What is your first race-based memory?

First, cool new format, MBM. Secondly, thank god for a close knit black family and community during the late 1970's and 1980's. I will never forget my first experience with in your face racism. I was in about 3rd grade. I was walking with my brother after school to my grandmother's house. This little piece of white trailer trash called me a "Nigger". I didnt' hesitate, I punched him in the face. And we began to fight. Of course I whipped his butt. however I ended up getting in trouble for getting to my Grandmother's house late. But it was definitely worth it setting him straight.

Yssys

You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.
Malcolm X, 1965

My experience was a lot like Nkechi's in that I didn't have an experience with learning I'm black and hated. I remember when I was 3 or 4 and realizing that my friends and I were different colors and finding that curious, but in the same way that I was intrigued about being a girl and not a boy (and feeling smug about the girl part). My parents also never made remarks about my white friends or my friends from India; it just never seemed like it was a big deal. Is it a generation thing? I was a little girl in the 80's and my neighborhood and school were mixed with whites blacks, South Asians and some East Asians. Later the Arabs and Hispanics moved in. I am sorry, too, about what you all went through.

"Your Children Will Tell On You"

I lived in an all-Black community in Texas. We rarely saw white people in the area except the local grocer and mailman, so I didn't have much interaction with them growing up.

My first racial encounter happened at the tender age of thirteen. I did some occasional babysitting for a white lady who lived across town. One day, while sitting with the children, age 3 and 5 the three year old looked at me and said: "You're a nigger" astonished, I recall saying "that's not a nice thing to say, and asked: "Who told you that" He replied: "My mom said you're nigger." The child was innocent, but it still hurt my feelings.

By the time she got home, I was upset, but did not utter a word. Back then (early 70s) it was an insult to be called a nigger. So, when I got home and told mom about the incident, she was angered. The following week the lady called requesting my services, mom took the call. That's all I have to say about that.

I went to school in a suburb of a suburb a little white town with quaint things. In Kindergarden I had multiple white families and their children who would pass me around on multi-play dates per day after school or on the weekend. They would make arrangements with each other to pick me up an hour or two from one anothers home to play with their children after my mom agreed to a block of say 4 hours. (my knidergarden days were half day and my mom worked) This 'Token Popularity lasted for maybe 3 years after Kindergarden it wasnt until I "found a friend" or was chosen or auctioned till today I dont know, lets call him AV. I began to travel with this family D.C. California all types of places, exposure and opportunity to see things the rest of my Roodner court housing project peers never would see via their parents or lack of 'white sponsors'. I remember defending AV from my project mates before being confronted by the face to face, I even took abuse verbally from my neighbors for having a "white friend". When I began skate boarding 4 friends and I were called "whiteboys". This interest kept my friends and myself on the road visiting different skaters and people, you know broadening myself. All this at about the same time the peers of ours in Roodner Court began picking up their first packs of crack or heroin to sell in the hand to hand market of project sprawl. Time spun and led my friends and I into different awakenings of self and position in society and the world, THEN the crash, at about seventeen 2 of my friends, catholic schooled brothers, took a stance against white as the older of the two went off to Norfolk State Univ. It began to strain all our exterior white associations as we were always known as the "black Skaters". AV told his my mom I smoked weed and she told my mom that was the end!, we never could recover. we went to a common party and as we searched thru some guys CD collection for sounds he looked to me and said "there aint none of that rap shit in here", crushed, this was a guy I defended against my Brothers and sisters at my Jects' now lashing me socially. We went college touring with his mom and a Puerto Rican football teammate, thru Pa. I was lookin at Carnegie Mellon and PA school of art institute, after the tour, we rode with AV's mom, he turned to me and said it will be great when I get into Carnegie Mellon and U goto Art Institute. A challenge, my chance for pay back, I thought youthfully not calculating my true educational future. Subsequently I was accepted to CMU Art Institute Syracuse and FIT. He was denied to CMU and Georgia Tech only syracuse took him he was burnt. I selected CMU and at a dinner with his dad we all discussed our plans, when I revealled my plans and destination his to his father, the white guy turns to ask everybody to verify this info. AV replied its token!

