Back in the late 70's/early 80's, I had just finished my first tour in the Army

[CatWoman]

en route to Germany, I went home to spend time with my family and daughter.

I took my kid to Virginia Beach pier, along with my oldest niece.

I bought them ice cream and we were just minding our business, when a resident of one of the hotels there (a male) came out on the balcony to yell "Niggers" at us.

can you imagine how I felt?

can you just fucking imagine?

I spent a lot of time trying to instill in them the need to NOT react violently to the taunts.

When I left Virginia, I visited my best friend who had just been transferred to St. Louis, Missouri as she was reassigned to the Records Center there.

There was a lot of turmoil in her life as she was being denied the right to rent an apartment because she was black, and had to enlist the help of HUD to help help her.

Think about this.

You people defending these racist fuck cops.

You think this shit came nowhere, out of the woodwork?

You think these incidents are not not the product of systematic, widespread racism and institutionalism?

Or can you even think beyond your petty self righteousness?

[RagAss]

1. Amen !

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for sharing, CatWoman.

[MohRokTah]

3. This fat old white man gives you a kick and a rec.

I can never know what you went through. I can never know what a black man goes through in this country.

I can weep for my nephew who will live with that experience through his entire life. I hope things will get better. I fear they will not.

[CatWoman]

4. one of my good friends, Sheryl, was white

her father lived in Virginia Beach. We were stationed in Indianapolis together.

Yet when she left the service I couldn't visit her when she lived with him because her father was so hostile towards blacks.

And this was in the 1990s.

[MohRokTah]

6. .

My wife and I talked about moving to North Carolina, but I tried to push back on the idea because I feared my brother, his wife, and my nephew would never be able to be comfortable visiting us.

[notadmblnd]

26. I tell ya, I never traveled south with my husband

After some of the things he told me about growing up in the south in the 50's and 60's. When he had to go back home to Louisiana, I stayed home in Michigan.

[yardwork]

45. Depends on where in North Carolina.

Many urban centers are very progressive here. The Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill metro region and Asheville in particular.

[Warpy]

38. Some people are just ignorant to the bone

I'm so sorry you were faced with that.

They're not all in the south, either.

[niyad]

5. a very heartfelt k and r

I have not been reading much of what is going on down there, it is just too sickening. but hearing that there are actually people on THIS board defending the cops? that is sickening as well. (but then, considering some of the stuff I have seen on what is supposed to be a progressive board, I guess it is not surprising.)

[justiceischeap]

7. I was born in Missouri (Kansas City) and lived there through the late 70's/early 80's

and I can tell you this much: At my junior high school there used to be huge fights/riots of white against black, even though the black kids outnumbered the white kids almost two to one (those are not good odds--not because the kids were black mind you but because of the numbers). I grew up hearing the "n" word and it didn't seem like anything horrible to me because I heard it so much, it was normal language (though, I gotta admit, I don't recall if I ever used it or not...I'm sure I did but I don't think I liked it... I knew I was lesbian pretty early on and thought I'd hate for kids to call me bad names because of that). I also remember when we'd go to visit my grandparents in the city, as soon as we passed some invisible line (looking back when the neighborhoods went from white to black) you'd hear my parents locking their doors and telling me to never go through that area without locking the doors.

Because of my surroundings and upbringing I had a hard time overcoming things that were always there (racism) and I'm still working on it to this day but I can tell you this much...when we moved from Missouri to Pennsylvania and there were no black kids... I was shocked and weirded out by the lack of color.

I'm sorry things were/are horrible for you and your friend but know that some of us white folk work hard every day not to be what some people want us to be and that's racist. I'll never know the black experience (unless all my freckles some day join together) but I know what it's like to be gay (can't hide my gayness, it's pretty damn obvious) and I know what's it like to have people dehumanize you for something that you can't (nor would you want) to change.

[CatWoman]

12. ...

[pangaia]

48. What a great thing to write.

More important, what a great thing you have seen in yourself, and that you continue to observe and seek to see.

[Quayblue]

8. +1

[Baitball Blogger]

9. kick

[Spider Jerusalem]

10. Things have changed in this country less than a lot of people like to think

Countee Cullen wrote this in 1926, for instance:

Incident

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee;
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

And yes, these things are the product of a very long and very ugly history.

[bigtree]

11. ...

... I'm with you.

[Number23]

13. Girl, TELL IT. "You think the shit came (out of) nowhere??"

You think these incidents are not not the product of systematic, widespread racism and institutionalism?

Or can you even think beyond your petty self righteousness?

TELL IT!!!!!

