MY OWN STORY - ANNE

excerpt from RACEUNITY@ (see Aug 31, 2010)

In response to a general call to tell our individual stories of how we arrived at this point in our lives and began participating in this endeavor:

I started out in Charlotte, NC in 1937, white, southern, and in the country.  My dad came from a farm family of several hundred acres near Charlotte, one of his parents was from a large country family and the other was a school teacher.  Our ancestry came from Scot, English and Native American.  My mother came from Georgia, a small town.  One of her parents was from a small farm family and the other from an academic, socially prominent Atlanta family.  Our ancestry in this side of the family was Irish, English and Jewish.  Needless to say in those times, there was a lot of hostility between the in-laws on both sides.

(You have read of my first "race" memory in the Sept. 6, 2010 blog)
My dad and mother were not overtly hostile or cruel, but the patronizing, "lovingly helpful" attitude they displayed had a subtle message, which is harder to confront or resist than an overtly confrontational attitude is.

My exposure to those of color was very biased in that they were always in a subservient role.  Not until I was an adult did I see and educated darker skinned person.  I was in a dormant state of awareness until school classes began on the slavery and civil war subjects.  I was upset with the stories of children being sold away from their parents, of the beatings and rapes.  I remember being ashamed that I was from the South.

I began to try to learn for myself the history that was denied me in school, began to collect and study books written by minorities, sought out friends who were diverse but it was halting and fearful because of my natural shyness and the impediments placed there by family and society.  The book that initially had the most impact on me was John Howard Griffin's BLACK LIKE ME.  It touched and horrified me.  It was written in the times of what I knew growing up.  I had seen what he was talking about from the "other side".  I had used the "white" water fountains and restrooms.  I had served the blacks at the back door when I worked my way through school as a waitress.  I was also the first waitress to serve a black man who sat at my counter, though the restaurant had put a divider rope around the empty stools and those occupied by blacks.

The next impacting set of books was a three volume compilation of letters and articles, from 1619 to 1966, written by slaves, farmers, authors, reporters for black newspapers, etc., edited by Milton Metlzer, called IN THEIR OWN WORDS.  The personal details of the pain, indignities and rage of these people marked my soul. ( I will be quoting from these in future blogs.)

When I became a Baha'i in 1969, it was like coming home.  Finally, I had clear guidance and approval from God to "walk the Walk" and learn humbly how to be one with all.  Baha'u'llah's gift to me was to allow me to go to Trinidad seven months after I became a Baha'i and live among an entire country that was dark skinned.  I saw three white people other than my son and myself in the mirror the entire time.  My survival depended on the good graces of these people, my social life depended on these people, my son's playmates were the children of these people.  As I lived day to day, in conversations, social events, over coffee or tea chats, my feelings of strangeness disappeared and an awareness of being in the same human family began to emerge.  I remembered being startled when I passed a mirror and saw this white shadow go by.    My first thought was "that person is so pale" then i I realized it was me.  I had forgotten my own color.  It was a pleasant, releasing thought.

As the years after I came back from Trinidad went by I began to involve myself in race unity work.  As well as reading everything I could get my hands on, I made a conscious effort to "stay in diversity".  I felt uncomfortable in an all white environment and raised my children to believe that only diversity of color and culture was normal.  Everything else was abnormal.

In 1983 I co-facilitated a week long workshop at a Baha;i summer school on THE ELIMINATION OF PREJUDICE workshop with an elderly retired school teacher who called herself "colored".  We laughed and cried together as we prepared this class and shared our "Southern" expeiences of growing up on opposite sides of the society.

In 1989 I went to my first Healing Racism Workshop and had the bounty of hearing Nathan Rutstein (author of many books on the issue)  tell his "story".  I was hooked.  I went to several different series of these workshops, then went into training to be a facilitator.  I did this for a while then helped others become facilitators.  I was so enriched by the eople who attended and shared their stories and their hearts.

In the early eighties, I facilitated a Senior Citizens workshop at a black church for a year in which we learned together each other's stories and shared our growth process in getting to know and love each other.  The stories of these elderly people revealed many of their early years of suffering and the history of thier family during slavery.  I felt humbled and blessed to be accepted and loved by them.

In 1990 I attended a Race Unity Core Curriculum workshop at Louhelen Baha'i School in Michigan.  This added so much to my ability to immerse myself in the subject in the Writings of the Faith.  The precious souls who attended this with me will always hold a special place in my heart.

I had the blessing to be on a task force with Bonnnie Taylor, author  and compiler of THE PUPIL OF THE EYE, to help set up a Most Vital and Challenging Training Institute.  This resulted in a year long series of monthly four hour sessions exploring in depth the Writings of the Baha'i Faith on this isssue, the research made in the psychological, academic secular world on this issue, the historical facts that we missed in the public school systems and then the dialogue between the twenty or so individuals who had been present all the while. 

Well, I think I went on too long, but there you have it.....

Love in the struggle,

Anne