Be honest: Have you ever experienced racism?

Share your stories of real life experiences of racism - what happened and how did you react to it?

Personally, I cannot recall ever having to deal with it.

 

Two instances stand out:
Working construction in California.
Several of my co-workers went out during one of our few weekends off.
We were bar hopping and ended up in a Hispanic bar. They denied us service and we're told "this isn't the place for you". We left - only negative experience with Hispanics.

Public elementary school in South Carolina.
Group of black kids were jumping only white kids, cracker and other racial epithets were issued. Black staff refused to respond, black principal said "its kids being kids".
I was pulled out of public education the following day and placed in private school.
One of numerous negative instances with black people but was the only one that became physical.


Does the new narrative "all white people are evil racists" being pushed by the msm count?
Certainly feels like racism.

 

All the time. Past few years havnt been kind to any one who is a white male.

Anyway. For something more specific. This didn't happen to me but it happened to a family member. They were having some money troubles so he went to try and get put on food stamps. Lady at the place straight up told him "sorry can't help you. Maybe if you were a better skin color." And yes. The lady was black.

 

There were two of us in the office the day it took place.

The Receptionist/ Secretary sat up front so people encountered her first. I was maybe 3 desks placed in cubicles back of her and suddenly hear loud shouting.

I was concerned for the safety of the receptionist so partly stood up and saw this black woman of maybe 30 raising hell with the girl handling the phones.

Soon as I stood up, she yelled at me. She made racist comments to both of us.

I sat down trying to not create a war. That I was there seemed to cause the black to flee the office.

 

When I was walking behind two coloured guys heading for a university, a white Aussie girl suddenly shouted something racist, which insinuated that they didn't belong there. They should have retaliated by saying something back. If I had been them, I could have picked a street fight but my somewhat half European looks spared me from racism most of the time in Australia.

 

Yeah...

... when I was 5 a lil' black boy...

... wanted to beat me up...

... `cause I be white.

 

When I was younger I was called half-breed a lot. My father is Lakota Sioux and my mother is German, luckily my mothers genes took over when I reached puberty and could grow facial hair. Now I could pass for a muslim man, darker skin, full beard and moustache.

 

I'm black and male. People reflexively lock their car doors when I walk by. I live in a decent neighborhood and I've had the police called on me for riding a bike there. It's inconvenient, but I've embraced the 'inherent threat' part of being black in the US. Badge of pride. To be fair, the car-locking happened in the UK when I lived there a few years. It is from being non-black and weak (women and small men, generally: the fearful) and I couldn't begin to relate enough to criticize them. These are racists, however, and their reflexes play out in our society at the significant expense of black Americans. Overall, I've had the upper hand being black and goal oriented, so I can't complain too much.

That's the racism. The racial bigotry I get generally comes from latin immigrants. I kid you not, this lady almost killed me in traffic, then told me to go back to africa... but in her stupid ESOL accent. That was the latest of this sort of thing from mexicans/central americans. This lady was Cuban-born and pro-apartheid-era-Cuba like most older Cubans seem like to me. I get the impression that they think the US is in the same time now as it was 100 years ago or the same place that they saw police hosing down black civil rights protesters.

 

Yes, wanted to go to work for FBI after I got out of the Army in the '70s. Tested, interviewed, etc. Told that I would be placed on list since they were only hiring Blacks.

 

Ha!

 

Not really and I'm a black guy

 

I've never seen anything really bad first hand but plenty of videos to be sure.

I've seen plenty of racism going all directions. Where I live now, blacks keep to themselves. I dated one young black woman who said she has never been accepted by the predominantly white community around her. She has always been excluded from activities common to other girls her age. And when we went out for dinner, I was treated differently. We were often seated after everyone else. On one occasion we were seated outside in the cold! I could see empty tables inside right through the window. So I made a fuss and we finally got seated inside with the white folks. Man, I started feeling like I was black. It was quite an eye opener. When we broke up she was planning to move where there are more blacks. I have seen also that blacks keep to themselves in the work place. When I asked one guy why he always eats alone, he said the other men don't want him to eat with the rest of the group.

In the South I saw rampant racism, where in one case a high level manager at a large factory was doing black face impression in front of dozens of workers. I saw a factory in New Jersey, a major supplier of certain snacks, where the race determined the job you do. The mechanics were Polish, house cleaning was Latino, mainly central American. Blacks ran the lines. White people [not of Polish descent] only in management. It was surprising to see such obvious racism in a major city.

had a black room mate who often talked about what it was like growing up and how, being of mixed race, he wasn't accepted by anyone.