What a punch, The End
I appreciated the exposure and opportunity it kept me from hustling drugs and catching cases, even allowed me to dream, But NO THINGS ARE FREE IN AMERICA. Not even survival

Khem Saqa

quote:

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When did you first realize that you are African American? What was the experience?

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Like I said, I'm not not Black, but I can share some race-based memories:

*I saw a Black Barbie in Wal-Mart. I wanted her because she had a glittery purple dress, and purple was my favorite color. Mom was horrified when I asked for it.

*When I growing up in Arkansas, there was only one Black family in the whole town, and they lived on the corner of the next block. One day I saw their kids playing in the yard, and asked Mom if I could go play with them. She said no. I asked why, and she said, "because they're Black. Black people are bad."

*During a film about Native Americans in history class, students kept pointing to the NA's, laughing, and telling me, "there's you're ancestors!"

*In middle school, I was hit over the head with a flute in band for being a "cracker." I was also attacked numerous times by boys for the same reason, but I would run away crying because I'm a very non-violent person. This was at middle school where racial tensions were VERY high, and it was a common, every day thing to be beat up for being Black/White/Hispanic/whatever. Luckily, my mom took me out of that school the next year.

Not my first race-based memory, but certainly the scariest early one: my Cub Scout pack was on it's "Cubnic" in some park somewhere out in rural North Western New Jersey. I was probably 8 or 9. Late in the day, after all the regular scout activities were over, a few of us were off throwing a frisbie around. A throw got past me and I had to go run it down. When I got to it, I came upon a weird looking white man wearing thick brown horn-rimmed frames and brown clothes (it was the summer, but it was also the brown late 1970s).

He said he was a member of this club called the Ku Klux Klan, and they do this and that and the other for kids and such. He made it sound like they were some benign, active community club. He handed me flyers about his organization, for myself and my friends, and he urged me to make sure we show the flyers to our parents and tell them we spoke to him, because surely they would be interested. He must have said "Ku Klux Klan" about 30 times, and he stressed over and over again to me and my friends (once they saw what was going on, they came to the scene) to make sure we let our families know about him and his club.

He looked a bit odd, and what he said his club was all about didn't sound very interesting, and I knew my mother wouldn't be interested (she's never been much of a joiner), so when we left the man, I just threw the flyers away and that was that. A couple of my friends had heard the KKK's name referred to in negative, or dangerous, terms, but as I recall, neither of us at that time really knew what it was. Our town was overwhelmingly black even then. I thought about it a couple of years ago. That was the first time I ever told my mother about it. By the time I learned who the KKK really was, I probably had forgotten about that seemingly harmless encounter.

I'm Connecticut born and raised in the Foxwood's/Mohegan Sun Native American Casino territory. I'd be considered an "ancient relic" if I told you what year. I remember looking at my arm, around age 4, and realizing it was brown, while playing outside one day. I remember singing "Old Black Joe", by Steven Foster in elementary school and also reading about "Little Black Sambo" in books, who was chased around a pole or something by tigers until he turned into "tiger butter". Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben looked a "hot mess" on the boxes of pancake mix and rice back in the day. I remember in second grade, Mrs. Buckley, the teacher saying "eenie-meenie-minee-mo, catch a nig" and catching herself as myself and my buddie sitting next to me were looking right back at her, thinking she'd lost her mind. We moved into an all white neighborhood when I was 10 and there was a girl who insisted upon calling me a nigger, while walking to school and I smacked her upside her head every time she did it, until she got the message. In high school we square danced and the Anglo boys had a problem holding my hand while we "do-ce-doed". Other than that, not too many problems. The European's a strange being, but I know 'em well enough that I don't want anyone in my family dying for 'em or by 'em.

I remember being called Ni&&er quite abit when I was young but I never understood the meaning. I knew it was a bad word but my mother did not want me to fight over it (of course dad was telling me to "hurt them bad"). I even remember when "Roots" came out all the looks traded by both sides. It was not until late hs/college that I understood the depth of pain and suffering that had been endured and we were different. As I got older (midteens) and able to handle the truth is when my parents started explaining things to me.

