something to think about today...

I recently read "The Help" Kathryn Stockett's first novel, which just hit the New York Time's best seller list. "The book features two black housekeepers, Aibileen and Minny, who work for white families in Jackson, Miss. Their worlds are turned inside out when Skeeter Phelan returns home from college with pesky questions about segregation in the South. She asks questions like: Why are black maids subordinated so much they can't use the family bathroom, and yet they're trusted to care for that same family's children?"
It was a fantastic book in my opinion and has left me thinking a lot about my own thoughts on racism. The book has caused quite a stir as you can imagine I think more because a white woman has tried to write from a black woman's perspective...never looked upon highly in certain people's minds. Check this out for more opinions: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120966815&ft=1&f=2&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NprProgramsATC+%28NPR+Programs%3A+All+Things+Considered%29

I was at a Christmas party a few weeks ago and sitting around with about 10 women in their 30's. We got to discussing our thoughts on interracial dating b/c one of the women has an adopted daughter from China. We were all white women. The statements made seemed to all come from the same past experiences that in high school interracial dating was frowned upon although black boys and white girls often flirted that was the end of it. But we noted that now it seemed to be more prominent although if we were honest with ourselves and looked at our social bubble it consisted of almost primarily white people. The conclusion from most everyone was that as "Christians" we had no reason to tell our children they couldn't date or marry a person of different race because we believed that God had created everyone equal and loved each person the same without seeing their skin color; so how could we tell our child any different.

With more adoptions going on in my social community, especially from other countries, I am proud to see a growing range of skin color amongst my children. Our church is predominately white and even the boys' school only has a few children in each grade of a different race, although it is a public school. I recently made jokes that Elizabeth had such a hard time adjusting to her preschool caregiver because she was an older black woman and I hadn't exposed my daughter to anyone of color before at great length. I'm very happy that she is getting this exposure and that my boys don't seem to note any difference when playing with a child of a different race. My husband and I have talked about making more of an attempt to expose them to people of different races though. Actually more adults then children even. When I look around myself and see that I have all white friends and even Nate works with all white people at the University. Our doctors are white and the people we worship with are white. What am I teaching my children? Equal but separate still?

Nate has a cousin who married a black woman from Atlanta. I would lie if I didn't admit that when they first started dating there was "talk" about the sweet lady and wondering what the guy was doing. But that was really only by certain older people and once everyone met her we all fell in love with her. I love that my boys have never once asked why she was "brown skin" (as Eli calls it).

I remember growing up in a very small Southern town the separation between blacks and whites was so clear. The blacks lived on one side of the town and the whites seemed to overtake most of the other. If you were caught driving out of the "black streets" you immediately had a line of gossip trailing you. We were all friendly enough with each other but lines weren't crossed very often.

Another memory I have is being best friends as a young girl, early elementary school, with a black girl. I remember asking my mom if I could invite her with my white girlfriends to a sleepover and of course my parents told me yes. But she didn't come or I ended up not inviting her...I don't remember; but I know she never came to my house. We didn't remain friends for long though...was it the pressure of the separation of races or just two girls that grew apart?

I had a close girlfriend in high school who became involved with a black boy in our class. We all knew the secret but she did everything possible to hide the fact from the public b/c of fear that her parents would find out. To this day I think she would die if her mother found out about it.

Nate and I were discussing this topic yesterday and we both wondered how long racism would still ring so strong in America? Will it be when our parents' generation has died and no one is left who actually lived through the separation of races in public places, etc. Or is the seed of hatred so strong that it will continue to be harvested among the next generations by some families. A friend of mine has felt led to adopt a child from a country where the skin color is dark; but her father told her is she did he would never love that child or accept it into their family. Will this deter her from following God's lead? No, she has hope that her father will see the hatred in his heart for other races for what it truly is...evil and that he will learn to love the child.

I suppose that is what it will take for those generations where racism is being passed down. Someone standing up to the hatred and calling it what it is...saying no longer will they allow it to be pushed down to the next generation. I guess we can and should all do our own part in raising our children to love with their hearts and not their eyes, to accept everyone no matter what their skin color is, to not judge or have preconceived thoughts about others.

Read the book. It is a good story of love, hatred, Southern towns, prissy women, hard working women, women who want to change things that seem unchangeable and those that will do whatever it takes to keep things the same.

The Help...