This shit has been going on FOREVER!!! FOR EVER! And I have to sit here and read hidden posts from fools talking about MB would still be alive if hadn't "shot his mouth of" and we should all just "wait for the investigation to be done." There is NOTHING to justify shooting that unarmed boy with his hands up. NOTHING.

I'm so sick of the Grade A fucking STUPIDITY I have been seeing lately. It is depressing, demoralizing, hurtful, enraging all at the same time. Between the "if he had just done xyz, he'd still be here" and the "America has changed so much, everyone used to hold hands and skip everywhere" crowd who are just blithely ignorant and unaware that racism has made life a living hell for LARGE QUANTITIES of Americans for centuries I just cannot stand it.

[CatWoman]

14. fucking A

it's on!!!

[myrna minx]

15. Oh CatWoman

speechless.

[CatWoman]

16. those kids were born a month apart

and were only 8 years old at that time

[myrna minx]

35. Too young and precious to experience such an ugly world.

[Stonepounder]

17. I want to weep.

I know about white privilege and it makes me want to die of shame.

I've fought for equal right for all people for 50 years and I feel like I've wasted my time. I look at what is happening in Ferguson and I see the same BS going on now as was going on 50, 60, 100 years ago. Every so often a powerless group decides that 'enough is enough' and 'we're just not going to take it any more' and we have demonstrations which escalate into riots (usually because the police try and use the same old tactics - come in with overpowering force and cow the powerless). The media moves in for the bread and circuses, the Governor engages in hand-wringing, eventually the President takes action.

Finally things settle down and America forgets. And nothing bloody changes!

Ghandi proved that non-violence could work and so did Martin Luther King. But, and it is a very big 'but', it has to happen on a large scale. I'm very much afraid that it is going to take a national uprising to force the 1% to realize that this institutionalized racism has to end or it is going to cost them really big bucks.

Either that or we are heading for a real popular uprising that is going to be VERY bloody!

[Tutonic]

18. Thank you, thank you

I am so sick of reading that we need to reserve judgment until we get Darren Wilson's version--we have 10 billion black witnesses that have stepped forward to state in unison that Mike Brown had his hands up and was not charging toward the officer. So why is the sworn word of these black witnesses not quite credible? They were interviewed by the FBI!!!!! Is it that we accept that they are 3/5 of a man and therefore can only be relied on for 3/5 of the story? If Darren Wilson has head damage and has a story to tell he should have been out front to refute the witnesses. Instead he is on paid leave. Hell yes his life should be damaged--he killed a man and then left him to lie in the street for five hours while he drove off. He didn't even have the dignity to stay around for five hours with the corpse.

Now we quietly in unspoken terms begin to discount or reject the testimony of the black eyewitnesses--as if they are children and can't quite fully describe or grasp what they witnessed. Treat them like children. Give them a time out--tell them to keep movin, don't stand still.

One final point CatWoman, what your friend experienced in the 80s or 90s is still being done. I cannot say it enough Missouri is the SOUTH and proud of it. You can rest assured Bob McCullough has Darren Wilson's back.

[CatWoman]

19. St. Louis is "supposedly" the gateway to the west

hence the arch there.

After visiting there one time I had no desire to return.

[1StrongBlackMan]

46. My one and only visit to St. Louis was in 1972 ...

(I was 11 and my family was on a cross country trip) ... All I remember about it was arriving in town well after dark and my Dad having to go to 4 hotels before he found one with a vacancy ... even though none of their "No Vacancy" signs were lit; being told I had to get out of the pool because a hotel worker dumped 4 or 5 jugs of chlorine into the water; and, having to eat outside of hotel because we watched the waitress drop my mother's steak onto the floor and place it back onto the plate before serving it to her ... and then, having the police called when my father refused to pay for the steak.

Not very fond memories.

[japple]

49. No words to describe the pain you must have experienced. So sorry that your Mom had

that thrown at her. Sorry that you have those sad memories. It's just a testament to the fact that racial issues still haunt our relations to this day. Until we admit that there are still problems, we will not reach a solution.

[alcibiades_mystery]

57. Seen on Twitter: "If a tree falls in the forest, and no white person is there to hear it...well...

we have to wait for more evidence."

[1StrongBlackMan]

60. That tweet wins the internet! eom

[mopinko]

20. knr

[elias49]

21. I'd be willing to bet you were more comfortable in Germany. nt

[CatWoman]

23. actually I was

I had no desire to return to the States.

I went home mid tour to retrieve my daughter.

She was adamant that we come back to the states.

So we came back and were stationed in Indianapolis.

