Sorry If I double posted the topic.

Anyway, my single mother to my brother and myself always taught us that color didn't matter, that we were to judge people as individuals, except perhaps for the Japanese with whom she had recently fought a war, and, fortunately, in New Mexico were nowhere to be seen.

Travelling alone, on a Greyhound bus, I was eleven. It was night and the twilight lamps on the bus outlined the walkway between the seats and and illuminated the area enough to tell who was what.

I took the trio of steps into the bus, then headed down the aisle. There were no open "two seats", that is, no open seats together where one might lounge as the bus rambled.

As I moved down the aisle, the first seat available was one next to a lady of color, a black lady. She was clean, well dressed, middle aged, and in all respects save hue just the sort an eleven-year-old might choose to sit next to.

But I didn't. I moved past her, and took another seat next to another person . . . who was not black. I was surprised at myself, and ashamed. There was not getting arouund it, somehow, in spite of my mom, on my own, I was a racist.

Correctly, I blamed society along with myself, because I realized it just as soon as I had done it. I didn't give myself too hard a time, I was alone, and eleven, but I wasn't stupid and I knew what was up.

Since then I've not been so sure of myself, and have had to watch what I do, because I understood that, like mom had said, I had been wrong.

Knowing you are raised in a racist society--no, I will not drink hemlock because I am bad--means keepind some sort of track of what you are thinking and doing, and not taking for granted you are a this or a that because you are a Chrisian or a conservative, or a Rotarian.


So, I just try to keep away from the a**holes now, regardless of race color, or creed--I guess we should add "gender" now. And that can take a little more work, and take more patience, but it's a much more realistic and fruitful approach to determining who you want to hang with.

Please feel free to add your moment if you have one.

i wasent brought up to be racisit but i have found the there is a differnce in blacks and "n"
and that has to do with there attitude and how they treat others.
the same with mexcians.

Hi Queenie, I agree almost absolutely, but I still find the difference between a**holes and others, and it exactly has to do with their attitude and how they treat others.

"Remove the paddles, turn down the juice, note the time, it's Flatline."

my dad had always been racisit. and it never made sense to me as why he married my mom. they were married for 21yrs before they got there divorce
i have a cousin(my dads nephew) and my dad would send him rasict jokes to him for my cousin is married to a lady that black, i told tommy why dont you just tell him what you feel. i think its hard for him to tell him that

I'm racist against Lizard People

after what happened today to me and my family i hate white people point blank

Wot about pink people

WHat happened

I know you are Mirror, and I am with you on that. I've read your posts extensively, but the name you give them escapes me for the moment-I believe it begins with a "D"; but yes, I am, without compunction or thought,with you in your battle against lizard people. It's people I feel obliged to decide individually about based on their words and behavior.

Thats real mature.

wow, now there is a generalization

Yes, they are called Draconians or sometimes Reptilians

And we are not happy with you after that remark!

I am wondering exactly what happened which would cause her to say that.

She didn't stick around and give any explanation for such a comment..just threw it out there and left...

damn those white people!!



I have a tan

For me it was kind of reversed and backwards. I started out not being a racist and then finally became a racist.

Allow me to share my story.

When I was a very young child (under 9 years old), it became very clear to me that my father was a very strong racists toward African-Americans in particular. I vividly noticed this because anytime I would react in a friendly manner toward a black child he would take conniptions like as if I had done something really bad.

Even as young as I was I used to ask my mother what his problem was with black people. What did they ever do to him, I would ask. She told me that he wasn't racists before he wet into the service. But he want to war in WWII in the Philippines and when he returned he hated black people with a passion for some reason. You'd think a war would draw people on the same side together, but evidently it didn't work that way in this case.

Anyway, my father died when I was 9 years old, so that was the end of that. I wasn't the slightest bit racists after that until I turned about 40. Up to that time I actually had quite many black friends and also worked with many black coworkers, all of whom I got along with just fine.

