Reply to I was racist, but I unlearned it

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm not OP, but I was raised to be racist. My parents were very racists, they spoke about N-words moving to our neighborhood in Fairfax county...in the 1990's. My parents literally told me I was dead to them if I dated a black guy (I was good friends with a black guy in high school and my parents had suspicions). We used to drive by Lorton when it was an actual jail (on the way to Potomac Mills) and my dad would mutter damn n-words.

My parents were not uneducated. My mother was a full professor at George Mason in the humanities. My father was an SES government worker. I will sometimes, though rarely, think about the various black students or employees or applicants they ran across over the years at work. Generally, they had a dismal view of black people, had a dismal view of DC, and generally believed that things were better when we "didn't have to deal with these welfare crack heads." They generally had the view all black people were uneducated trash. They still think this but they now live in a beach town down south.

I went to UVA where I joined a sorority. And yeah. It was not only racist, but had another fun layer of being classist. I heard a LOT about trash from over by '81, etc. My sorority was big in the Richmond scene and was pretty popular among NOVA girls. But the bottom of the totem pole was black people. People were again very paranoid about being seen with black guys or being seen as the type of girl who was down with the brown. It was actually an open thing! It was crazy, but the parties were fun and I was an idiot and I pretty much didn't had a coherent thought of my own beyond my parents until I left college and actually began working.

I think my own views of race changed when I moved to New York City and worked. I met a lot of people, I was broke but being free of my parents financial strings allowed me to begin to form my own thoughts and being a more realized, empathetic person. I stopped being a jerk.

I think that's why racism will never, ever end. I don't think many people are willing to admit that they believe something that makes them an inherently terrible person. No one wants to do that. It is easier to rationalize and do what happens on DCUM every time race is discussed.

I will now wait to either be ignored, pillored or shut down by people who are certain racism doesn't exist.[/quote]

Agree with this and the OP. Thanks for posting. [/quote]

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