I'd love to hear some of our newer members' recollections on this.



Now is the time to make real the promises of Democracy.

You know, it occurred to me that I never posted my earliest race-based memory when this thread frist started. Just my "scariest early one."

My first one, I think, was when I was in kindergarten, at a sort-of private school that was highly diverse. That was when I was first introduced to "Gimme five! Black hand side!" Because I'm light skinned, I noticed that my light skinned hands didn't really have much of a "black hand side." The palm is lighter than the back hand side, but not by much. I also noticed that it didn't apply at all to the white kids' hands. But I don't remember what, if anything, I thought about it, or how I felt about it.

Yeah, stupid, I know. Not nearly as compelling as the Ku Klux Klan one, huh? And I'm praying that y'all at least know what I'm talking about. Now that I think about it, it was probably supposed to be "back-hand side," but use 5 years olds just had it all wrong!!

bilal4

My first event came when we were at the drive in theater Southern Chicago Il. Us kids were sent up to the playground just in front of the theater. This big fat white kid immediatly established himself as the bully and homed in on me. We don't want any N-words in this playgroud. Like an idiot, I had to ask him what an N-word is. I was immediately knocked down and told to get away from the playground. I didn't. This blimp was 60lbs heavier and a foot taller so I dare not fight him back. We retreated to a small corner of the playground. After a while, I felt a great weight on my back. It was him. I tried to fight him. It was like a monkey trying to fight a fat,ugly warthog. So I ran back to the safety of the car.This was my first Racial encounter and the memory has stayed with me after almost 40 years.

Knowledge is Power
Ignorance is Oppression

Wow, my first race-based experience. Both a simple and a complex question. My first experience that I would not understand for years was the fact that there were only certain stores that my parents would go into in the small town I grew up in in TN. I was born in 1964, so de jure segregation was over, but my folks still only went to shop for clothing and shoes at the few stores that they were allowed to go to growing up. An interesting note was that the owners of these businesses were all members of the small local Jewish community.

So, for example, for Easter clothes, my parents always took me and my sister to Goldstein's downtown because when my mother was a little girl, Mr. Goldstein allowed black people to try on clothes and shoes unlike the other "white-owned" stores in town.

I did not come to know all the details of this behavior until years later. Kind of like when we would occasionally go to the Nashville to shop, that my parents knew all these cool shortcuts to the back of stores. I was telling my mother the other day on the phone about how I to this day think that there were department stores in the city that I never actually knew were the front door was.

God has told you, O man and woman, what is good; and what does the SOVEREIGN ONE require of you but to do justice, and to be compassionate, and to walk humbly with your God?

My earliest race-based experience that I could remember was having White people shout nigger as I was walking and they drove by. The most traumatic happened in recent years when I was in the process of purchasing my home and it was vandalized and KKK was scrolled inside.

I was in fifth grade watching a film in class with civil rights marchers getting sprayed with hoses. I was in total shock and I didn't know what to say or do but everyone (I being the only black person in the class) looked at me in pity. It was very uncomfortable.

Gone through several years of being called a nigger and other words, nothing serious until I was 16. I was walking to work and some rednecks in a truck passed me, threw a bottle and called me a nigger. They then stopped ahead of me at this post office where the three got out. We fought until someone passed by and yelled for them to stop. No serious injury to myself but that was when it really sank in that people can truly hate you so much and not even know you.

bump



Now is the time to make real the promises of Democracy.

I was in second grade. My aunt who lived in another city would send me boxes of clothing that the rich white folks she worked for would throw out. These clothes were extremely rich apparels, silk, velvet, cashmere etc. My mother made the mistake of dressing me in these clothes and sending me to the school in our poor ghetto neighborhood. My teacher who was a prejudice white woman (I was told what prejudice was later) proceded to parade me in front of the class on exhibition ranting about how I thought I was a big deal because I was wearing nice clothes. I was 7. I did not know about rich clothing, I only knew that the clothes were pretty and felt good.

