July's Racism

Each month since Trump won the election, I’ve experienced racism from an unexpected source, racism the startles me. Racism is familiar—I’m 67 and was raised in the south—but since the early 70s I’ve experienced it less and less. It still happens, the everyday slights, the little ways that some people still need to let you know that they don't think you're as good as they are. But I’m accustomed to those. I’ve developed a thick skin. Those incidents don’t suspend my breath.

But since Trump won the presidency things are different. We’re peddling backwards, rapidly. Each month there is at least one personal affront that hits me in my solar plexus, a “naw, he didn’t say (do) that” moment.

The standout, everyday racist moment in July was interrupting the regular programming of every network channel and CNN to broadcast O.J. Simpson’s parole hearing. I watched as newscasters referred to O.J. as a murderer, he was not convicted of that crime, and one of the most notorious defendants in American history. Really? You’re putting O.J. up there with Jeffrey Dahmer, Dylan Klebold and his partner in the Columbine Massacre Eric Harris, and Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber)? Let’s be real, the reason the media was following O.J.’s car down the highway in 1994 was because they thought he had murdered a blond. If he’d killed his first wife, high school sweetheart Marguerite, trust me there would have been no news coverage. But that’s the everyday racism, the kind that doesn't penetrate into the soul.

The take my breath away racist moment happened at a potluck. Four of us had gotten together at a friend’s house for lunch. One of the women mentioned that her sister had recently received surprising DNA results from Ancestry.

Matter of factly I asked, “did she find out she had a different father?”

“I guess being African-American,” her husband responded, “you would know something about that.”

I felt my blood pressure rise. I wanted to blow up the spot but we were in the country and my ride back to town wasn’t coming for more than an hour. I sucked it up and after counting to 100, twice, said, “Their marriage wasn’t always happy and sometimes when people are unhappy in a marriage they stray.”

Later he made another racist comment. I don’t need to detail it; what I wondered was why? This was a man I’d thought was progressive—an active member of the Unitarian Universalists, Jewish by birth. How had shit like that spilled out of his mouth? If that’s what he felt, it was better to know than not know. But it made me sad. This was a close friend’s husband and I couldn’t be around him anymore.