I have experienced racism as well. I was treated badly by Latinos in Los Angeles on numerous occasions. The funny thing there is that at the time, I was dating a Mexican girl.

 

As a white kid back in the 70's I went to my friends house and was told by his father to get that cracker out of here. My friend was no longer allowed to hang out with me because his racist father did not want his kid being friends with a white boy.

 

Can't recall ever seeing anything racist during my entire life. But what I have seen is bigotry and discrimination.

 

Well, what happened to you was a lot nicer than what the black woman did to me and the office receptionist. We caught holy hell and we had done nothing wrong.

 

I often try to persuade that such things are a form of natural protection. Even what you do is a natural form of self protection. And to me, nature has a reason.

 

When I was about 11 years old I remember we were at Six Flags a black guy that tried to cut in line in front of us. It's been 25 years now and I'm still not completely over it.




Edited for space and time.

 

"The black"? Seriously?

 

Me either.

 

I haven't experienced that much racism but I have had some incidents which were mostly limited to grade school. How did I react to it? Usually with violence. The reason I got involved with debating racism on the internet is because of a particularly violent fight in High School that resulted in me being suspended from school for beating up 3 boys who threatened to shoot up the school. You can read the details of that incident here.

I'm going to list every incident of racism that I have encountered from early childhood to the present.

Incident #1: "It's because he's Black!"

- The first racist incident I can recall happened at a daycare at a town in Indiana where I lived from about age 5 to age 9. I think I was about 6 years old when this happened. The town was majority White and I was one of the only Black kids in the daycare. I don't remember what led to this incident, all I can recall is some kids were saying some rude things to me and a teacher asked, "Why does everyone always pick on (EgalitarianJay)?" Then this kid I was at least 13 years old shouted "It's because he's Black!" to which she got very angry and defensive telling him that he better not say anything like that again.

Reflection: I didn't think much about this incident. I wasn't upset. I immediately recognized that what the boy said was racist and it was the very first time anyone had said anything racist to me. Thinking back on it this wasn't even a big deal. The kid was an (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*) and in his mind he may have just thought it was a harmless joke. The teacher seemed more offended by it than I was.

Incident #2: "Get away from me! I hate Black people!"

- This next incident happened at the same daycare around the same age involving a boy who lived on the same street as me. We were sitting in a room and for no apparent reason he told me not to sit next to him because he hated Black people.

Reflection: I grew up with this kid as he was one of my neighbors. He was about 2 years older than me and he was definitely an (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*). This is the only thing he ever said that was racist to me. We hung out with some of the same kids and sometimes go in to play fights. As I got older I got the better of him and seemed to beat a little respect in to him. His sister and father seemed cool so I never understood what his problem was. Maybe he saw negative images of Black people on TV? Who knows.

Incident #3: "I'd never do it with a Black guy!"

- I think I was in first grade when this happened and a White girl who was in second grade randomly said this to me at recess. I don't remember why and at the time I had no idea with the (*)(*)(*)(*) she was talking about. Do what? Of course as I got older I realized that she was talking about sex and this was the way kids in the 1990s talked.

Reflection: This didn't offend me at the time because I didn't even understand her meaning. I knew it was meant to be racist but what was the context? Thinking back on it I thought this was really weird because what is a second grade girl doing talking about sex and where did she get the attitude that she shouldn't sleep with Black men? Did her parents teach her this? Did she have an older sister that taught her to talk like that? What the (*)(*)(*)(*)? She also lived in my neighborhood and I once played with her and another boy so I don't know what her problem was as this was my first encounter with her.

Incident #4: "N*gger!"

