#___ingwhileblack

[Teenwolf]

I was once walking in Canadian Tire with my wife... I had a large blue backpack on, with red straps. Highly visible. My wife had a purse over her shoulder. About 30 seconds into the store, we start looking around to see who's screaming, what's going on... turns out it's the security for the store. When I make eye contact with security, they start screaming and pointing at me "GET HER BAG! GET HER BAG!"... they quickly approach us and scold my wife for not leaving her purse at the front of the store, despite the blue backpack with red straps on my shoulders that they haven't mentioned until I push it in their face... They keep telling her "There's a sign right at the entrance" as if she's stupid for not seeing the sign, and they tell this to ME... like, super aggressive and annoyed, but implying that SHE was the one who didn't see the sign... I would think maybe they treat everyone who doesn't acknowledge the sign this way, but like I say, I had a much larger, brighter bag on my own shoulders. The message is constantly "You don't belong here."

So after they leave, we talk a bit, and my wife starts to cry, and we retrieve her purse and leave.

This type of situation has happened to my wife and I since living in this town many many times. These instances are hard to explain to someone who isn't there, but believe me when I say they take a toll on my wife's mental health. Several times we've been followed around stores so blatantly that we've left furious, often with her in tears.

We don't have a single serious friendship in this city because every time we try to make a friend, they drop an N-bomb. Or say something about Natives taking advantage of the system... I'm shaking right now writing this. My wife is constantly threatening to move away, because it's pure anxiety living in Canada's equivalent of Trumpland, and people on here want to mock and belittle. I'm sick of it and I'm done with it.

The trolls on here are relentless. Steve has left, along with his 12 aliases and I really don't blame him. The Sports Bar isn't the place for guys like Steve anymore.

I always ask forgiveness when I've crossed the line, via PM and often publicly laying on the sword... because I have a sense of shame. Because I VALUE this online community that I've been a part of close to 20 years. But I recognize that I've contributed to some of the harsh negativity that has driven away some posters, and I feel bad about that. I don't plan to continue that. Others feel free to burn the place to ashes. You do you.

[swampdragon]

Teenwolf - that's tragic

one of my best friends from elementary school posted this today - she lives in central suburban Indiana

I’ve counted to 10 and thought about what happened to me last night at Meijer with my 2 granddaughters. I decided to remain silent won’t help. I was checking out with my 2 beautiful granddaughters. I asked them to move forward a bit and help put the bags in the cart. They replied , “ok Nana” and became very excited when I told them we would get smoothies on the way home. A chorus of “thank you Nana” rang out.
Enter the very rude man in back of me who looked at me, looked at my beautiful granddaughters and told me they couldn’t be my granddaughters. When I asked why he actually said- because you are white and they are black.
I couldn’t believe it and smiled at him and told him I feel sorry for him. When he asked why I said because in 100 years I will be dancing in heaven with all my family both white and bi- racial and he will be rotting in hell. The bi- racial cashier gave me a high five, turned off her light and left him standing there.
God help us all- welcome to the new world of “very fine people” Hope they crawl back under their rocks soon.

[DMT]

As with most issues involving discrimination, those who are privileged don't acknowledge its existence unless/until it personally affects them.

[B-Fly]

Yeah, some old school journalists still require actual evidence of motivation before printing it as fact. What can you do?

Given the lived experiences of people of color, we should at least be open to observing patterns that would suggest that certain types of mistreatment are more prevalent against people of color and to ask ourselves why and what can or should be done about it.

[Hornsby]

I was once walking in Canadian Tire with my wife... I had a large blue backpack on, with red straps. Highly visible. My wife had a purse over her shoulder. About 30 seconds into the store, we start looking around to see who's screaming, what's going on... turns out it's the security for the store. When I make eye contact with security, they start screaming and pointing at me "GET HER BAG! GET HER BAG!"... they quickly approach us and scold my wife for not leaving her purse at the front of the store, despite the blue backpack with red straps on my shoulders that they haven't mentioned until I push it in their face... They keep telling her "There's a sign right at the entrance" as if she's stupid for not seeing the sign, and they tell this to ME... like, super aggressive and annoyed, but implying that SHE was the one who didn't see the sign... I would think maybe they treat everyone who doesn't acknowledge the sign this way, but like I say, I had a much larger, brighter bag on my own shoulders. The message is constantly "You don't belong here."

So after they leave, we talk a bit, and my wife starts to cry, and we retrieve her purse and leave.

