Racism

A hot topic, for sure. I won't pretend to have any answers, but I just wanted to share my observation and maybe ask some questions of my own.

It is not terribly often that I have witnessed, first hand, racism. It's even more rare that I have been the person discriminated against. Yesterday the whole family spent the whole morning in Minneapolis at the only eye clinic that could fit Lori in right away. Robbie had accidentally scratched her eye and she was in so much pain that she was completely unable to function or even open her eyes for more than a couple seconds. In this particular clinic, there were two waiting rooms. The first was for people who had checked in or were filling out paperwork. The second was for people who had been into an examination room and been seen initially by someone who took down basic information about the problem and in Lori's case, gave her some pain-relieving eye drops to help her wait until the doctor was ready.

So we are in the second waiting room, which is pretty full when we arrive. A man got up and moved to another seat just so that we would all be able to sit together. My main focus was on keeping Robbie distracted so Lori can try to stay still and rest. But, as is often the case, our little ham had the attention of almost everybody in the room. So I was having him practice greeting people, be polite with please and thank you, and to be respectful of other people's space. As a natural consequence of this, I was paying very close attention to the other people in the room. Watching their words and body language to make sure that Robbie wasn't bothering them. There were a couple construction workers, a white woman and her teenage daughter, a white couple in their late 30s- early 40s with what appeared to be a set of their parents, a young black girl, an older white couple and several groups of Muslim women.

So I'm watching the people. The white woman with her daughter kept trying to wave to Robbie, but he would be shy and hide behind my leg. The two Muslim women closest to us were also smiling at him, but not terribly interested. The middle aged couple with their parents were very engaged and were good about helping Robbie practice his manners when I sent him across the room to throw away a granola bar wrapper. When he did that, I noticed that an older Muslim woman on the far side of the room saw him coming and put her head scarf up over her mouth. While he was over there, the older white couple came in and sat down 3 or 4 seats away from her. I watched as she glanced over and kept her hand at her mouth. I'm the kind of person who really tends to give people the benefit of the doubt. I thought that maybe she was just concerned about germs. Little kids are often cesspools of disease, and you never know what kind of bug someone else is carrying around. So I let it go. But when the older white couple that was sitting near her got up and left, the look of contempt on her face as she took her hand away from her mouth was unmistakable. Shortly after, another Muslim woman came and sat near her, an act which she did not respond to. But when I got up to take Robbie outside to look at the fountain outside, again her hand clamped over her mouth.

I'm not mad at her for treating me, my kid and that other couple like smelly barnyard animals. I'm just sad. Sad that my kid is growing up in a world where things like this still happen. Sad that I'm going to need to explain to him when he's older that some people hate other people for looking or believing differently. Sad that instead of allowing my son to brighten her day, she chose contempt at being in the same room.

I've seen it from all kinds of people in my life. I've seen white people using racial slurs against blacks, Asians and Middle-Easterners. I've witnessed mistrust directed at my Iranian classmate and my Egyptian friend. I've witnessed a group of young black men shouting profanities at white people who dared to have business in their neighborhood. I've seen people roll their eyes as I walked past them with Hispanic friends. I've witnessed many different people of different nationalities saying horrible things about Jews. I've even been accused of disliking someone because of the color of their skin (when in truth, I really didn't want to be around ANYONE that day). Like I said, I don't have any answers. Just a deep sadness in my heart that this is a problem we still deal with on an ongoing basis. I don't know how to cure our world of this plague. I'm sad that I have to teach my son that racism is an ongoing part of our culture instead of a sad chapter of our history. But for my part, I will also teach him to look at each person as a person, not a color or religion. That there are beautiful people and there are truly ugly people. To appreciate kindness, empathy and justice and to pray for the sadness, anger and brokenness of our world. To stick up for the downtrodden, to believe in liberty and justice, to help those in need and to stand up to those who would take from someone else to serve their own desires. I'll teach him that he alone is responsible for every word, action and feeling he has. That it's ok to be angry at injustice, but not because someone hurt his feelings. To be passionate about standing up for truth. To be wise when deciding who to allow himself to be influenced by. To hold everything to the moral standard of God, who ate with tax collectors and prostitutes, but also drove out the money changers and rebuked the Pharisees. Those are the things I want to teach my kid, not that he's unclean for breathing the same air as someone else.