- This next incident happened in 3rd grade. This incident was a lot more serious than the others as it was a rather violent altercation. This is the first fight I ever got in to in my life and it was all because of one word...the N-Word. I had never been called this word in real life and never even heard it uttered out loud. I had only heard it on TV and read it in books. Only a few days before this incident I watched some of the movie Alex Haley's Queen which involved the excessive use of the N-word. In one particular scene a Black man was forced to surrender to the KKK who had his baby boy and threatened to kill the child if he didn't give himself up. They tied him to a cross and burned him alive. One of the Klansmen mocked him by asking the baby if he wanted to watch Daddy burn. After they left the mother came to the place where her husband had been murdered and saw her son in a basket with a cage around him. She cried hysterically. This scene was so graphic and shocking it brought me to tears. It was in that moment at 8 years old that I realized how evil racism was. A few days later at recess I was playing two-hand touch football. Our team scored a touchdown and I blocked one of the kids on the other team. I guess he felt I had pushed him hard because he started insulting me. They were childish insults. So I insulted him back. Again very childish insults. Then he called me the N-word and I just snapped. I yelled out a battlecry at the top of my lungs, chased him across the field, hit him 5-8 times. When he dropped to the ground I paused. He looked up at me and said "I can't tell if you're Black or White" with an evil smile. I started kicking him while he was on the ground then pulling him off the ground so I could punch him in the face. As I was doing this for a second my mind felt spacey and the next thing I knew I was several feet away from him hunched over crying uncontrollably. The boy was lying face first in the grass unconscious and he didn't move for at least a minute. The other boys caught up to us and a teacher came asking what was going on. One of the boys said I beat him up for no reason. Another said, "No! He called him a very bad word!" The teacher asked me if I was ok. I tried to be tough and nodded my head but he told me to come inside so I could calm down. I talked to my teacher about racism and how hurtful it could be the classroom. I didn't get in any trouble. The other boy was sent to the principal and had to write a note to his parents telling them what he did.

Reflection: This incident started my fixation with racism. I didn't think about racism intellectually yet, this was just an emotional reaction. But the incident stood out in my mind. Recently I bought Queen on DVD and plan to watch it again so I can grasp the full story and rewatch that scene as an adult. I think this incident more than anything did some psychological damage to me because I wasn't a violent kid or particularly interested in fighting but afterwards I became obsessed with it and got in to numerous fights. I have a violent temper. Martial Arts have helped me control that aggression...somewhat. I also realize that the reason there is a gap in my memory from the point where I was hitting him on the ground to being hunched over crying is because I had a blackout. Many people have reported experiencing blackouts in fights because of an adrenaline dump. Also one of the boys who witnessed the fight was a kid named Seth Rainey who was on the Oprah Show in 1989. He's the only boy I remember who witnessed the incident (because he's semi-famous). I would like to track him down and ask him what happened from his perspective. He asked me after the fight if I was ok and commented that he'd never seen my cry before. I moved from the area the next year. We were the only two Black boys in our class that year as I recall. I'm sure he remembers that incident.....

Incident #5: "I wouldn't want to end up like Nicole Brown Simpson."

- So this incident happened in 4th grade. I was talking to this girl who I happened to have a crush on. A White girl. We were becoming friends and she started talking about wanting to have a boyfriend but that all the boys seem to be taken. So because I did like her but wasn't too confident about directly asking her out I said, "How about me!" She literally ran out of the room. A few seconds later she came back and I told her I was just joking, feeling pretty humiliated at this point because I was clearly being rejected. What came out of her mouth shocked me. She said she wouldn't want to end up like Nicole Brown Simpson. At the time the OJ Simpson Trial was the biggest story in the news so I immediately knew what she meant by that. She didn't want to have a Black boyfriend. So I stood no chance with this girl, the girl I actually liked because I was Black. Bummer. I teased her a bit after that but lost interest and found another girl in my class who didn't have a problem with having a Black boyfriend and wasn't afraid that I was going to kill her.

Reflection: I don't even think she was trying to be racist although it clearly came off that way. This is an example of benign racism. Racism that isn't intended to be hateful or necessarily offensive but is clearly intolerant and therefore racist. It makes me wonder how many other little White girls thought like that and what the (*)(*)(*)(*) were White parents teaching their kids about interracial relationships.

Incident #6: "Shut up you damn slave! What happened to your skin did it burn in hell?!"

- This incident happened in the cafeteria in 8th grade. This boy was talking about throwing up to one of his friends at the table. I was eating my food and didn't like that so I said, "Oh that's interesting" He then shouted the above comment at me. I stood up from the table and punched him. He started crying. One of the kids at the table told me not to hit him which only made me angrier. I started yelling and swearing. I was about to beat the living daylights out of him when the lunch monitor came and told me to go to the principal's office. She refused to hear my side of what happened (because she was a (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) and didn't like me) and just told me to go. In a defiant and angry tone I shouted at the boy, "You're going to be in the office too!" and marched to the office. I told the principal what happened. He called the boy in. I told the story again which the boy confirmed and the next day we spent a full day in in-school suspension together. Other kids where there too. This girl asked me why I was in there and I told her what happened with me and the other boy. He said that he regretted the incident. I told him that he should apologize and lectured him on how evil slavery actual was then threatened to beat him up if he ever said anything like that again.

Incident #7: "I've never hit a Black kid in the head with a baseball bat before!"

