A few months ago, my 19-year-old daughter and I went to an old neighborhood in downtown Orlando called the Parramore district. I had driven through it several weeks before and thought it looked like an interesting place to take pictures...I'm always on the look-out for that. Of course, Parramore is a distinctly black neighborhood, and largely poor.
So we went down there, parked on the street, got out and started walking. It was early, probably 10:30am or so and a really beautiful, sunny day. We walked for 8-10 blocks and every person that passed us smiled and said hello and we'd just smile and say hello back. Very pleasant. One man stopped and asked if we were with the newspaper or something because of the camera, but I told him it was just a hobby. He was very nice.
So we keep walking and right when we passed this old pink church I had been taking pictures of I hear a voice coming from the screened-in patio of the house next door.
'What are you girls doing down here? Do you know where you are? Are you from out of town' And I turn to look and it's this middle-aged white guy. I'm not sure if he lived there, worked there or what.
And I laughed and said,
'Yes, I live here and I know exactly where I am.'
Then I looked around and said,
'It seems to be pretty quiet around here and everyone's been very nice.'
'You're in the hood, you shouldn't be down here. It's not safe.'
And I wondered, you know, is he going to tell me some stories about a rash of attacks on white people down here? Surely if this were true, I would have heard something about it. But apparently that was all he had to say so I just looked at him, smiled, told him to have a good day and we kept walking without a lick of trouble. I got a few neat pictures that day.
When I was very young and living in Atlanta, our neighborhood was largely black. All the kids went to each other's houses, all the parents knew each other. It was never treated like a big deal and this was the late '60's/early '70's. My brother, sister and I were taught
outright to reject racial stereotypes as insidious fictions and I think that is why I have so little kneejerk racial bias today. I do believe that many, many people carry around these biases, though, and that is does have a profound effect on race relations today.
I really liked this tidbit...it's a point I've tried to make on at least a dozen topics around here.
Quote:
Subtle sociocultural signals may carry particularly insidious power.
|
I'm surprised more people aren't commenting on this article.