Originally Posted by krhea
As a black man in the US I feel more worries and quite frankly scared at times, riding my bike solo through the beautiful countryside of Oregon, especially when I get an at least 45minutes to an hour or so from Portland. And not just in Oregon, I've felt that way riding in Ohio, where I grew up, Michigan, Colorado, the NE etc. I would each of you reading this to count how many times you've been out on a ride and have had racist comments hurled at you from a passing car or someone standing on the side of the road. I'm not talking about close calls with cars or being called a name related to cycling I'm talking about a direct racist comment while you're in the saddle enjoying a ride. I have absolutely no fear of ISIS nor any other foreign terrorist group as they don't have a history of directly targeting people/individuals who look like me...while white American born males do.
This isn't playing the race card, it isn't "woe is me" or all white people are bad or anything else. I'm married to white woman and we adopted a Chinese baby girl. My father's dad was white, his mother black, my best friend of over 30yrs is white, I'm the godfather to his first born son and they named their daughter using my last name as her middle name. My nephew was killed, actually had his head stomped in by skinheads in San Fran many years ago as a 20something yr old man. He had played a softball game with his team and they were enjoying a celebratory beer at the local afterwards. The group was in there, saw my nephew, waited for the team to leave. As Phil got almost to his car they attacked him after his team mates had left. Killed him on the street and left him there. As a grown man I took a job in Boston making a real good salary, decided to buy a house...let's just say that I ended up renting for almost 4yrs...why, because I was told by two real estate agents that the neighborhoods I was interested in living...I probably wouldn't be "welcomed" there. In case you don't get it, "welcomed" is a code word, I got it. I ask one agent to show me places ranging in price from 500 to 700k, gave her the exact locations of the homes, North Shore, within 20minutes of Peabody, where our office was located. She started by taking me all the way into Boston directly to Jamaica Plain. If you're unfamiliar with the area, check google maps for Peabody Ma and then look for Jamaica Plain. Her response when I ask why we driving so far from the North Shore, "I thought you might be more comfortable here". Again, "code words". Hence, I decided to rent and get the hell outta there as fast as I could. I can remember as a 10-12yr old driving with my parents from Ohio to Atlanta and stopping at a Cracker Barrel. We waited and waited and watched people come and get seated immediately, finally my dad ask what was up and they told him it was be a few more minutes...we finally left hungry. As recently as 2000 I had the same thing occur at a very nice Italian restaurant on the east coast where I had made reservations to entertain the staff of Runner's World magazine. Even with reserves and a nearly empty restaurant the same thing happened...until my white guests arrived and all the sudden everything was "OK".
I'm glad to see folks mentioning that racism is not just a white against black thing because it isn't, however, IF we're being honest I think we'd all agree, no matter how hard it is, that at the core of racism in the US it actually IS a white against black thing. But please, don't discount the treatment of Hispanics, immigrants from around the world who don't look, speak or act like "us" and above all do not EVER forget the Native Americans who the whites treated as bad if not worse then the blacks they brought to our shores.
In 1963 as a 5yr old boy my dad sat me down and had me watch the black&white tv when the 4 little black girls were killed in the Birmingham church bombing. As I look back now it was his first "lesson" to me regarding racial hatred. The next was when Dr King was killed and I saw my dad cry for the first time. I was 10 and I'll never forget that day/night. It's now 2015, a racist gunman just killed 9 blacks in a church. I now have a 12yr old daughter who's currently on vacation away from home with my wife. When she returns this evening I'll struggle to find words to explain what happened in that church, kinda like my dad did 52yrs ago, but I'll take a minute to catch my breath, I'll think about my dad and how he raised me and hopefully the words will come. As I said, my daughter is Chinese and you know what, some day there's a really good chance she'll be the victim of a racist comment or action. I want her to be prepared, like my dad prepared me so when I was called a ······ for the first time it stung but I wasn't shocked, it didn't scar me and I didn't immediately hate the person who said it. That's what my dad taught me and it's what I hope to teach my daughter.
John Stewart, to me, was THE voice of "my" nation last night. Meanwhile Jeb Bush said, "I don’t know what was on the mind or the heart of the man who committed these atrocious crimes.” Really Jebbo and all the other's out there who find it easy and tough and Amurican to talk about ISIS and how we need to kick their terrorist asses while we stumble to "attack" racism in an open and honest and direct manner. heck, some can't even say the word racism without feeling "weird" or uncomfortable. If Jeb or any other politician no matter the party can't put their finger on why this horrific incident happened again, in 2015, then we all better hope John Stewart throws his hat in the ring or my daughter, when she's 50+yrs old will be having the same talk with her kids. Mental illness, guns and racism are a deadly cocktail and they are 3 things the US continues to struggle getting a handle on.
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