- This incident also happened in 8th grade. Some boy brought a metal baseball bat to school for recess. During bus room another boy asked to see the bat. The boy started waving the bat at my head and saying he was going to hit me with it. I got very angry and glared at him until he got scared and put the bat down. I reported him to the principal's office and he was suspended from school for two weeks.

Reflection: A lot more happened with this kid which I detailed in this post. This kid was a bully and I had more racist incidents with him than anyone else. I wish I did more to him than knock him around in that football drill. He deserved far worse.

Incident #8: "My Battle with the Klansmen"

- I've already linked to this story. Long story short some kids threatened to shoot up the school. I along with a friend reported them to the office. They found out we did it and one of them threatened us. I told him to leave the table or he could fight me. He accepted the fight and I beat him and two other kids up so badly I nearly killed them. One of the other boys I knocked out cold with a kick to the head but the boy who made the threat and the other boy were hospitalized with serious injuries.

Reflection: This incident made me think about racism a whole lot more. I've only had a few racist incidents in my life and few that were serious but this one was over the top.

Incident #9: "EgalitarianJay wouldn't understand, he's of a different race...races are as different as breeds of dogs!"

- This is the last incident of racism I have encountered in my life and ironically it came from a friend who was clearly professing views that were consistent with race-realism. We were sitting at a table full of other friends at lunch when this kid started checking out this White girl and made a comment about her. I didn't hear exactly what he said. I think he said something about her having big breasts or something but he didn't say it clearly so I wasn't sure what I heard. She was in my math class so I was just curious to hear what he was saying about her. My "friend" then shook his head and said that I wouldn't understand because I was of a different race which really pissed me off. I told him to shut up and he continued to argue that races were as different as breeds of dogs. At this point because of the last incident I had been reading more about race on the internet. I told him that was a bunch of racist "B.S." and that he didn't know anything about anthropology and genetics. I told him to shut up or I would beat his ass like I did the 3 hicks at the other table (this was over a month after that incident and I moved away from that table with my friends because a girl at that same table said that she was tired of hearing "N-word music" on the radio and wanted to listen to country).

Reflection: At this point I was really fed up with racism. These racist incidents were starting to really make me made. Thankfully I haven't experienced any racism whatsoever as an adult which I attribute to working in a professional environment but I have wasted a lot of time arguing with racist fools on the internet where I have experienced all kinds of racism. That internet experience did help me become desensitized to racism though.

So there you go. All of my experiences with racism are limited to grade school and there weren't many. People have been through so much worse than me. There are victims of hate crimes, victims of intense verbal abuse, harassment in the work place involving racism and police brutality. I've never even been followed in the store for being Black or been pulled over because I am Black. So all things considered I haven't experienced much racism but I've experienced enough to know that it exists and isn't a relic of the past.

 

Perhaps she was talking about kissing?

 

"Do it" is a reference to sex. Also the way she said it was in a taunting manner. I'm not even sure if she knew what she was talking about. She probably got the idea from older kids.

 

She was a second grader. Pretty sure she meant kissing.

Oh by the way, if I were to pick which poster would have the longest list on the "ever experienced racism" thread I would have guessed you! You're a winner!

 

You are projecting your sexual nature of adulthood onto the innocent and asexual worldview of an 8 year old child.

Surely, when I was in second grade, i too knew the words "sex" and "f*ck" but I did not really understand the connitations the words held. I remember seeing a Dutch tv-show once in which some older bullies, mockingly, asked a younger boy if he and his girlriend had "done it". The answer was no, but once he had kissed his girlfriend he went back to them saying "we did it".

 

I clearly said that I'm not sure she knew what she was talking about. The word "do it" is a phrase in pop culture that was very common at the time and clearly about sex not kissing. Other kids used words like "sex" and "f*ck" too but no one seemed to know exactly what sex was at the time. Kids of that age aren't exactly asexual. They feel physical attraction they just don't know the connection between that and sex. Just like talking about "sex" and "f*cking" is something that adults and older children know about I suspect that she heard this from older people around her and emulated the behavior without fully knowing what she was talking about.

Aside from the blatantly racist incidents there were other comments that were racial in nature that looking back on it made me seriously wonder what White parents were teaching their kids about race.

For example in 7th grade I put a picture of Tyra Banks in my locker after seeing another kid put pictures of girls in their locker. I showed my friend who was White. His eyes bugged out and he gave me this speech about how he was taught that interracial dating was wrong and that he would never want to be with someone of another race. He did make the point that he didn't hate Black people or people of other races but didn't believe in race-mixing and asked if that was racist. Obviously I said it was.