Thursday, June 25, 2015

The undercurrent of prejudice


Growing up in New York state, I seldom saw a person of color, but my Lebanese family probably qualified as the official immigrants in the city. We were darker skinned than people with last names like Anderson and Clark.

            We did our best to fit in – we loved potato salad and fried chicken, but we ate food our “American” friends couldn’t pronounce – kibbee, tabooley and fataya.

Our grandparents spoke Arabic to each other instead of English, even though the first order of business my grandfather performed at his store each and every morning was to post the American flag.

            When my family moved to Louisiana, I was in middle school and definitely the outsider. Trying to fit into the established culture of Louisiana in the late 1960s wasn’t easy.

            I spoke with a pronounced Northern accent and, worse than any other social mistake, I was a “Yankee.” The prejudice toward people different than those who grew up in that town was subtle but it was there.

It was in the way elderly people of color deferred to the white people. It was in the way older whites spoke to people of color, the superior tone in their voices conveying a flawed belief that they were better because of the lightness of their skin.

            In the aisles of the Winn Dixie, I heard quiet talk of the Ku Klux Klan, and whispers of Klan meetings in our Louisiana town.

            But I came to see black people differently through a classmate, Gerald. He was smart, funny and had a constant smile. He was the first friend I had who was not white, and he made me see that just because people are a different color on the outside doesn’t mean we’re different on the inside.

            But he still couldn’t come to our houses, nor we to his, and that wall was one we didn’t think we could ever tear down because prejudice was part of the Southern fabric of life in those days.

Not only that, but people were scared. No one wanted a cross burned in their yard, and there were whispered stories of families who’d had that happen because they were supportive of civil rights.

The Confederate flag was flown openly and proudly and no one questioned why we flew the flag of slavery and prejudice at the same level as the American flag that stood for equality and freedom.

            That’s because the Confederate flag – like offensive bumper stickers and racist and homosexual jokes at parties – are seen and heard so often that society becomes desensitized to just how hurtful and damaging those signs are.

            But the time for overlooking is over. The heart-breaking and horrible hate crime that took place in Charleston S.C. is a wake-up call to the undercurrents of prejudice in this country.

A despicable white man sat down in a historic African-American church and listened to members talk about the word of God for over an hour.

            Then he pulled out a gun and killed them, face to face, in cold blood.

            The word “monster” doesn’t come close. Evil, twisted and doomed to hell are more appropriate. He won’t get the “mentally ill” or “terrorist” pass from me. I won’t repeat his name because to do so would give him even more publicity.

            The names I will repeat, with respect, sadness and sorrow are those who lost their lives that day:  Depayne Middleton Doctor, Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Tywanza Sanders, the Rev. Dr. Daniel Simmons Sr., Sharonda Coleman-Singleton and Myra Thompson.

            We can help them rest in peace by no longer ignoring subtle prejudices. Take down those Confederate flags, and scrape them off truck windows.

Stop judging a person by the color of their skin. Don’t listen to the racial jokes or look the other way when you see injustice. Stop excusing cruel behavior because they’re “good ole boys.”

            And remember what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said:  “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty of the bad people, but the silence over that by the good people.”

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

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