When I was a freshman in HS, a guy wrote ni**er on my locker, spit on it, and shoved a sandwich through the vents. When I saw it, I calmly got my books out and walked to the vice principal's office. I told him, I had an idea of who did it (everytime my locker was defaced, this one guy was always hanging around to see my reaction), and asked him to please get the janitor to clean my locker immediately. When I got home my mom said, "I kill him!" I told her I think I handled the situation.
To this day I look back and wonder, what happened to that cool-headed 15 year-old…

I all happened when I went south of the Mason Dixon and a white woman said my hair was Brillo. A white man said aloud that there was going to be a lynching. Can't find a job because of the color of my skin.

First I started dating a friend who was white. While we had been friends for over 5 years and a "member of the family" up to this point, the idea of poss having some Carmel babies running around made us all uncomfortable (I wasn't think of popping anything out). I was honest, respectful about my stance and they got over it. Now hes with a white girl and his parents call me every week. Sad.

And just in general in FL, Ive been called the N-word about 3 times to the face by the middle-aged and old, for whatever reason. I always want to break someones hip but I always respond respectfully, kindly, and usually make them look like an ass.

Im still colorblind through it all.

I suggest people either click on my link or google Tim Wise and White Privilege. He wrote a brutally honest account of the way white privilege has reared its ugly head in this presidential campaign.

I don't have a story of overt racism. The racism I face is usually micro-racism. Micro- racism is the term I use to describe small incidences that may or may not be racism.

For instance the other day I walked into a coffee place to order a scone. When I walked in there was no one else at the counter. The barista turned around and saw me, just as she did a White woman walked in; the barista asked the White woman if she could help her.

I assume that was racism but I'm not entirely sure. That's the kind of racism I have faced in my life.

My so-called uber-tolerant, super-liberal, San Francisco, tree-hugging, Obama-voting roommate saw someone do something dumb in traffic yesterday and immediately spat, "Probably an Asian".

I said "What?!" And I called her on it. I mean, I know the stereotype, but now she doesn't have a leg to stand on when she gets preachy with me. Also, she should really STFU about how most of the black kids she teaches never do well. She grew up in the sticks and I know she's secretly afraid of black people.

In Thailand, when someone heard me speak Farsi, he told their friends I was an "Arab" and they started calling me an "Arab whore." All I said was "I'm not Arab and I'm not a whore. But I can go find you a whore, if you absolutely need it tonight." I still don't know how I should have reacted.
In Malaysia, someone refused to give me a shirt for the same price as a Chinese customer. "I don't like you people," he explained. "Arabs don't deserve a good price." "You don't deserve a good life," I said. Tacky! Ooops! Then I said that we're all equal blah blah blah
In Canada, it's usually mroe subtle. It's like: "You're Iranian, right? Or a pretty Indian?" (I'm not hot shit or anything, to be clear) or "no matter what, you won't ever really be a Canadian"

Monie- I think the less blatant racism is just as hurtful. I know a lot of the people around me believe in all the racial stereotypes. But when you call out subtle racism or remarks like "well, most Jews are cheap…" people tell you to "relax."

I was in a Walmart in Maryland and the lines where long but there was a little gap in between the line to let shoppers walk through so a white lady walked up and just stood in the gap. There was a black man she bust in front of and he politely told her that the line beings back there and she flipped and spat in this dudes face. He probably pushed her 3 aisles back afterwards. LOL!! So the police came and they went right to the lady and asked her what was the problem so now every person of color was like why are you going to her first and they finally asked the guy and as he finished telling the story he turned to the chicks' son and told him to tell the truth and the little boy had to be about 10 and he was like well mom was wrong.

