The south is very dear to my heart, but there is something very wrong with my beloved homeland. Well, maybe more than one thing, but the thing that is on my mind right now is racism. (And don't think for one minute I am unaware of racism elsewhere, I am just intimately familiar with it HERE.)

I was raised with racism. My parents kept it low-key when I was young, though the attitude was there. I remember reading Huck Finn when I was 8 or 9 and asking my Pop what the word "nigger" meant when I found it in the book. I had heard the word before, and I had an idea what it meant, but finding it in a book meant I could SAY it and ask about it. I wanted to see what Pop would say. I remember his response clearly. He said it was an ugly word that some people used for Negroes. Negro was then the polite word one used. (I am still fond of that word, and Negress, for no apparent reason. If I were a black woman, I can see myself as a Negress -- I would be tall, proud, imperious... that is what those words conjure for me.) Anyway, when I got older, nigger wasn't just a word other people used for black people, it was the word WE used. It set them apart. It clearly held connotations of inferiority. No matter how low you might sink as a white person, it could still be worse. You could be a nigger.

Yet. Yet... We lived in Morocco when I was a small child. A Moroccan child took up with us, a kinky-haired, dark skin boy who was actually an Arab, but to my parents, and to me, he fit the qualifications for being a nigger. But he was a child. He was charming. he was HUNGRY. He lived with us and we fell in love with him, and my parents tried to adopt him. It was one of those lessons, I think. It is easy enough to be prejudiced toward an abstract group of people at a distance, but when there is one hungry child on your doorstep, it isn't so easy. You can tell yourself, well, he's different... but honestly, isn't everyone?

The adoption didn't happen. The Moroccan government at that time (the 1960s) wouldn't allow Muslim children to be adopted by non-Muslims. We weren't even very good Christians, much less Muslim. But it was one of those chinks through which I began to see that there was really no consistency to my parents' view of dark-skinned people.

I grew up. I knew many more individual people of various colors. I always liked to see myself as an intelligent person and it is hard to reconcile intelligence with prejudice. There were some crystallizing moments. A memorable one for me was a discussion in nursing school about race and our feelings as nurses about caring for people different from ourselves. One nursing student took the floor and declared herself free of prejudice. She said "When I go in a room, I don't see black or white. I just see a gall bladder, or diabetes, or a pneumonia." This view disturbed me, but it took me a while to figure it out. Nobody wants to be a gall bladder or a disease. None of us wants to be just one isolated PART of ourselves. It is the lack of viewing another human being as a coherent whole that is problematical. I integrated this into my view of racism. I think it is fine to notice another person's color, to use it as part of a description of that person... The problem is when you stop there and see nothing else. "The tall black man with skinny legs and a big smile" is a whole different image from "that nigger man". That nigger is probably going to stab you, rob you and rape you. The tall guy with skinny legs and a big smile who happens to be black might carry on a conversation with you or ignore you, but isn't automatically BAD.

I have also come to see that, although my personal experiences are vast, there are many things I have no experience of, and can only begin to fathom. My friend Gail, who is nearly as black as the ace of spades, has a wide nose and the prettiest eyes you ever saw, has filled me in on some such experiences. Gail is a person who can truthfully be described as serene. I find this amazing in light of some things she has endured. Several years ago she moved in to a neighborhood which is mostly white. She said for the first couple of years, it was a common experience for white men to come to her house when her husband was away and threaten her and her children if they remained in that neighborhood. Ugly threats. Ugly words. She and her family were not wanted simply because of their race. Her husband worked two jobs. She was raising small children. They were not robbing their neighbors, cooking up drugs to sell, nor anything at all unpleasant. Their home (I've been there) is neat and tidy. But they were threatened, her children were called *nigger* and other ugly names... But she held firm. She raised her kids to be able to protect themselves as far as possible. They finally became, well, not accepted, but tolerated.

But there are some things against which she cannot protect her children. Just this past weekend Gail paid $350 to get her 19 year old son out of jail. He had been stopped driving a truck -- doing his job -- for a "routine" check. He had his license, but he was unable to find the insurance card. The police in the small Georgia town where he was stopped cuffed him, searched his truck (and found NOTHING) and took him to JAIL for not having the insurance card. When Gail got there with the card, they released him, not with an apology, but with the words "Let that be a lesson to you." I guess the lesson is that it is still dangerous to be black in the south.

I have been stopped and been unable to find my insurance card. I am a white woman, so I get a warning or a ticket and get sent on my way.

Yet somehow Gail can be my friend and not feel that all white people are horrible in spite of some terrible encounters she has had with white people. I think I would go around knotted up with rage... but she says "what good would that do?" and of course she is right. But I can understand when rage happens. Oh, yes. I can. Because what southern black person doesn't have a fund of such stories to tell?

I have no answers. My part in this, as best I can figure, is to be aware of the prejudices that still exist in me and work at rooting them out. And I am responsible for raising my kids in such a way that they will be far less prejudiced than I am. I think I am succeeding.

I do know that when Gail one day jokingly called me a "l'il nigger girl" I shocked myself (and her) by bursting into tears. It was so very weird. That word that I have tried to root out of my language and even my thoughts, used on me. We both ended up laughing -- Gail howled when I remonstrated that she mustn't say that, it is a BAD word. We reached an accord over it -- she can say it, but I can't. (it has been hard to TYPE it) But she is allowed to call me her little nigger sister. Methinks turnabout is fair play.