This type of situation has happened to my wife and I since living in this town many many times. These instances are hard to explain to someone who isn't there, but believe me when I say they take a toll on my wife's mental health. Several times we've been followed around stores so blatantly that we've left furious, often with her in tears.

We don't have a single serious friendship in this city because every time we try to make a friend, they drop an N-bomb. Or say something about Natives taking advantage of the system... I'm shaking right now writing this. My wife is constantly threatening to move away, because it's pure anxiety living in Canada's equivalent of Trumpland, and people on here want to mock and belittle. I'm sick of it and I'm done with it.

The trolls on here are relentless. Steve has left, along with his 12 aliases and I really don't blame him. The Sports Bar isn't the place for guys like Steve anymore.

I always ask forgiveness when I've crossed the line, via PM and often publicly laying on the sword... because I have a sense of shame. Because I VALUE this online community that I've been a part of close to 20 years. But I recognize that I've contributed to some of the harsh negativity that has driven away some posters, and I feel bad about that. I don't plan to continue that. Others feel free to burn the place to ashes. You do you.

Man Jesse, I could be sadder to read something like this. It hits home harder because I know and respect you from this forum and various leagues.

Right now the nasty right is empowered, it's their few years in the sun...sooner or later, their kind will be forced to crawl back to where they were prior to Trump to seeth in silence.

Swampy is right, although it doesn't help now, time WILL eventually heal the racial divides. I won't see it, and maybe the next 2 generations won't either, but eventually it'll happen.

[senorsheep]

None of the articles mention her race at all. My wife was telling me about how it pisses her off that race isn't mentioned in the articles about this case.

Seriously, I'm not into conversing with you. You're trolling and hating and making a fool out of yourself... I don't come here for this crap. I'm done with you. You should've earned a seat on the bench for your outburst yesrterday, but you're back to trolling less than 24 hrs later. Pathetic.

Noting that professional journalists are held to a certain standard of proof is trolling? Wow, sorry to expose you to such a vile barrage - that must have been awful for you. Good luck with your recovery.

[Sour Masher]

As with most issues involving discrimination, those who are privileged don't acknowledge its existence unless/until it personally affects them.

This is true, and I can't really blame folks who can't see these things--some folks just never expeerience them, so they doubt that these things happen. I think that is a natural response. But, yeah, they do. My wife is black. My two boys are bi-racial. Thankfully, it is a very rare thing that we encounter outward, aggressive racism--although, that has happened too. But the micro-agressions, the misconceptions, they happen all the time, and while many are small on their own, they combine to sometimes create a feeling that weighs you down, or pisses you off.

Just last week my wife had a "walking while black" experience. We are both trying to get active again after a long lay off because we have a 9 month old. I started a few weeks before she did, walking the neighborhood. I've passed a woman who sometimes does yard work or sits on her front porch who doesn't live too far from us a few times without incident--just a wave or a nod. My wife started taking the route last week and this lady hurried out to get withing earshot and said, "hello, excuse me...do you live around here?" My wife, at first, just thought she was asking to follow up with some sort of related neighborly question, but then, when she told her she did, just down the street, the lady just looked at her skeptically, asked where exactly, and just said okay and walked away once informed.

Stuff like this sometimes takes a minute to set in. At first, you don't want to think about why she was stopped in our nice, mostly white neighborhood. But then you start to cross off other possibilities in your head, and it slowly sinks in. Stuff of this nature and level happen more often than I think most folks who are not exposed to it want to believe. I was one of those people before I saw it firsthand. When we first got together, every time a server brought us separate checks, and assumed we were not a couple, every time we got looks, or some store clerk seemed to follow her and ask her if she needed help when not asking others the same, I'd default to saying, "you can't know what is motivating these folks...you shouldn't assume the worst, it isn't healthy for your psyche. Over time, I realized that while that is true, it is really hard to not start assuming the worst, because a lot of times that feeling gets validated.

And, of course, some folks who don't live with these little cuts as part of daily life often dismiss them as no big deal, and individually they are not, but they add up, and sometimes you experience the really big wounds that stay with you and color your perception of all the little things. One that will always stay with us is what happened to my wife's college roommate, and my good friend (if she didn't help me through HS accounting class, I'd have never gotten the scholarship that helped me go to college). She was engaged to a white guy, while my wife and I were dating, but not yet engaged. They were in his car one night, minding their own business at a stop light--a stop light just a mile or so from my wife's parents' house, when a car full of racists rolled up on them and opened fire. She was murdered simply for being with a white man. Her name was Jody-Gaye Bailey. She was one of the sweetest people I've ever known. Here is a link that tells of how and why she senselessly was murdered: http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/200...drugs-shooting

[B-Fly]

Noting that professional journalists are held to a certain standard of proof is trolling? Wow, sorry to expose you to such a vile barrage - that must have been awful for you. Good luck with your recovery.

