. To be honest I think at that point I was still
having trouble with the notion that there was something different about boys
and girls, which was evident by the fact that I probably spent as much time
playing with match box cars and cap guns as I did with Barbie’s and My Little Pony’s.
Basically in that moment
for little three year old Mae, mind=blown!
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