Do I have to pick just one?
I would say that my adolescence (aged 11 to 18), which was spent in a rural town in southern Maryland, was just an overall environment of hate. My community (and particularly my high school) was known for its ni**er jokes, confederate flags, vandalism of homes and churches with racial slurs, etc. etc. Plus, I had the lovely experience the ignorant neighborhood kids making up new slurs for biracial people and testing them out on me and my sister on the school bus every day. And sometimes, they'd try to beat us up just to mix it up a bit. I also had teachers who discouraged me from trying to get into good colleges (umm… I had a 4.0 y'all), and when I was suddenly moved into lower classes one year, had to test my way back into honors math. I often had experiences, in all-white honors classes, where my peers would, for instance, have a discussion about what they thought of black people. My older sister was once driving around and a car of white men threw a rock or a brick through her window, causing her to crash. And they called her a ni**er when they did it.

Good times.

My time since moving away from that town (spent in Boston and Chicago) has more consistently been an experience of what activists and psychologists call racial micro-aggressions, the things like being ignored at the counter, followed around a store, called "articulate," asked "do you work here?" That kind of thing. I personally prefer that people wear their bigotry on their sleeves. Because with more "subtle" racism, when you call someone out on it, you get to experience the further indignity of being called overly sensitive.

I've witnessed racism against others that made me sick as well. In particular, here in Chicago, I witnessed a man on a bus whisper a slur at a Native American guy… it was quiet enough that I wasn't confident in calling him out on it (but I wish I had). Another time, I was waiting at a bus stop with 2 asian women, and a car full of guys pulled up and yelled out something along the lines up "me love you long time."

I try to speak up, in as non-threatening a way as possible, when I witness racism (even though anger is justified, it seems to just put people on the defensive). I find the micro-aggressions harder to confront because people never believe or admit that their actions are based in prejudice.

Last year, over my serious reservations, my husband and I went to Charlotte, North Carolina and Savannah, GA on vacation. In Savannah, we watched a whole restaurant screech to a dead halt when we walked in. (My spouse is white. I'm black.) Oddly enough, only the old people got tense. The young folks - hardly any reaction.
In Charlotte, some A-hole, decided to put gum in my hair at a concert. He had an issue w/ my husband's best friend telling him to pipe down during the concert. I said nothing to him. Nothing. I felt something behind me, near my hair, but thought it was a bug or something. I get home from the concert and damn if I don't find this man's nasty gum in the back of my hair! I M-F'ed all of the South. I thought about subpoenaing the ticket sales from the theater to get the guy's name.

I have never liked the South, since childhood. It frightened my parents back in the day and I was witness to it. It frightens me now. I won't go back.

Ang,

At least the kid was decent. So, maybe there's hope for the future?

I got a lot of racist experiences after 9-11. I'd rather not talk about it so yeah

Terrorist joke after terrorist joke after 9/11. None of them funny.
I cannot believe there are so little complaints about how the US customs treated us. I can pass of as Spanish and my passport says I was born in Canada, but my parents missed their flight to LA because they were hassled for so long. Without compensation! Once a cop asked my brother is he was from Iraq and he said he was from Iran. "Same thing," the policeman replied. The US Airports are just a fucking dome of racial profiling. And it does nothing to keep citizens safe. If anything, it probably instills more anger in Muslims.

You know how every person seems to have run into someone who thinks "racism doesn't exist anymore"? I might have said the same when I got to college, because some of the incidents described here would be unimaginable where I grew up. Were people bigoted and mistrustful? Sure, but never, ever openly. If someone had used the n-word in my high school cafeteria, it would have stopped everyone else dead in their tracks. Anyone who had a problem with an interracial relationship would have been instantly silenced. Racism might have been there, but it was strongly supressed, and the general impression was that it was on its way out.

The main problem now is drawing the line on what is actually racist. I can't say I agree that some things mentioned, like being called "articulate" and asked if you work someplace, are racist. The latter could easily be an honest mistake, and it happens to me fairly often, too. The former, well, MOST people of any color are pretty inarticulate, so it might not necessarily mean "for a ________ person".

