When I was researching colleges in my junior and senior year of high school, I never looked at schools in my home state of California. I wanted the full college experience and for me that meant getting out of state and being completely independent. I never really set my mind on one region of the country or another, I just ranked schools. My top contenders wound up being in Texas, New York and Illinois. I chose Baylor, a christian university in Waco, Texas.
I had never been to Texas, let alone Waco, but I knew I was in for a huge change coming from California. The first time I visited the school was in late July for orientation. The campus was beautiful and the people were nice, but at the peak of summer, it was hot, humid and I couldn’t figure out why squirrels in Texas weren’t afraid of people. I accepted my fate and in August packed and moved to start my college career.
Orientation may have prepared me for the heat and made me somewhat familiar with campus, but nothing other than experience could have prepared me for the radical change in views I would experience in my time as an undergrad. Not only has my college experience been the first time I regularly used y’all as opposed to you guys, or the first time someone approached me and asked to pray for me, but it has been the first time in my life I’ve been racially conscious.
I’m not naive enough to think that we live in a post-racial society where everyone can really join hands and respect their neighbor regardless of skin color, but never in my life have I been more aware of that fact that I’m black.
I went to a pretty racially diverse high school. I saw a variety of races on campus and it wasn’t weird to see them intermingle. I never disliked someone because they were white or Mexican or Asian. If I disliked someone it was because of a personal issue with that individual. In California, I’d never felt discriminated against or unwelcome because of my race. When I described someone it didn’t matter that they were white or black, there were other distinct traits that made them who they were. Before I moved to Texas, I never had the bitter conversation: “He’s dating who? Oh, is she white? Of course, that makes sense!”
In Waco, Texas at Baylor University, my whole experience changed. Very rarely do I see students of different races regularly hanging out. Every time I describe a person, race is one of the first distinctive characteristics. I hear friends say things like “I can’t stand white people,” or constantly voice their discontent with interracial relationships. I was completely taken off guard one day when my room mate was telling me about a family situation and added, “doesn’t your family just hate when they bring home white girls?! Like, you just don’t like her because she’s white.” I didn’t even know how to respond to that for a second. Of course, people in my family bring home women or men that we don’t agree with, but never has it been because of their race.
I knew the south had this negative stigma regarding race relations, but I would’ve never guessed it to be this pronounced. It’s so far from the progress I feel other parts of the country has made. But just like anything else, America is only as strong as its weakest link. It doesn’t matter how far the rest of the country progresses in race relations, if the south is left behind, we’ve only come as far as it has.
What I find the most disturbing was how easy it is to fall into that behavior when it’s what’s surrounding you.
As I said before, I’ve never been the type to discriminate against someone based on race or be offended because a black man was dating a white woman. I never tried to make excuses to justify an interracial relationship. I never saw color. In high school when I walked into a classroom I saw people. I remembered names and faces. In college I see races. I remember if they were in a predominately white sorority or not.
Since I’ve become aware of what I’ve fallen into, I do my best to mentally check myself and remember how I was brought up. Hate only perpetuates more hate. From personal experiences with friends, I know that some black people believe that white people aren’t open to them. Maybe this is true, but maybe you’re not open to white people either. In order for people to be open to you, you have to be open to them.
I’d like to believe that one day, maybe not soon—but one day, we can live in a post-racial society. However, places that harbor hate and judgement based on the color of someone’s skin are slowing down progression. I took for granted the fact that I was blessed enough to live in a place where I could walk into a room and be completely oblivious to color and feel that the people around me felt the same way. I only appreciate it now that I feel like race is the most relevant thing about a person in the minds of most people here.
Living in a post-racial society is a long process, but it starts with simple steps on the individual level. Stop making assumptions about a single person based on broad generalizations you have about their race— stop making race the first thing you notice about a person in the first place. Be open to others and watch as they become open to you.
Today, I went out to eat with a friend and when we came out a woman came to us asking for money. She said she wanted money to feed her babies and told us she would get on her knees and beg if she had to.
braynestorming 