Thoughts on Racism: My Experience

Over the weekend there was an article in the Oakland Press highlighting evidence of racism in metro Detroit. Focusing on the roads that racially separate Detroit from Gross Pointe (Alter Road) and the mostly black Detroit and it's mostly white suburbs (8 Mile Road), "they found people of both races living just blocks apart who nonetheless spoke of each other like strangers. There was suspicion, contempt-and yet, for many, a desperate hope that Obama's candidacy might be the final step in America's long path to racial equality."

Racial equality and understanding are great things to hope for--regardless of your political leanings. Reading the article, I remembered the one black man I knew growing up. His name was Odie Henry. He and his wife Mary, who was white, attended our little Cumberland Presbyterian church. He was, at least to my young eyes, treated without prejudice by the small congregation. To better understand just how unusual this was, you have to understand the area I grew up in.

To say I grew up in a town that was not diverse would be a great understatement. In a town of 1,500, according to the census number on the sign, there was not one person living there that was not white. (Odie lived several miles away-out in the country.) There was one Korean boy who attended my high school, but he also lived in another town. There was no one from India (although a few years after I moved away there a Pakistani doctorwho began a practice). No Chinese or Chaldean shop owners. No Arabic or Italian faces in the schools. A quick Google search shows that even today only .2% of the population is foreign born, which equals 2 people out of the current population of about 1,000. Racially, from my recent visits, it is still an all white town.

A retiree with some gray already speckling his dark closely clipped hair, Odie Henry built model trains as a hobby. He had helped work on the model railroad display in the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. His basement held not only trains and working displays, but the equipment needed to make the wheels and other parts himself. As an inquisitive young girl I found it somewhat interesting, and I think if I had expressed a desire to learn he would have been willing to teach me some of his skills. As far as I can remember, he had only grown step children, and he was not able to pass on his legacy before he died. He was a kind and gentle soul who spoke softly and was respected in our church, even while there were surely great prejudices held privately and quietly by some of the congregants there. Any prejudices of my parents or grandparents were largely unexpressed in my presence (at least not until I was old enough to judge it as ignorance) and I grew up with mostly no negative impressions of those of other races.

The Oakland Press article says that when questioned, Detroit area blacks and whites each put blame for the prejudices that still exist on the "they" and "them", pointing to others in their neighborhoods as barriers to understanding and equality, even as they make racial comments. Sadly, many will grow up never really knowing or being friends with someone of another race. "Here, it's unfamiliarity that can breed contempt--or at least misunderstanding," says the article. Not knowing someone as a person--and accepting the caricatures formed by assumption and prejudices passed down from others--the dividing line will continue to exist.

As I entered adulthood, my only lasting impression of blacks was in the form of a person I knew--Odie Henry--who was a kind, dignified Christian man who built model trains. "Black" had a name and a face for me to recall and it colored all my future encounters with those of other races with grace. If the one black man I had known growing up had been violent or even just abrasive, I may have developed a different lens through which I would have viewed other races. I'd like to think I would not have settled for an image based on one person, but I'm sure I would have been more suspicious and less open to friendships with blacks.

The town I live in now is 90% white, but I know we have neighbors across the street who are black. No polititian alone can bring the change that will be the final step on that long path to racial equality. I think the only way we can erase the imaginary dividing line that most definitely exists between blacks and whites is by reaching out with openness to those who are still strangers and getting to know them--one person, one friendship at a time.