Silver, your views might change if it happened to you… and again and again at that. Although nothing openly racist might have happened at your high school, I think you might be surprised to hear the views of the people of color who went there. I would guess their experience might be a little different from yours.

I would guess you're having a hard time discerning what is "racist" because you aren't the one it's happening to. Never do I stop and think how much my mobility would be limited and how hard would be to get in and around buildings if I was in a wheelchair because I'm not in a wheelchair. I could be raving about some "perfectly fine" building and how pretty it is and how architecturally exquisite it is while a wheelchair-bound colleague could tell me stories about their experience with that building for days.

My point is *you* aren't the one being asked if you work in a store while you're shopping there and *you* aren't the one called "articulate" with an accompanying look of WOW, so how could you assess that? It would be far more beneficial, in my opinion, for you to hear the assessment of the person who has experienced it and err on the side of their feeling.

*for clarification…* what I meant was, although it might happen to you, you aren't the one being asked if you work in a store as you're shopping — WHILE BLACK. That little "While Black" thing has a way of changing everything. lol

shopping while Black
applying for a car loan while Black
walking down the street while Black
living in a flood region while Black….

(dying while Black) SMH

So I was walking right. I look so unthreatening (at least I thought) Flip-flops, dreads, Nina Simone t-shirt and holey shorts. Walking on a college campus, I looked like every dingy white kid, or college kid for that reason ( I’m a non descript, regular-old, light-brown blackmale). Well this older white lady clicked the locks on her car door as I walked by. This is broad daylight in Lafayette Indiana. I look at her surprised and this bitch clicked them again and then touched the lock to make sure it was down. I lost it. I sat on the hood banged and screamed on the windshield. BITCH YOU AIN"T GOT SHIT I WANT. I did this over and over. She was in complete horror and started to cry. I caused a huge scene. The entire street stopped and just stared. I jumped back on the curb and tried to storm off. My flip-flop got stuck in the gutter. People were still looking. I had to let the left one go and walk to class lop-sided. I was stopped by a cop about 300 feet later and calmly told the story. He said “I thought drunk kids had the best stories until this one” and told me to “have a happier day and calm down.” As he walked a way under his breath I could hear him say " and she really thought he was a thug?" I am still embarrassed for that reaction

im white so i blend in and i feel like a secret agent because i hear alot of things that make me so ashamed to be a white person lumped in with all these other idiot white people. but once i was at a restuarant in tampa with my friend's sister's friends eating. my friends are Indian but they have douche bag rich white friends who think they rule the world and i think "the darker the berry the sweeter the juice" was referenced and then the guy across from me laughed and said "the darker the ni**er the uglier the ni**er."
i felt gut punched and was so shocked to hear someone say this because it was the first time i had witness such blatant racism. i just sat there quietly in shock but my Indian friend knew i was freaking out on the inside.
my regret is that i didnt take this kids drink and throw it in his face… along with the glass… along with my fist.
i'm sorry.

@J UnoDos: I respect that black people experience these incidents in a different way than I do, but this is where dialogues on race too often break down. I can't "err on the side of the other's feelings" because I can never tell how my interactions with black people are being read. Besides that, it suggests that I shouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt because I am white, and that situation isn't sustainable, either. I never imagined that if I asked a person in a store if they worked there it might be perceived as racist. I swear the color of someone's skin has nothing with my asking, but now it's going to make me nervous. And that's where we're at right now as a culture- we make each other nervous. At this point, the way whites and blacks act toward one another might have more to do with nerves than with hate. On the one hand, I worry that at least some of the black people I meet every day think I wake up in the morning looking for ways to keep them down. On the other, I know there are plenty of ignorant white jerks working hard to make that idea seem plausible. And the people who might move things forward are too often afraid to speak up for fear of saying the wrong thing. Sometimes it seems like no matter how hard you clean your house, there is someone who will find racism still hiding in the couch cushions. How do we beat it, then?