You guys are talking past each other unhelpfully. Teenwolf expressed his wife's frustration, as a person of color, that articles reporting inter-personal aggressions and micro-aggressions often exclude the race of the victim, which is important to her as a woman of color. You responded that a reporter shouldn't assume racism without evidence of racism. Those are not necessarily in conflict. Given the lived experience of people of color, it is not shoddy journalism to report that a jogger detained for two weeks for a Canada-US border crossing she says was inadvertent is a French woman of African descent or a French woman of color, rather than just reporting her nationality. You can report that without journalistically concluding that the length of her detention was influenced by her race. But given the broader patterns and concerns about the influence of race and racism on border enforcement, the fact of her race is reportable information that can be considered by readers in that broader context. It is not a violation of journalistic standards or ethics of "proof" to report someone's race in this context.

[senorsheep]

Given the lived experiences of people of color, we should at least be open to observing patterns that would suggest that certain types of mistreatment are more prevalent against people of color and to ask ourselves why and what can or should be done about it.

In some contexts, it is appropriate to note the race of victims and perps in the news. In others, I don't think it is - the mere introduction of that information suggests motive, and I don't think professional journalists should be doing that, unless there is a compelling reason to assume motive. If their local community, or their local police department, or the perp in question has a documented pattern of racial harassment, or prevalent, provable racial attitudes exist in the community that foster racial harassment, then it's appropriate contextual information. Is it appropriate every time a human interaction goes badly and the wronged party is a racial minority and the perp isn't? No, I don't think so - I want to see evidence of motivation before jumping to racial conclusions outside of the contexts I just mentioned.

It's harmful to the cause of racial unity when the media is careless in presenting all incidents involving people of different race as racially motivated; it desensitizes people to real occurrences of racism, and contributes to the general apathy a lot of white people have about social conditions adversely impacting racial minorities, IMO.

[senorsheep]

You guys are talking past each other unhelpfully. Teenwolf expressed his wife's frustration, as a person of color, that articles reporting inter-personal aggressions and micro-aggressions often exclude the race of the victim, which is important to her as a woman of color. You responded that a reporter shouldn't assume racism without evidence of racism. Those are not necessarily in conflict. Given the lived experience of people of color, it is not shoddy journalism to report that a jogger detained for two weeks for a Canada-US border crossing she says was inadvertent is a French woman of African descent or a French woman of color, rather than just reporting her nationality. You can report that without journalistically concluding that the length of her detention was influenced by her race. But given the broader patterns and concerns about the influence of race and racism on border enforcement, the fact of her race is reportable information that can be considered by readers in that broader context. It is not a violation of journalistic standards or ethics of "proof" to report someone's race in this context.

Just so you're clear, I didn't respond to any post about Teenwolf's wife. I responded to a post where he wondered why the race of perps and victims are not included in news stories. Let's not pretend I read that post where his wife was subjected to awful racist behavior, and then I made a pithy comment about it. I wouldn't do that.

Hopefully my last response to you sounds reasonable.

[B-Fly]

Just so you're clear, I didn't respond to any post about Teenwolf's wife. I responded to a post where he wondered why the race of perps and victims are not included in news stories. Let's not pretend I read that post were his wife was subjected to awful racist behavior, and then I made a pithy comment about it. I wouldn't do that.

Hopefully my last response to you sounds reasonable.

It does sound reasonable, but I don't necessarily agree with you. (Which I'm sure doesn't surprise you because we've long differed in our approach to issues of race and racism.) I think our nation's racial history and the expressed lived experiences of people of color demonstrate a clear relevance of race, and I tend to believe that "colorblindness", whether in reporting or in our discussions of issues and policies and their real world impacts, broadly glosses over and even facilitates the perpetuation of racism in its various forms (conscious racism, subconscious racism, institutional racism, vestiges of past racism, etc.). I think our society will be better off if we are more open to dialogue within and across racial groups about race and about people of color's experience and their perspective regarding the impact of racism in its various forms on their lived experience.

[senorsheep]

This is true, and I can't really blame folks who can't see these things--some folks just never experience them, so they doubt that these things happen.

I don't doubt that these things happen, nor do I dismiss them as no big deal. I hate that rotten, ignorant people do this to other people. Just so you know.