This same teacher went on to give me (a straight A student up to that time) a report card with nothing but C's for all three report periods. I remember how disappointed and hurt I was because I could not for the life of me figure out what I had done to deserve such low markings. I tried with all my mental strength to do better each report period, but to no avail, I still continued to get the C's. Needless to say, my self-esteem continued to go down each time I got my report card, until the last time, I decided that there was nothing I could do to raise my grades, so I quit trying. I settled back in class, and never spoke again, even when called on. I half did my homework, I didn't pay attention in class. In 6 months I had gone from a happy bright little girl to an introverted, self-doubting wretch. Once again, I received all C's on my report card which let me know it truly didn't matter whether I learned or not. All that did matter was this sick woman's games and my parents refusal to do anything about it. During this time, I had made it clear to my mother that this teacher did not like me for no good reason, I hadn't done anything wrong. She hung her head and didn't respond. Later in life, she told me that there had been many teachers and upsets from school that she didn't address because she knew it would make our lives a living hell in school.

We moved, because of this incident, and I started a new school with a really wonderful teacher who I have never forgotten and has always been my favorite. (See how God works). I went on to regain my straight A record from then until the day I graduated High School. I had a perfect record of school attendance and honor roll at the day of commencement.

My first memory is a combination of memory, and some "filling in" by my mother.

It happened when I was four. I wouldn't tell the year, but it was a long time ago. Our family was visiting Florida on a family "trip home" from Pennsylvania. Home for my parents was Georgia. Other family lived in Florida.

It is said I went to the store with my parents, and was inside for some reason whlle they were still outside the door. The woman at the counter said, "What'll ya have?" in a high whine. I mimiced her with a "What'll ya have?" I don't remember that. I do remember being lifted by the collar of my shirt to the car in one great motion. I remember the feel of the words of my mother more than the words themselves, "Boy, these folks will kill you! You can't talk to white folks like that!" There was great fear.

That was the beginning.

JWC

I'm reading some of your post and it just goes to show that black people have to be one of the strongest races. I bet theres not one person here who hasn't been called out of their name (as a child) but you still managed.

I'm not that old so I remember a lot. My family grew up in MO we were the only and I mean only black family in the town. I have plenty of stories. Like seeing my first burning cross at the age of 7. Yea it was pretty scary but it was even more scary when my mother sat me and my sister down and told us what it meant.

I was fortunate to spend my earliest years in an all black neighborhood and at an elementary school with some pretty progressive black teachers. I certainly knew that I was black, but lack of contact with whites kept me pretty carefree.

I think things started to change for me when JFK was killed. That was about the time we started seeing the civil rights protesters being beaten, hosed, and set on by dogs. Dr. MLK was on the news and the March to Washington stirred lots of excitment. I remember the NAACP asking families to house marchers, and my Dad said "No". Malcolm X's anger on the radio would make your heart race and members of the NOI were a very visible presence.

I think my first personal experience was in 1964 when my grandmother died. My dad drove us down to North Carolina in our big blue Plymouth and it was very hot that summer. Our engine overheated and we stopped at some roadside gas station/diner. While we waited for the radiator to cool, my dad took a cut glass pitcher (that I knew my Mom was taking as a gift to my aunt) from the trunk and went down an embankment to a stream and filled it with water.
"What's he going down there for?" I asked my mother. There was a water spigot clearly visible on the side of the diner.
"'Cause we're in North Carolina now." My mother replied.

With those words I clearly associated our road trip with the protestors on TV and realized that we were indeed in the "the South" where we were hated and despised. I hadn't really connected the two, thinking we were only going "down the country" or to my Mom's home town. I spent the rest of the trip watching every white person we encountered with intense wariness and couldn't wait to get back to Baltimore.

Those were some rough years.

This isn't a first experience, but of such significance I think I should share it.