When I was about 40 I was working for a company. They decided to send all of their workers to a 3-day seminar called "Racial Diversity". It was mandatory and everyone had to attend. I seriously would have skipped out on it altogether if it wasn't mandatory because I already knew that I wasn't racists. I even told this to a coworker at the time and he replied saying, "Well don't worry, after you attend this seminar you will be a racist". I laughed, but by his mannerism I could see that he was being quite serious.

I attended the seminar. The lecturer was a black man. And I mean black. He was as black as black can be. Extremely dark skin color. He also wore very bright white shirt that could blind you to truly emphasize the contrast. I swear he did this on purpose. And the very first thing he did at that meeting was to stand up in front of everyone, pause for a while looking everyone directly in the eye as he scanned the room, and then almost like one of those Southern Baptist preacher he pointed at everyone and proclaimed in a very loud stern voice, "Every single one of you is a racist!"

I confess that I was already instantly peeved at the charge. Who is he to stand there and demand that everyone is a racist when he has no clue who he is even talking to?

Then he went in to a big long lecture that was full of old worn-out clichés and bigoted assumptions that are already a form of prejudice in their own right. I couldn't help by 'roll my eyes' to some of the things that he was saying. And that didn't go unnoticed by him. On the contrary he started picking on me. I mean he started talking directly at me far more than he was looking at other people. I could feel a personal confrontation coming on and I hadn't even said a word.

Then he said something that caused me to roll my eyes again and even crack a smile. I just couldn't help it. He was complaining that in Georgia there is a 'one-drop rule' still on the books that demands that anyone who has one-drop of African blood in their history is considered to be a 'black person'.

My first reaction was why this bothered him so much. He couldn't be blacker if he tried, so a one-drop rule isn't going to have anything to do with him anyway. But another reason for my reaction was because we were in Pennsylvania. What does Georgia have to do with Pennsylvania. If he's concerned about the laws in Georgia why doesn't he go to Georgia and complain about it? We're not Georgian legislators.

He actually did confront me at that time and ask me what was on my mind and I shared with him some of my above thoughts. This only caused him to become even more focused on me and he was standing over me (towering over me at about 7 foot tall). I'm tall at 6' 2", but he was at least a foot taller than me.

Anyone he's taking advantage of this towering physique to look down at me and basically chastising me for being so unconcerned about racism. But that's not true anyway. If I were in Georgia I'd vote against racism if I could. He's jumping to all sorts of wrong conclusions.

Then he started talking about 'respecting customs' of other cultures, etc. And this is when he started to talk about the "Black Community". He was going on about this for quite sometime, and I tried not to roll my eyes the best I could but at points I just couldn't help myself. Once again he approached me, and confronted me about why I keep rolling my eyes. I told him that I thought this was supposed to be a seminar against racism and now you're talking about the "Black Community". To me that just sounds like a form of segregation. Should we denounce that very term and start talking about the "Human Community".

He looked at me with eyes that looked they belonged to Satan himself and shouted, "You just don't get it! It's all about racial "DIVERSITY". Well, I really couldn't help myself at that point. I rolled my eyes right then and there as he was standing just inches away form me. It was just a natural reaction honest! I wasn't trying to piss him off.

I just truly didn't understand. One the one hand he claims to be wanting to do away with 'racism' and on the other hand he's demanding a recognition of a "Black Community". To me that just seems like a total oxymoron, and from my point of view whoever designed this whole 'Racial Diversity" program seems to have some sort of plans to create an atmosphere of more segregation rather than less.

Well, the seminar finally ended and I was really glad it was over. I returned to the workplace and my coworker asked me what I thought of it. I told him he was right. I never thought I could become a racist but now I'm having second thoughts.

Even to this very day I disagree with the whole idea of dividing things up into a "White Community" and a "Black Community". How is that going to solve racism?

I think we should create a brand new program called "Human Diversity" and just talk about the "Human Community" and just leave race out of it altogether.

So that's been my experience with racism. On a personal level I've always gotten along with everyone just fine.

Just as a footnote: My coworker was indeed right. The racial tension in our workplace seemed to increase after that mandatory seminar rather than decrease. It also got people thinking about race when prior to attending that seminar they weren't even thinking about race at all. I know it had that effect on me. I would have been far better off if I had never experienced that seminar. Trust me.