Back in the 90's, I had an older African American gent running one of my stores down in Colorado Springs. He grew up in Mississippi in the early 50's, and told me stories that chilled me to the bone. I don't know he lived through what he did and came out of it with the positive disposition that he had.

[Sour Masher]

I don't doubt that these things happen, nor do I dismiss them as no big deal. I hate that rotten, ignorant people do this to other people. Just so you know.

Back in the 90's, I had an older African American gent running one of my stores down in Colorado Springs. He grew up in Mississippi in the early 50's, and told me stories that chilled me to the bone. I don't know he lived through what he did and came out of it with the positive disposition that he had.

To be clear, I wasn't suggesting you doubt these things happen, or that anyone does, although I think some can't help but not understand the full scope and frequency of such things. I was making a general point that I think it is perfectly natural for folks to base their perceptions on their lived experiences. Before I started dating a black woman, I didn't see things that I see now. Heck, I still don't see everything the same way she does, and I get in disagreements with her to this day about perceived insidious intentions sometimes. I guess I was defending my former and sometimes current self, not trying to judge others by spelling that out. For me, I always knew these things occurred, but I had the privilege of assuming by default that most things came down to people being jerks rather than racist jerks. But when you live in America as a black person, with all that baggage, it is just different. Your worldview is often just different based on that context and history.

To your point, it is good to remind ourselves that things are, on the whole, a heck of a lot better than they were. And it is also good to be mindful of making things about race that may not be. I don't think it is healthy for our society to make questioning that taboo. Although, based on your postings, I suspect you agree, Trump's rhetoric and courtship of white nationalism is taking us a step backwards. We are seeing a lot of stuff come out of the woodwork that was dormant for awhile, and so having these things come out has, understandably, caused a greater sensitivity to identifying when actions may have a racial component.

In the case of the detained young woman who accidentally crossed the border, I'd bet we both agree that, in hindsight, it is pretty freaking messed up to hold a scared young woman for that long over some accidental crossing. While I do get your point and agree with it that it is sometimes irresponsible or purposefully sensational to highlight an action as racially motivated (click bait culture hasn't done journalism any favors), in this case, I agree with B-Fly that stating those facts, without drawing conclusions for readers, would have been fair and responsible reporting.

[revo]

Today Episode of "TrumpWorld":

"Being a landscaper while Mexican," starring an elderly, empowered-by-Trump white lady as "Neighborhood Nellie":

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2018/06/26/california-man-racist-verbal-attack-ctn-sot.cnn

[Teenwolf]

Thanks to B-Fly and Sour Masher for clarifying and broadening the topic I failed to clearly identify. I strongly identify with Sour Masher's thoughts on marrying a black woman. I had no idea the kind of crap black people put up with until I married.

I have one more story to illustrate the difference between people who call out racism, and people who shout down those who call out racism, in the name of keeping the peace.

My wife and I used to go to the local comedy club every single weekend. I think I went about 12 times in a few months, she went maybe 7 or 8 times. One of those times, a comic from Toronto who was a visible minority himself, looks around the crowd, maybe 30 people in the room, and he says "Well, looks like Thunder Bay has half of a black person living here." It's so crazy, because the joke is about my wife... for being black and living in this shithole. But he gets to go back home to his liberal bubble after the show, so that one really shook us up.

Another show, a local opener comic was opening for someone I'd loved before. He says "I'm dating a girl who's into vaping. Her favourite flavors are watermelon and fried chicken... so I guess I'm dating a black girl?"... followed soon after by a comment "I guess everybody in Thunder Bay is white anyway..." to which I shouted "NOPE!" So the comic is thrown off his game, and he goes after me. "Hey, you don't seem like you're enjoying the show, do you have a problem?" First of all, it's not the job of the audience to enjoy your set. Saying "NOPE" is the lightest heckle I could even imagine. So I respond "Maybe you shouldn't make jokes about chicken and watermelon when the headliner of your show is black." So he starts stammering, saying "Okay, I guess if you're offended, I'll just go... I'm sorry you're offended". (Because we all know it's worse to be offended than it is to be OFFENSIVE these days). So the crowd is pissed at me now, because I've made it uncomfortable, and as this racist is leaving the stage, the entire rest of the audience gives a standing, clapping, hollering ovation, glaring and scowling at my wife and I. "YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE"

These aren't even all of the racial incidents from the comedy club, they're just the low-lites. Thanks for sharing your stories, Sour Masher. It's important these are brought to light.