I spent a great deal of my growing up years in predominantly white and southern areas of the country. However, it was the 60’s and my parents were cool. For one short year we lived in a very mixed area of Evansville, Indiana. In fact, the majority of the kids at Stanley Hall Elementary were black. I made friends with lots of kids, had my first romance with a boy named Tracey (I suspected even then he might be more feminine than I, but that’s a story for another time). My best friend, Jesse sat next to me; my teacher, Miss Thompson taught me the difference between “finished” and “done” and “can” and “may” – by experience. Justice, a boy also in the 3rd grade, hated white people – and I got the brunt of that hate more than once. Oddly enough I didn’t take it personally because I knew Justice was simply angry. (Oh, I told on him! I was smart, but I was not a martyr!) My timing and location were the key factors in our altercations – not me personally.
So in the late 60’s and early 70’s, I was taught about people – not black people or white people or city people or country people – just people. My dad had an old Rambler station wagon that needed painting, so all of the neighborhood kids were invited to come and paint it – ala The Partridge Family bus (pre-Partridge Family I’d like you to know! My parents were really cool!). We lived in a community and I was happy.
The next year we moved to the country…no, really. We played in the corn fields and rode our bikes on gravel roads and took the school bus 45 minutes to school on county highways. South Terrace Elementary and eventually North Posey Jr. High – were 100% white – and country. The demographics of the neighborhood was not considered, the affordability of the house & the neighbors (old friends of my mother’s) were the key factors in the move.
In 1975 we moved to south St. Louis County – 99% white. I entered Oakville Jr. High in the middle of my 7th grade year. I had a southern dialect and was socially ignorant compared to my city “cousins”. In Indiana, the worst thing 7th graders did was smoke in the bathroom – and maybe drinking on the weekends. My first day at Oakville Jr. High someone overdosed and was taken away by ambulance. Oh Lordy!! Although I knew we were in Missouri – I certainly realized we were not in Kansas anymore!
What was perhaps the most surprising part of my introduction to the Show Me state was the amount of racial prejudice in the community. (I mean, Indiana seemed to me to be the more southern state and I supposed a more historically racist environment. I imagined St. Louis to be a forward-thinking city where I would find more open-minded people. I was wrong.)
I was ridiculed for my southern dialect – but more than that, I was taunted for my refusal to use the word nigger and my endless, passionate arguments with some of the kids in my class against racism. I could not understand nor abide their belief that people were naturally “less than” simply because of the color of their skin. I brought my best thinking and well-constructed arguments to that Literature class every day – but was especially stonewalled by a boy we will refer to as KK (his true initials, I swear to God). Everyday KK would pick the fight, argue the point based on…well, nothing. It took some time for me to realize he was relying on the one thing I could never overcome with reason – Hate.
I didn’t hate, anyone. I didn’t understand the feeling, the argument or the philosophy that seemed to accompany hate no matter who was spewing it. I still don’t hate – although I do sometimes feel anger so intensely that I can see how it could turn into hate. The irony is my anger is predominantly focused on people and institutions that rely on ignorance, hate and prejudice to maintain their delusion of righteousness; Or when people rely on falsehoods to maintain their position and worse still, their decisions that affect me and those I care about are based on those lies.
I have chosen a life where only Love is actionable – and the anger and fear that could morph into Hate is indicative of something that is lacking in myself. Perhaps it’s patience. My impatience for “haters” of any color or creed leads me right down their close-minded, unforgiving road to Hate. Perhaps it’s tolerance. My intolerance of their beliefs puts me in a reactive position where there is no space for differences and back on the close-minded, unforgiving road. Perhaps it’s compassion. My lack of empathy and humanity and the knowledge that most people are doing what they believe is right. My lack of compassion will permanently change my address to the close-minded, unforgiving road.
I once faithfully attended the Unity Church, where at the end of each service we would traditionally sing, Let There be Peace on Earth. A wonderful song that touts our personal responsibility for bringing good into the world. I find my actions can rewrite that song in a hot second. My desire for others to be different or “better” can hook me into making that my goal. However, what KK taught me long ago was being the change I want to see is all I can really do. Otherwise, we’re gonna have to change the last line to that closing song: And let it begin with you.
