Thursday, August 15, 2013

I am a closet racist.

As apologetically as I say it and as much I hate admitting it, I definitely am racist. From the time I was a little girl growing up in the south, I’ve always been afraid of men, especially those who are minority. I am a bit of a minority, myself. I have about eight different ethnic backgrounds on one side of my family alone, but it’s always been instilled in me through movies, television shows, the news and my parents (especially my white step-father who was prejudice against African-Americans) that there are people who can’t be trusted and a lot of those people happen to be men who belong to a minority. 
I’m just a few weeks from turning twenty years old and this fear of African-American and Hispanic men still haunts me. Today I took my dog on a walk and I was sitting on the curb in the grass with her when a super clean, really nice car with large shinny rims drove past me and parked on the side of the road. Out of the fear that has been embedded in me since childhood, I immediately got up, took my dog and hurriedly walked in the other direction for fear that there was a big, scary black man in the car wanting to hurt me. All I could think to myself was, “You are a fucking, racist! What in the hell is your problem?!”
I truly am ashamed of the way that I judge people. More than half of my closest friends are black. I think that African-American and Hispanic children are absolutely beautiful. I also think that black people in general have gorgeous smiles and strikingly gorgeous faces. I am a minority myself, but I still have a sense of fear in my heart towards any Black or Hispanic man that I don’t know. 
I’ve been praying a lot recently that God will heal me of this disease. I want to love people purely, all people. I don’t want this sense of fear anymore. I don’t want to feel uncomfortable around a stranger just because they have a dark complexion. I don’t want to cast unintentional judgement on someone because of the pigment of their skin and the gender that they are. 
I wanted to go to that man and apologize to him for running away from him because of my own broken judgement. I’m not very brave or bold a lot of times though so it didn’t happen and in all honesty, I was still afraid of him, even after I saw that he was just a boy about my age who was harmless. 
The racism that I have in my heart is most likely a similar type of fear and prejudice that got Trayvon Martin killed. It’s the same sort of heart issue that led George Zimmerman to stalk a harmless child and kill him. 
It isn't an intentional behavior, it's something that I've learned (mostly from the media) since I was small. I need to be healed. I have a feeling that there's a lot of us that need to be healed in this area. I can't be the only one. Racism isn't dead. It is still an issue. I genuinely hope that my children and all of my friend's children will not be taught this type of fear. I truly hope that they will freely be able to look at someone without judgement in their hearts based on the color of another person's skin. There is no true equality until it resounds in all of our hearts. 

4 comments:

  1. Instead of praying, make open steps to move from passive racist to active anti-racist.
    Educate yourself on ways that race colors your life! Make a list throughout the day, and probe your mind for things you can be doing.

    Here are some informative links!
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-racism
    http://antiracistalliance.com/allychar.html

    For me, I worked with the homeless community. It helped me overcome both my fears of certain events rising with these "scary" people.

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    1. That's awesome that you've worked with the homeless community. It's an awesome experience. One of my closest and dearest friends is a homeless man who lives in Asheville. He's also black. I've been doing my best to constantly be aware of the issue of racism that's plagued my heart. I am a Christian though. I believe that God created every single person in His image and that skin pigment is a beautiful reflection of His creativity and personality. There is no way that I ever want to overcome any of this without His aid and His presence in it. Prayer and asking God to help me love purely is the only route I want to go. Don't get me wring, I think and fully believe God loves knowledge and wisdom and education. I took a Race and Ethnicity course in college, I have books on the subject, I have close friends who are african-american, etc. It's still just something that I've always struggled with just based on the things that I experienced as a child and grew up hearing. I have a heart issue that's been deeply embedded in my upbringing.

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  2. I don't hate people who belong to a minority, I'm just afraid of their men if I don't know them and that hinders me from fully experiencing love and other people.

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  3. With all of that being said, I'll definitely check out those websites! Thanks for suggesting them!I'm glad they were of help to you and am thankful to you for passing them along! :)

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