jake5270's blog post - Clarification

Some people took offense to my blog yesterday about predjudice. I wasn't singling anyone out. I haven't seen any racial slurs on the comments section for quite a while, although I'm not in the habit of looking for them.

I have ONE cousin in Florida who married a Cuban American. Doesn't bother me in the least - he's a good chap and they have a lovely family. My Father was from the south and there were some racial statements made in our household as I was growing up (which I thought was ironic, seeing as how I saw the pictures from WWII with dear old Dad with his arms around semi-naked Phillipino girls.). I was even thrown out of the house once for an argument Dad and I had about race. I was 16 and getting ready to leave the house for a date. My Dad asked me who I was going out with. I told him that he wouldn't know her, she was black. I thought it was funny. Dad didn't, and started in about not dating (the "N" word) that "type" of person. I told him she wasn't black, but couldn't resist pushing the envelope: I said she was Indian (Native American). Dad replied that that was o.k. then. So of course I pushed it further and asked him why one color was better than another. THEN comes the lecture on what is what (to him), and how no son of his will question what is the right order of things in the world (?). I then proceed to tell him he and his archaic views are shit. And of course I'm told that if I want to be a "N" lover I can live somewhere else. So I left for a couple of weeks, until Mom talked me into coming back.

My childhood was fairly lily white. That all changed when I entered jr. high school in the fall of 1964. Apparently the wise old folks who ran our school system at that time thought it a wonderful idea to bus white kids from mostly southern parents who worked in the factories to a new school in one of the two black sections of town. Was it an experiment? Did these wise adults not think that putting white kids into this situation of being the 5 - 10% minority when the civil rights movement was in full steam not create friction? My three years spent there were full of riots and seeing boys AND girls being beaten up because of the color of their skin. I hated my time there, but I did learn a little about what it means to be a minority.

Every year in high school we had race riots (it WAS the late '60's). Usually started by the kids from the side of town where all of the money was supposed to be. All white. I was never involved in the fighting, because the black kids knew me by then and knew I wasn't a bigot. Shit, by high school I was a dope-smoking hippy. lol The sad thing was, a lot of girls wouldn't go out with me back then from the "rich" side of town because I was considered poor white, not because of my color.

When I worked for GM in the local factory for over three years I dated a lot of different girls. Some white, others were of color. I got a kick out of dating girls from the university who thought they were "slumming" by dating a factory worker with a lot of money. I'd take them someplace nice, fuck 'em then dump 'em. I know now that I was just getting my revenge for what was pushed on me when I was growing up. I know now that it was wrong. Even if I were a rich man, I wouldn't use someone that way ever again.

I have learned a few things about race in my life. I have several friends of color that to me are simply friends. And at my ripe old age I still speak out against predjudice. Any where, any time.

Something I saw yesterday brought that to mind. THAT is why I wrote what I wrote. Nothing more.

My rant is done. I will leave you with an old favorite song of mine:


PEACE!