That is another story.

[MohRokTah]

27. I grew up in Indiana, late 60s early 70s

Our little town was pure white bread except for one Japanese family and one Indian family.

The Indian family left town after one son died from brain cancer.

The Japanese family were my friends.

When I was twelve, an African American family was looking at purchasing a home in this town.

The uproar was a nightmare. The family eventually chose to live elsewhere.

Don't get me started on the vile shit I heard just before I turned five when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, was assassinated.

When I became an adult, I found out my mother's stepfather, who I knew as my grandfather, had been affiliated with the Klan.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

50. Ten years ago I was visiting my aunt in Munster IN

She lived in a fourplex that had one vacant unit.

The landlord was showing the apartment to one black guy who was fairly clean cut and articulate. The landlord's wife was talking to my aunt and commented, "He has to show the apartment but there's no way he's going to rent to a black guy."

I was a bit dumbfounded that in 2004 that attitude still existed.

[blueamy66]

52. I'm in a small town north of Indy

I have yet to see one black person here...not one

[LittleGirl]

54. lived in IN growing up

and on the west side of town, most of the blacks lived and I was told never to go there. Ever. I heard the n word used by most of my family members. I didn't like the word. I didn't like the racism. My grandparents were still alive when I was younger and they spoke with a very thick italian accent (when they spoke english) and I couldn't understand the racism against the blacks. They were born in this country and my grandparents weren't. I'll never understand it.

[fishwax]

22. .

[herding cats]

24. I sat here nodding my head as I read your post.

What took place is a symptom of a culture of racism which is instilled in our country. It's roots are deep and go back to our creation. Which is no excuse for letting it continue to take place and turning a blind eye because it's being rationalized by some bunch of racist assholes who don't want to see real change implemented.

I want to scream when I encounter people playing the justification game! They're the same people who are more than willing to file this away to a 'bad apple' being killed by the cops when the biased investigation comes back to exonerate the killer. They're all too happy to see the that ugly situation tied up in a nice neat bow and packed away where they won't have to explore those ugly, uncomfortable questions about themselves. Meanwhile racism still runs rampant and the real problem is doing nothing but festering in the effected peoples hearts waiting to explode. We're getting nowhere...tomorrow will be another day just like yesterday. Racist will hate and they'll spread their lies to justify why they're right in their beliefs. And you know what? People who say they're not racist will still be buying what they sell, because it's easier than looking at what's really taking place and realizing how wrong they were.

[Beringia]

25. My father had a job

in Chicago of helping Black people who were discriminated against in trying to buy a house or rent an apartment. He worked for the Commission on Human Relations, started by Martin Luther King and Mayor Daley. He had to pose as a prospective buyer and then when he was able to rent, they had grounds for a lawsuit. That was in the late 60s.

[Gormy Cuss]

42. That's called "testing"

and it was still an effective tool in the 1980s and 1990s for ferreting out discrimination in renting and housing sales.
I worked on national evaluations of Fair Housing compliance for HUD and let me tell you, there were still people out there who made it easy to file a discrimination complaint. Nothing subtle about it in many cases.

[Beringia]

62. thanks for sharing

It is nice to have someone understand what I am talking about when I boast about my father.

[Jackpine Radical]

28. Michael Brown was murdered.

His killer is likely to walk.

I'm an old, bald white fart and I'm not so much enraged as in grief that I live in a nation in which so many people will not confront that reality and take the actions needed to change the moral structure of the culture.

I have been down-and-out. There was a time in my life when I was prone to being stopped by cops, not just because I looked "counter-culture" but because I had some resemblance to the guy who bombed the Army Math Research Center in Madison in 1970, but even through all that I was somewhat protected by my "white privilege." I knew it at the time, and I know it now.

The difference between then and now is that in the old days, I thought maybe there would come a time when we would evaluate each other based on the contents or our souls rather than on the amount of melanin in our skins. I'm not so optimistic any more. It too well serves the interests of the Oligarchy to keep us divided on racial and ethnic lines.

So, yeah, I hear your rage and I validate it. And I weep. Literally, at this moment. The events of Ferguson have had me at or near this point since it all began.

[ladyVet]

39. I feel the same way, Jackpine.

I used to have hope that the human race was outgrowing this senseless hatred of other ethnic groups, but I no longer do. It's the 21st century, and still this kind of shit is going on, people still dying because of their color or religion, or their sexual orientation. It's sad and maddening and depressing.

Sometimes I think the human race should just blow ourselves up already.

