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I grew up with an Italian mother and a black father in a predominantly white town where the black population hovered just below 10 – including my sister, my father and I.
So by the time I hit my pre-teen years, I was not surprised when I heard racial slurs like “oreo,” “zebra” and the n-word, and even some I didn’t immediately understand, like “mocha face.” I was not surprised when some people griped I was “too white” and others complained I was “too black.” I was not surprised when my class took field trips into Boston and students shouted “Look at all the n—–s!” when we entered the city.
I had readied myself for these types of comments so that when someone called me a cruel name at lunch, or the boy I liked couldn’t like me back because his parents said so, it hurt a little less. I put my personal struggles in perspective and considered the plight and sacrifice of those who came before me, who endured much more than name-calling and forbidden dates.
But no matter how many racially-charged comments I faced with the most dignity I could muster, some statements — usually from people who were drunk or unaware I was listening — simply left me staring wide-eyed and speechless, simultaneously trying to pick my jaw up off the floor and process the nonsense I just heard.
As we all know, racism is powerful and pervasive, creeping into areas of life we are sure it can’t gain access to. And sometimes, people just say some crazy things:
“You know, looking at black people, you can really see how man evolved from ape.”
There I was, walking nonchalantly up the stairs at a family gathering when I heard a white relative blurt this out. He’d been watching a golf game and thought I was out of earshot, so he allowed his hatred to simmer above the surface, then smiled at me when I’d finally worked up the nerve to enter the room. I was 11 years old, and I was not quite ready to figure out that family is a seemingly protected boundary that racism can easily penetrate.
“Mick Jagger has a n—–’s lips.”
It was a middle school art class, and a girl at the next table over made this comment with an air of casual disgust. To no one in particular, or perhaps, indirectly to me. In a way, I wish she had addressed me specifically rather than ignoring the fact that I was 10 feet away, because by exclaiming this in my presence and pretending I didn’t exist, she made me feel both singled out and invisible. And I spent the rest of the class trying to understand what exactly a “n—–‘s lips” were, and whether or not Mick Jagger had them.
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“We should put the headline in Ebonics!”
A couple of years ago, I stopped by the office of a major newspaper I regularly freelanced for and heard a white editor make this comment with a snicker. Apparently the paper was running a front-page story about a black man, and he became the punchline of the editor’s inappropriate joke. She didn’t realize I was just outside her office. I stopped in my tracks and momentarily forgot why I had been passing her door in the first place, incensed and astonished that a professional journalist in a major city would openly make such a racially insensitive comment. But then, looking around the newsroom and its distinct lack of color, it became clear why this editor felt completely comfortable doing so.
“He’s not one of those stupid black basketball players. He’s articulate.”
In yet another racism-at-work tale, earlier this year I overheard a white sportswriter say this to a colleague while in the press box at a major sporting event. He was referencing some professional basketball player, and he didn’t realize I was walking right behind at the time. I knew this writer. We’d had several conversations, and he seemed nice enough, but this comment certainly altered my view of who he was beneath the social niceties. It also reminded me how many prejudices remain hidden below the surface, uninspected and unspoken, only to rise up and reveal themselves when their targets are seemingly out of sight.
“So, do you guys know any white people?”
This was not a racial slur, but in some strange way it felt like the sum of all racial slurs, because it spoke to the core of where all slurs originate: a sense of division, separation, disconnection.
It was 2010, and my black cousins and I had struck up a conversation with a friendly white man outside a hotel lounge in Boston. He was drunk and we were black. And so he asked us if we knew any white people, a question I’m sure my Italian mother would have found amusing. Apparently he was going to ask about possible mutual friends, but before he asked if we knew specific white people, he needed to ask if we knew any white people.
I believe that if he’d been sober, he probably would have censored this question out of his conversation. I’m glad he didn’t, because it revealed a truth about his view of blacks that his sober mind would have suppressed – that we are fundamentally different, somehow detached, existing in our own separate universes where whites may or may not be included.
His comment, like so many others, surprised me when I thought I’d lost the ability to be surprised by racism, forced me to re-examine a lingering social ill I was sure I understood. As much as we believe there are certain boundaries racism won’t cross – friendship, family, the workplace, common sense – reality often proves otherwise.
What’s the craziest race-related remark you’ve heard? Sound off in the comments.
Lauren Carter is a writer, blogger and hip-hop head from Boston. Follow her on Twitter @ByLaurenCarter.
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