My mother and step-father had four more children together in the space of nine years after I was born, and we grew up together in a middle-class household in white america where the subject of “race” was never discussed. My earliest recollections of having to be aware of race was when I was asked questions about the color of my skin by other classmates in first grade… “Why was my skin dark?”, “Was I adopted?” race was certainly a hot-button issue in 1965-66 when I began school , but any awareness that my mother and step-father had achieved from growing up in their white neighborhoods in the 40′s and 50′s was insufficient in preparing them for raising a biracial child… and to complicate things, they were both in complete denial of their complicity in my mis-education. When I came home from school after having been asked questions by fellow students from my all-white school district, my mother then explained “the skin-disease story” to me… “other kids with this disease usually have dark blotches all over their bodies, so you should feel fortunate”. When I would tell my mother about other boys and girls who would call me names or act aggressively for no apparent reason, I began to understand that I would get no further assistance from her to explain this rationale… my step-father was even more removed from the conversation and would only add, “You know what your mother said”.

By the time that my step-father transferred jobs and our family of (7) had moved from the all-white Cleveland, Ohio suburb of Stow to the all-white school district of Portville in Western up-state N.Y. it was the spring of 1970 and I was in fourth grade, and already the veteran of many racial incidents and altercations between myself, classmates, and even some adults. My four younger siblings had also been told the same story, and had to explain the same things to their friends when asked why they had a brother who was black… “Hey, did your mother fool around a little bit??” I remember how much that hurt me when I heard it, and I’m sure that they felt just as badly when they did… nonetheless, this was a “subject” that we never discussed as a family, not once, at least in my presence.

I was taught through my observations of my mother and step-father to keep quiet about things that I wasn’t sure about, and I was also taught to ignore the obvious.

As I matured into my teen-aged years and began to experience societies issues and insecurities in coming to terms with this countries racial in-equalities during the 70′s, I felt an increasing need to rationalize and then codify the information that my mother had given me, regardless of what I was beginning to realize inside… I felt a growing discomfort/conflict, yet there was no one in my life to offer any prospective… I had learned that black people were a part of society that we didn’t talk about. ( There was a black family in my small town, and they were poor and lived in a run-down house near the river…I never had any opportunity or reason to associate with them)

I was a “B” student and also began taking an interest in sports where I was above average. Meeting other schools and student athletes were opportunities to then be exposed to populations that had not been inured by my story yet…I was just another black kid to them.

Communicating my experiences to my mother and step-father was difficult because they had no experience with racial prejudice, therefore when I had problems with other children it would be looked at as an issue that “I” had in getting along with others(as well as intra-family sibling issues).
Because “race” was being ruled-out entirely, by my mothers denial of my father, she could not logically use that rationale to explain any conflicts that I would have. My step-fathers complicity in this was to blindly support my mothers viewpoint.

The “white” viewpoint has always been that blacks(black society) were pretty well cared for, and what contact they did have would be polite and careful… What, with the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts being passed, the playing field had been leveled.(re: my mother and step-father’s generation)
The feelings and comfort of my mother were apparently what was important, and her inculcation had to have been partly comprised of the idea that white society acted as the gate-keepers and care-takers of an infantilized black population.

questions:

How has black society formed its identity?

What role models have been used, and how does white society react to positive
black role models today? (Are they held to a more critical prism??)

Is there enough information readily available for black people to easily form a
positive racial identity?

Is it important that black society is able to connect accurately the dots of its social
evolution in America? and is it also important that white society can connect those
same dots??

What is White Privilege?

What is White awareness?

What is Whiteness?

What about Affirmative Action?

Is Race just a social construct?

How do we improve our society in America?

Is there any other way(besides the attrition of the old guard) to achieve this??

Dave Myers
http://www.discussrace.com

On another note, I really hope America gets it right this time. I’m biased towards Obama (ha ha he is part Kenyan after all!! Brokey, maybe you can come look for his cousin!), but i really hope you guys get it right this time. There is so much at stake. Not just for your country, but also for the rest of the world. The world needs an honest and visionary American president now!

I’ll be voting for him. And part of the reason is because he’s black, though I’m not. I want our president to look like the composite of who we are, to put that kind of face out to ourselves and the world. That’s not the only reason, but it’s one of them.

But also, my Reagan-Republican brother is voting for Barack because of his honesty, because he’s smart and visionary and doesn’t (or hasn’t) played the nasty poltical games.

I’m feeling very hopeful.

I turned against the Clintons once they sold out Dr. Lani Guinier