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Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:40 |
| | Janese Johnson |
Do you ever walk into a room full of people and scan to see how racially diverse the room is so that you may feel safe and relaxed? If you are white, the answer most likely is no. Up until I became part of an interracial family, I did not pay attention to how racially diverse situations were.
Since adopting five biracial children 17 years ago, my world view has been drastically changed. I no longer can walk into a place as a white person and not notice the racial head count. When my children were young and we lived in Arizona, I noticed the stares that we received as an interracial family. I naively believed then that people stared at us because a family of two white parents with five black children was not a common sight to see. I quickly learned that if I was out with only one of my children, we still got the stares. These stares are quite unsettling. Imagine if you had them almost every day of your life.
Almost
10 years ago, I heard that Asheville was a fairly liberal and conscious
town. I also heard that it was racially diverse. I believed that a
conscious town would reflect that in its honoring of diversity. So I
moved here with four of my five children. We quickly found out that was
not the case and our lives have become deeply affected by the racial
segregation that exists here. Most of my kids have moved away to live
in more racially integrated areas.
The other day,
my daughter and I went to the movies. We saw ìAmazing Grace,î which is
based on a true story about an abolitionist in the late 1700s. Because
of that story, I fully expected to see a racially diverse audience
there. But this was not the case.
When we walked
into the movie theater, I looked around, as I have gotten in the habit
of doing, and the whole room was full of whites. I was hoping that my
daughter did not notice.
We watched the
movie and afterwards I asked her how she liked it. She said that it was
OK. I asked her why just OK. She said she was the only black one there
in the theater and that she was uncomfortable.
Unfortunately, I
have seen my children too often in this uncomfortable situation and I
have put them through this without even realizing how I was affecting
their self-image. This would not be the case if we were more integrated
as a society.
At this time,
there is only one organization that I know of in Asheville that is
promoting healthier black and white relations, and that is Building
Bridges. It seems that we all have a responsibility to help bridge this
divide that has been in existence for too long. If you are a white
person and have become quite comfortable walking into a room full of
whites, then stop for a minute and see how out of balance that really
is.
What can you do
to change that? If you are a black person who feels resentful about the
treatment that you receive from whites, then perhaps you can see that
there are some that are not like that. We all have to behave and
respond differently in our day-to-day life for real change to happen.
The recent
racial comment by a news commentator shows us that we have not gone
very far with becoming an integrated society. These are important
times to stand up against inequality in all areas of human rights,
especially that of racial inequality if we really ever expect to have a
real conscious community. I believe that awareness of a problem is the
first step towards change. Then it is important to take positive steps
towards bringing racial diversity into the mainstream community.
ï
Janese Johnson
has been doing intuitive counseling nationally for more than 20 years.
She may be contacted at janesej-at-buncombe.main.nc.us.
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