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I grew up in a white neighborhood in Norman, Oklahoma and I attended a white school. Everyone I knew was white. I knew from what my parents said that it was wrong to think less of someone because of the color of their skin, but that knowledge remained abstract for me. Some of the ugly reality hit me when my family moved to Birmingham, Alabama in 1967, during the Civil Rights Movement and only months before the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. This was during my freshman year of high school. I was once again in a white neighborhood and a white school, but there was a difference. I heard racist attitudes expressed openly, and I encountered the strange reluctance of some southerners to acknowledge losing the Civil War. The class system was very much alive. The black people I encountered in public were reserved and overly polite. There was horror in the community about the death of children in the Birmingham church bombing, but not much in the way of action. My pastor at the Episcopal church was fired for participating in civil rights marches.
George Wallace spewed his horrible rhetoric and managed to delay the integration of schools. I was there when the first black kids were bused to my white suburban school, and I will never forget seeing them come into the school for the first time. There were probably a dozen, and they were all groomed and dressed meticulously. They did not look to the left or right as they entered the school, and they looked scared to death. None of them were in any of my classes and I did not seek them out to welcome them. I was a shy kid and never sought anyone out, but I felt guilty at my own cowardice nonetheless. My adult years have passed in much the same way—knowing right from wrong and feeling outraged when I encountered racism, but doing little or nothing about it. Reflecting on my experiences in the years prior to the current Black Lives Matter demonstrations has been surprisingly difficult. I realize that I have a lot of strongly held beliefs but have done precious little to act accordingly. I’ve been hearing lately about the difference between being anti-racist and non-racist, and it’s pretty clear I’ve been the latter. I’ve prided myself on my progressive thinking but haven’t contributed anything of value. I hear the despair in the voices of black citizens who point out that there have been many moments of outrage in the past, with commissions formed and promises made, but they have seldom brought about any real change. Incremental change is not ok when the increments are so tiny. The Bible says that hope deferred makes the heart sick. It seems to me that there are a lot of heartsick people in our country and world right now. And it really is time for the rest of us to do something about it. --Terese
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January 2022
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