Oh, and thanks for the Howard C. Stevenson reference!

My first recalled experience of racism (though I didn’t know to call it that at the time (but was disgusted by it later), was in first grade down in Savannah, GA. I was 1 of 2 Black students in my class. I was always eager to answer questions that were raised in class, but my teacher typically ignored me. Next thing I knew, I was removed from the class and put in one that was all Black. Later, I realized that I’d been moved from the top (gifted) class to the “third” class. In the new class, I was bored and typically helped my classmates get their work done. When I asked my mom about this some years ago, she said that they justified this and she didn’t know to challenge it. The error of my placement wasn’t discovered until 4th grade when I was “retested” and subsquently placed in gifted classes. All that my parents ever told me about race was that I would have to “work twice as hard to get half as far”. Perhaps if they told me more about racism, I would I have known to *check* Miss Pullen :-).

facebook has a more impersonal approach, in the sense that i can say something about race there without addressing it to any particular friend in my friends’ list. but interracial conversations about race, even on facebook, are, it seems to me, very much coated with a strain of over-politeness and guardedness.

maybe we should all be a little less afraid. we are inevitably going to step on each other’s toes, whether we talk about race or eating meat. but there is no other way. maybe stepping on each other’s toes will make us all a bit more appreciative of each other’s bodies — the delicate shape of each digit, the three little phalanxes that compose it, the nice little moon of a nail at the tip, the color of the nailpolish. i think we should simply talk, say what we think, write WTF when WTF is our reaction, be polite but be open and try to make conversations across races flourish. the internet is a great tool for this. we are much more likely to meet here than at the supermarket, because, alas, we tend to go to different supermarkets. at least in miami and los angeles. which are the only two US cities i know.

So where/when/what would these real conversations and teaching moments look like? I mean, do Facebook/Twitter/Goodreads threads lack the kind of substance you’d like to see, jo? Because I’ve found that I have more mixed friendships online than in person and sometimes, more honest conversations too. Although they may be brief. But then again, I’m not exactly saying anything too controversial on Twitter.