Black and White

Now that my mind is rehashing the blank old days, I've got a couple more college stories in my head. But first I have another post about racism. I know, I know, it's not Blog Against Racism Day, but blogging against racism only on its designated day is like studying Malcolm X only in February. The only thing worse would be to never do it at all.

I tend to hang out with mostly progressive folk, and sometimes I forget how it's still OK to be unapologetically racist in some circles. And I'm not talking about Klan circles.

I am part of a network of parents of kids with Down syndrome who offer support to new parents of babies with Down syndrome. The volunteers get together at least quarterly for training and to talk about the issues our families are dealing with.

In our group, there's one white man and one black woman; the rest of us are white women. Two of the new mamas we're supporting are African American teen mothers living with their own parents. Both were assigned to the African American support parent. What does she have in common with these two new moms? Not so much more than the rest of us; she too is an educated, middle class, happily married suburbanite. She was an adult, already established in her career before she had children.

Another volunteer was assigned to a new mom who lives in a bad neighborhood. She was quite open about just not feeling safe visiting this new mom. No biggie; pick a nearby park or McDonald's, right? But maybe she brought it up because she was hoping to be excused from working with this new mom? Surely not.

A third volunteer reneged on one of her families - an inner-city black family - because they "didn't have anything in common" and wouldn't be able to relate to each other. We all have children with Down syndrome. That's what we have in common. Who else did she think might relate better to this new mom in need of support?

I'm not shocked that people feel this way. I'm shocked that people just say stuff like that, right out loud, without cringing. Man. I'm used to a generous dose of liberal guilt with situations like this.

But before I get too high on my horse, I have a confession about my own racism.

When I was a kid, I went to a school that was extremely racially diverse for central Kansas - or anywhere. In 5th grade, the girls were into playing hand clapping games on the playground. The dirtier the lyrics the better.

There was one song, Rockin' Robin, to be played by 4 participants, that was a group favorite. I always liked it because it was so dirty, with lots of cussing. Forbidden. It was years and years and years later that I realized that it is also incredibly racist. Among other verses:

Went downtown, to buy a stick of butter
Saw James Brown, sh*tting in the gutter

[Note that I had no idea who James Brown was at this point. And even when I did know, it took a long, long time to put it together.]

Saw a piece of glass
Stuck it up his *ss
Never seen a MotherF*cker run so fast

Mama's in the kitchen, stirring that rice
Daddy's in the attic, shooting them dice
Brother's in jail, raising hell
And Sister's on the corner selling Fruit-Cock-Tail.

Nice, yes? What does it mean that it's apparently a traditionally African American rhyme (and this is the context in which I learned it)? I'm thinking that's a bit different than if a group of suburban white girls were singing it. Also, it seems that we added bad words to our version to make it worse.

But the context is no excuse for my continued ignorance.

Tomorrow, more pranks and pics.