[VanGoghRocks]

43. I'm right with you. I've been finding this particular episode has worked its way under

my skin like few others I can recall. The heroism of the Ferguson Resistance alone is enough to make one weep for their manifest bravery, fortitude and self sacrifice. When I consider that, in a past life, Mike Brown could easily have been one of my students (I taught many students from the St. Louis metro area), it just makes me weep even more.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

29. "Or can you even think beyond your petty self righteousness?"

Not as long as they watch FOX "News".

[cilla4progress]

30. I was in college in the mid 70s in Vermont

Our department (political science) took a one-week trip to DC. I roomed with an African-American girl, a fellow student. She shared with me her anxiety about how she would be received - we were staying in the home of an alumnus - because of being Black. Never forgot this.

[Tsiyu]

31. ...

Mike Brown
Kajiemi Powell



Catwoman

[Cha]

33. I hate that anyone whose skin is different than the racists have

to be subjected to their ignorant hate. They must feel so bad about themselves that hatin' on others is the only way to make themselves not feel so inferior.

Michael Brown So sorry you had to go through the racist shite, Cat

[Enthusiast]

34. Kicked and recommended!

[Ikonoklast]

36. In the early seventies, I used to road race motorcycles.

One of the tracks we raced at was VIR in Virginia, really nice track.

We would have local motels booked solid with racers from all over.

Anyway, another roadracer we knew and raced with was a guy who was employed as an automotive engineer for Chrysler out of Michigan. He was Black, his wife was White.

Fast Eddie, raced an H1R Kawasaki.


After checking in at the track on Friday afternoon and signing in, setting up the pits and sorting out the bikes during late practice, we all went back to the motel to check in. First time at that place.

Until Eddie and his wife went to get their room, I had never seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears what racism was really like was in this nation, from the Black side of things.

"We can't have niggers shacking up with White women. You can't get a room here."

I had heard that word coming out of stupid people's mouths in person before, but never spoken directly to a Black person's face. I was dumbfounded.

Even though they had put down their deposit when they booked the room months before, and told the clerk that they were legally married, no room for them.

Every single room was rented out to race participants, 40 or so people, word got out in a minute.

Everyone went to the front desk to demand that either Eddie and his wife got their room, or we all wanted our money back, right now, and empty out the entire place.

The motel people were surprised that all the White people were so angry over this, after all, Eddie wasn't angry. They just did not get it.

We emptied the place out and camped at the track instead. The racing association blacklisted that place, no money went to them from any of us again.

When we were back in Danville to race again, all the other motels around were more than happy to take our money. From ALL of us.





If this had happened to me and my wife, I would have been enraged, Eddie was just saddened when the clerk refused him service.

I can't even imagine what an entire life full of dealing with shit like that is like, just because I wasn't White..

[Tumbulu]

59. I can't imagine either

but I am glad to have read your story.

I had thought that strides had been made......but the last years have told me something else. And the disrespect shown to our president just shines a very bright light on it. Appalling, it is.

[grahamhgreen]

37. Kick

[DisgustipatedinCA]

40. Kicked and highly recommended.

[Raster]

41. Thank you, CatWoman!

[valerief]

47. K&R

[roscoeroscoe]

51. My wife and I were creeped out by the "Southern Pride" attitude we ran into in Wilmington, NC

We took up quarters at Kure Beach while I was preparing to go overseas to the middle east. One night the neighbors invited us over to a bonfire, where we heard the whole run down about the War of Northern Aggression and all that. My wife, Latina, got pulled over by a good ol' boy sheriff and was so shaken we gave the place up and she headed back to California while I was deployed.

As far as I can tell, personally, many Southerners take pride in prejudice, ignorance, hanging on to crap that's proven wrong no matter what.

Blech. Freakin' drain on the wealth and future of our nation.

[spanone]

53. love you CatWoman

k&r...

[AverageJoe90]

55. This Caucasian Texan kicks and recs your OP.

There are still many problems infecting today's society; in computer geek parlance, these long-running software bugs have yet to be fully patched.

[alcibiades_mystery]

56. But what about the riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiights..... ..... ..... (of white folks)

Keep ya head up, Catwoman. Great post!

[Tumbulu]

58. And what about the OUTRAGEOUS!!!!! Disrespect hurled at our President?

I feel that the fact that the out of bounds rudeness towards him and our First Lady have somehow fueled these racist attacks. I remain appalled and sickened and I am sorry that I do not know what to do about it.

I am so sorry for all that you and your loved ones and relatives and friends have gone through.

[panader0]

61. Recommended

I thought this shit would be over long ago. Racism is ignorance, pure and simple.