When I was 12 years old, I was in the hospital for a long time. I was in for "preventive care and observation." My words. It was tuberculosis, the AIDS of the mid-twentieth century. We were kids, and were housed in separate section of the hospital campus. It was a complete complex, including school everyday all day. I met a boy named Ed Pontis. Ed was 'white'. Meaning Ed was an American kid like me, but most significanly, he was from my home town!

The population of the complex was about 20 to 25 percent African American-American. We were called either "colored", or "negro." By others and outselves. The point is Ed and I became inseparable, in schoola and out. I was there six months. I left first.

About 2 months later, Ed "came home." He called me. We talked and decided I should come to visit him. I did. I used the city buses. He lived in a section of town that was mixed, meaning black and white lived there. I had a nice visit. His family was very ordinary. There was no problem.

Ed wanted to "come to my house." I said great. I'm sure whether suggested it. It wasn't important. We just wanted to see each other. Sure enough, one day Ed shoued up in the family car. This was no biggy. Dad drove an Olds 98. I lived in a section of town that was 98% 'black.'

We had a great time. His family was great. My parents were pleased. I was the only child still a home. Ed said goodbye. His family said goodbye.

I never saw, or heard from Ed again.

PEACE

Jim Chester

JWC

i remember being called a 'monkey' by a white kid in kindergarden. My reply was 'i'm not a monkey'. My parents helped me understand that people are all different. No one is better or worse than the next person.

**Still hoping for a 'For Brother's Only' section of this message board so that there can be more 'bruh to bruh' analysis of topics.**

My first race-based memory was travelling to Wilson, North Carolina with my mother. I remember waiting for my mother's relatives to pick us from the bus depot waiting area. Funny thing is that there was two sides to the area. With my sister, I remember chasing her through swinging doors, passing benches, and re-entering through another set of swinging doors. The rooms were identical but separate. One side seem to shine to me more than the other.

Suddenly, a white woman spoke to my mother harashly about us running to the other side. At the same time, my grandfather was walking through the door. We ran to greet him and the person who was speaking to my mother demeanor changed. My grandfather was a respected black man in the society, a reverend, and half relationship (the black side) to the most prominent white family in Wilson. He carried weight in the community and with his brothers owned a lot of land. This was 1967 or 1968.

I later learned that we was running from the "coloured" area into the "white only" area and back. And she was being admonished about not knowing her place. Subsequently, when the white lady seen who my grandfather was it afforded my mother a little justice. For me, it was always a part of my dreams about the two identical rooms.

Peace

WHEN THE HELL FORCES IS KNOCKING AT YOUR DOOR AND THE DEVIL IS OUT TO DESTROY, GOD COMMANDS YOU TO ORDER PEACE INTO YOU LIFE. MMMMM...IS THAT NOT WONDERFUL. LIVE, LOVE, AND GET ON YOUR KNEES \O/ KDO

My first race-based memory didn't happen until I was in my late teens. I was travelling from California to Texas with my brother and my father (which we did once or twice a year all during my growing up) and we stopped in a small town called Fort Stockton in Texas to eat. We went to a restaurant that was in front of a Best Western Inn motel, and got out the car and went in the door. The dining area was about half full. The woman behind the front desk looked at us and told us that the restaurant was closed. My brother said, "But there's people inside eating!" Once again she said, with a little more force and attitude that the restaurant was closed! We turned around and walked back to the car.

We ended up at a truck stop with a little country restaurant that had the best food we had ever tasted on the road! In fact, it was so good that we began stopping there every time we made the trip! And, in fact, we still make that trip pretty regularly, as we have roots in both places.

However, as an addendum, almost 20 years later (and just 3 or 4 years ago), my brother, his wife and I were making that drive, and stopped in that same restaurant, and sat down. I got up and went back out to the car for something, and when I got back my sis-in-law was fuming!!! She was telling my brother that she had overheard one of the waitresses say that she wasn't going to serve us even though we were apparently in her area. She says the waitress used the "N" word, which I don't know was true or not, but in looking over at her and the way she was looking at us, and the fact that she was serving everyone else in that area except us, I suspect that what my sis-in-law says was true.

