We are not born racists

Protest. A lifetime.  Generations.   We are born in full aliveness.   We can express ourselves through thinking, acting, sensing and feeling.   We have mirror neurons that take on whats around us.   A good thing in some ways.   That’s how we take on language.   Thats how we learn to walk.    A bad thing in some ways.   We are around others and take on their direct and indirect messages.    

My Dad was one of 9 kids.   My Grandpa told them often, “If I had another kid, I would have one that could do something!”   Not a very nice message, huh?    My Dad and Aunt Helen, laugh when they talk about it, they said they would tease “daddy” and tell him, “If you don’t have one that can do something and you have 9 of us, your chances are pretty slim that you would ever have one that could do something!”

My Dad adapted to that message.   At five years of age he started working with my Grandpa in his pest control business.   Bollinger Kill-All.   My dad was small then and could get underneath loading docks and spray and underneath crawl spaces.   There is a picture of him with a gas mask on, squatted down next to a big tub full of rats.    

My Dad is 91 now.   It was just two years ago that he stopped going to the office everyday.

I took on from that, “lazy people are bad”—so I get all anxious if something breaks that I didn’t pay attention to, if I didn’t get the clutch on the tractor adjusted soon enough, or if I go to the beach, I have to rake the beach.   I can’t just lay on the beach.   

When I grew up I heard the word, “chink” “jap”, “don’t jew me” (try to cheat me).    I hated taking Oraleah home, the gal that came a couple of times a month to help mom clean.   I hated seeing where she lived.   I wanted her to come live with us.   I went to catholic schools.   It wasn’t until my freshman year of high school that a black family moved into my neighborhood.  It wasn’t until high school that there were two black girls in my class.

I never felt better than.   I knew that my skin color and my address and my family was happenstance.   

But it was all that I was around.   

I am a woman.   I am gay.    I have felt the pressure in a city or a certain area, as a woman, I do have to keep a guard up to make sure I stay safe.  I live in the country, so it doesn’t happen as much, but just two days ago, when I got my mail, a pick-up truck passing by gave a cat-call.    

Growing up gay, I could keep that to myself and stay safe.  I did not wear my sexual orientation on my skin.

I do not walk in the shoes of a person of color.   

It is not right, and it should never be passed down that a different skin color is any kind of threat.   

The opposite is true, isn’t it.   Most every mass shooting is by a white male?   That white male shooter was born into this world without prejudice, with full aliveness, innately good.   Nurtured with prejudice, hate, withheld from love shape that new soul.     It gets passed down.  Hurt people hurt people.    

Love.   Love instead of fear.    Lets do it.   We can’t wait and hope our children will do it. It is my responsibility to get this cleaned up.