Silver, again what originally struck me as odd was your description of your experience. It just seemed strange to me that you went to a high school where nothing overtly racist ever happened. How is that even possible? I mean, you know your school; I don't. But I just can't imagine a place in America with teens and cliques and bullies and interracial dating and various parental views where no person of color ever felt uncomfortable (unless you went to a school where the Black kids were in the serious majority like at some teenage HBCU or something. lol) But to me, that just sounded like that was *your* perspective and I just don't think we can assess the depth and breadth of American racism from a white perspective, that's all.

I have been asked MANY many times if I work somewhere, and mind you, this will be in a department store in a pair of shorts and some flip flops. Who works in a department store in a pair of shorts and some flip flops? But honestly, I have never been asked if I work somewhere by another Black or Latino person. Not once. I really am trying to think if any Black or Latino shopper has ever asked me that and I can't think of one time. I think it's because people of color take the time to see me (and to see I'm not in a red CVS shirt or a blue Best Buy shirt or WalMart navy.) Very few places have no kind of identifying marker, even if it's some tiny little SFA pin at Saks or black uniforms worn by the Macy's people. Don't just walk up to some random Black woman and tell her you'd like to "return this." That's just one of the many indignities many white people fail to understand and/or minimize that Black people suffer on a daily basis. We go out to have fun — to a nice restaurant or shopping or to a movie — and a fun night on the town quickly turns into a regrettable experience because we are treated like that yet again. Very rarely will someone white roll down their car window and yell NIGGGGGGGGGGER, but to go through these restaurant-type experiences day in and day out yells the same thing.

So, yes, after awhile we might look for it… yes we might tend to be very aware of where we are and where we are seated in a restaurant, for example… (i.e., are we by the kitchen? away from the main section? not in a booth?) We're not looking for reasons to jump down people's throats; we just get tired of inferior treatment.

But there is no need to be nervous. (hot tip: That's annoying, too. lol) Just take the time to *see* *hear* and *feel* with people. Don't assume you know them or know who they are or how they feel based on your own experience. I'm not trying to look for anyone's racism because their racism is not mine and I don't want it. That belongs to them. I have my own stuff to deal with. But I would suggest beating it would again include not basing your worldview on your own experience. I think it starts there.

@J UnoDos: To be honest, there were very few black students in my enormous but academically decent high school. The ones who were there had to make the effort to come from another district so they could attend a better school. There were maybe 50 black students out of 4,300 (I should note our very popular student body president was one of them). But even when it was just the white kids (which was most of the time), if anyone had used the n-word, or said something overtly racist, it would have been shocking. They would have been labeled a racist and it would have stuck. I don't mean that racist sentiments weren't there, but having so few black people around meant a lot of it was simply never dealt with. Maybe it was just that I hung out with the honor society kids, and we all wanted to think of ourselves as enlightened and prejudice-free. My best friend had no idea until she went to college that her parents strongly disapproved of her dating a black man, because the topic was so far out of their minds the entire time we were growing up. I had to ask my parents what they thought- I knew there was some subtle mistrust there on some level, but I actually had to ask for their opinions, as they had never expressed them at any point until then. They said they'd be upset, "but we're ashamed we feel that way."

I'm really surprised that there are white people randomly assuming you work somewhere without looking at you. It's certainly possible- it just seems really ineffective and a waste of their own time. I don't get these waitresses who bother to check for skin color, or clerks who ignore blacks and serve whites first. It irritates me because I don't think, or am not aware, that I am programmed that way. But I know that others are, and I just don't understand it. Aren't they ashamed? Ashamed like my parents are? Didn't they get the message that this is not how we're supposed to think and act, even if we still harbor it within ourselves sometimes? Who are these people who don't seem to mind letting their prejudice hang out? Are so many of us sleepwalking through life guided only by our basest impulses?

went to states. "computer" randomly selected me at the border. got in to the holding area and found other "randomly selcted" people. All were black/ spanish. wtf.