Another waitress who was most courteous and friendly served us without incident. After we paid the check and went back to the car, I went back inside, found that nice waitress who had served us (and as luck would have it, she was standing next to the bitch who wouldn't) and I gave her a $20 tip and thanked her for all her kindness.

It was worth it just to see the expression on both of their faces. And we have not gone back to eat there since.

Black by Nature, Proud by Choice.

Being born in Nigeria I didnt give race much thought. When I moved to England I was annoying a white kid that was in the year above me at school. Nothing malicious or racist mind you, If I can remember I was repeating the same word over and over again. Anyway the kid turned to me and said "if you say that word one more time I'm calling you a nigger". I carried on and he finally said the word and explained to me want it meant. Funny thing is I watched 48hrs a few months before the incident and yet I didnt realise Nick Nolte's character was a racist.

I think I became aware of my race in elementary school. In 5th grade, my homeroom teacher had the class (majority black) recite the pledge of allegiance and immediately followed with I Am Somebody.

Mrs. Harrell was the first African American teacher that I had that focused on teaching us about black people in this country.

The first racial situation that I had been in, was with this silly white chick. I think I was in the 8th grade when it occurred.

This girl had gone on to another high school and she was picking up her brothers that still attended junior high with me.

Me and some of my friends were walking home from school, and she came around the corner and drove down the street we were on. She then yelled nigger out of the window SEVERAL times.

Old girl drove around and around that street. She proceeded to do that about four times. I threw a rock at her car and ran down the street. I chased after that car, I was ready to give her the beat down.

This happened on a Friday afternoon. When I got to school on Monday, I was called into the principal's office. She asked me if anything happened on my way home from school.

I told her what happened and she gave me a suspension from school!!! Well, to make a long story short, by the time I got home my Mom already knew, but she was cool when I told her the business.

The girl's parents said they were going to sue my parents for the damages to the car. Then my Mom & Dad told her parents that they'd sue them for racial harassment, they were heated then!!! The girl never told them that she was harassing me and calling me nigger. The parents called my Mom and apologized to her and me and said they would deal with "Alexis". They then had to add the proverbial we aren't racist and we didn't raise them that way, so this is a shock to us. Blah, blah, blah.

My suspension was lifted and taken off my record and "Alexis" had to pay for the damages to the car and write me a letter of apology. I read it and put it in the trash, b/c that was all it was worth to me. She wasn't suspended by her school b/c it happened off of school grounds. Now ain't that a blimp???

______________________________
~You're UNIQUE, just like EVERYONE else~

Growing up in an all Black neighborhood (mostly
relatives), I didn't become very aware of my differences until the schools in my hometown integrated. My hometown 40% white, 30% Black,
and 30% American Indian, so there was a lot of racial turmoil and very little mixing of the races.

It took me 40 years to learn that different doesn't mean better or worse, just different.

Author, Soul Food Recipes Learned On A North Carolina Tobacco Farm
http://chitterlings.com/cookbook.html

In the early 70s, we moved into a neighborhood that was "changing". All our neighbors were white. This one girl who lived next door was named Heidi and their house smelled different. She was blonde, blue eyed, her legs were always kinda dirty, they made her wear a dress even to come out to play in the summer and she ran around in her bare feet a lot. Her mother did not speak English (German?) and they had a dog, Tuffy, like a lassie dog, that I liked to play with. My parents never really gave us any directives as to how to act with them (I was about 5, my sister 8) or even talk to us about white/black stuff, it just seemed that they would get really tense if we said we were playing in Heidi's house. Then I remember at Christmas, Daddy stringed the lights on our evergreen tree outside. These were not the lights with the skinnly little bulbs they have now but the big,fat bulbs. When we came back from Christmas dinner, many of the bulbs had been unscrewed and smashed all over the sidewalk. Momma said she felt better when the neighborhood finally "turned"

I always knew....I just did.I grew up around mainly Black people and I remeber they're hatred of themselves.The names Blacks called other darker Blacks was hard to ignore.The nappy head jokes made against Black girls and boys let me know that Black wasn't neccessarily beautiful...especially to us.

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