Racism at Home

In most people's eyes, racism in America is a regional problem at worst. To most people, the face of racism is an impoverished man from North Carolina with a rifle in one hand and a can of smokeless tobacco in the other, or an old, Kentuckian woman who clutches her pearls at the sight of a minority. Many believe that American racism only occurs within the Dixie South. I would be willing to bet that around zero people were surprised when a study came out in 2013 that made the claim that the South is the more racist half of our country. While I wouldn't disagree with these people, I would say that the gap in racism is mightily overstated. While it is not as conspicuous as it is south of the Mason-Dixon line, discrimination is still present even in Pennsylvania. This is something I noticed while in high school, which I will talk about here.

I come from a quaint little town in south-eastern PA named Wernersville. I've placed a dot on a map to show exactly where I come from:

Now, I didn't live in the most backwoods part of the state, but the area wasn't exactly a liberal haven, either. The first day of hunting season was basically a holiday where I'm from. One of the defining characteristics of Berks County, however, is Reading. Reading is the main city in Berks, and it lies smack-dab in the middle of the county boundaries. What makes Reading notable is that, in 2012, it was coined the "poorest city in the nation", with 50% of its residents living under the poverty line. Also, despite the overwhelming white-ness of the surrounding area, Reading is ~56% Hispanic, with over 30% of its residents claiming Puerto Rican ancestry (Reading also became famous for its ugly christmas tree this past holiday season, but that's another story). A former coal town, Reading really lost its luster once the industry slowed down, as well as when the Monopoly-famous Reading Railroad declined in importance.

What does this have to do with racism, you may ask? First off, Reading was kind of the joke of the county. Reading kids were seen as trashy and incapable almost all of the time. Also, if there was a new student in my school district who happened to be Hispanic, most people assumed that they were fresh out of Reading. Opinions of them would differ greatly from those of other kids. Weirdly enough, I never got such a treatment when I showed up as a biracial kid from the city, but maybe that was because I acted "white". Even teachers would crack jokes about the "immigrants" from Reading, as if they were somehow separate from your average white student. 

Another catalyst of backhanded racism at my school was a child protection agency a town over named Bethany Children's Home. Bethany was a sanctuary for kids from troubled homes in Reading and across the country. This sanctuary just happened to lie within Conrad Weiser School District, so the kids who lived there went to my school. This was very controversial among many of the people in my town who didn't want their kids to go to school with "thugs" and "degenerates". 

The kids who went to Bethany were overwhelmingly black or Hispanic, and almost all of them came from bad neighborhoods in large cities. What was too hard for people in my district to understand was that black people from the city are not automatically criminals. While there were a few bad apples, like there are in any population of kids, most of the students from Bethany were extremely empathetic and humble people. They had a little bit of edge to them, but that's what happens to anyone who grows up in a dangerous environment. However, kids at Conrad Weiser did not hesitate in their discrimination. Whenever a fight occurred, everyone would automatically jump to conclusions: 

"Was it a Bethany kid?"

"Of course it was. His name was probably Daquan or something"

"Why do they even go here?"

All of this is indicative of a sort of veiled racism that my school district harbored for these Bethany students. My friend created a survey for our sociology class that dealt with topics concerning Bethany and racism, and it was so controversial that many teachers complained and he had to make a new one. The thing is, the survey was controversial because it was accusatory in nature -- it made people realize that they were racist in their beliefs. Over my time at Conrad Weiser, Bethany became a veil that allowed people to take the easy route and be racist without being open about it. 

This hidden racism is what tends to prevail among most Americans nowadays. While it is a huge social misstep to come out openly against a minority group, people still find a way to be racist by using different descriptors: thugs, welfare queens, and Bethany kids. When these terms are used, they evoke a certain image: a minority. This is something that, while decidedly true in my hometown and presumably many others, is hard for many people to accept. In my opinion, focusing on these backhanded discriminatory buzzwords is the next step in fighting racism in our country. Hopefully, within my lifetime, people will be able to accept this and fix themselves.

An Introduction To The Topic Of Race

One of the most important talking points in today's society is race. Race has governed our lives for centuries, and in many places across the globe, continues to influence society. Recently, there have been many events in our country that have brought race to the forefront of American discussion. Some of these events have been successes; others tragedies. For example, the election of President Barack Obama in 2008 was a significant milestone in the fight for racial equality. His was such a significant election that many Americans thought that, after that November day, we no longer lived in a racially divided country. Many used the phrase "post-racial" to describe this new society. Even more recent, however, was a string of African-American casualties at the hands of on-duty police officers. These tragedies garnered massive media attention, and caused many U.S. citizens to question the labeling of our country as post-racial. To this day, the debate continues over whether these killings were racially motivated or not, and what this means for our nation.

Before I begin this blog, I would like to make some clarifications as to what race actually is. First, race is a social construct that came into being relatively recently. If you do not have time to read the linked article--which I highly recommend you do, if only because it is very thought-provoking--I'll sum it up here. Essentially, race as a concept arose as recently as the 17th century as a direct result of the Atlantic slave trade. In their never-ending quest to divide and conquer the entire world, European empires took millions of Africans from their homeland and forced them to do much of the heavy lifting for the colonization effort. After many anti-slavery movements cropped up, slavers needed to come up with new justifications for the enslaving of African peoples. They started to accuse Africans of being genetically inferior, proposing that white Europeans had a "God-given right" to enslave these people. As generations were born with these ideas being forced into their heads, these assertions became the basis of racism. For the first time in human history, humans began discriminating against others based on physical characteristics, as opposed to cultural  and ethnic differences. With this, it is important to note that race is only a sociological concept--there is no such thing as "race" in biology or genetics.

I've decided to write about this topic because it is one that I am very passionate about. There are so many logical inconsistencies with statements made by every side of the argument and it truly grinds my gears. Also, although I've never personally experienced discrimination, I happen to be of mixed ancestry myself: my mom is white and my dad is hispanic. Overall, I am very excited to write about this topic, and look forward to discuss racial issues that I am passionate about.