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Racism versus Bigotry

7/22/2017

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In my desire to make racism go away because of it's inaccuracy in terms of what it is that can't really be pinned down, it hasn't left me with rosy colored glasses that refuse to see the reality of the world around me.

Bigotry exists.

​My first experience with bigotry was with a newly hired second manager at McDonalds who decided to kill two birds with one stone. We'd recently hired a young black teenager who was beautiful, had a sunny smile, tons of "Ten" braids in the way I thought of them due to the popularity of the movie by that name, and a readiness to work. The new manager didn't like that I didn't wait to ask his opinion but acted like the floor manager that I was hired to be.

Our first tussle came when I put several people on lunch breaks because the restaurant was empty and they hadn't received them yet. They wouldn't likely get one later on due to the heavy business we always had Friday nights with local football games. He ordered me not to give any orders, to only do what he asked. Then he went out to the lobby and drank coffee with a buddy. None of the prep work got done. None of the employees got breaks. No one got assigned to duties. It all waited on him to act. He drank coffee instead. Eventually, the lobby was so packed with people, the garbage cans overflowing with garbage, and we were short handed the two coffee drinkers that I eventually took a walk and asked him if he intended to help because the way things were going we wouldn't likely get out of there until really late. Second manager came to the rescue, throwing buns around and ordering people here and there and we finally all went home at four a.m. when his lack of managerial skills and preplanning led to our late escape.

​The next morning when asked about the mess, I told my colleague that I had been ordered not to tell anyone what to do and didn't get out of there until four a.m. I turned to see the new manager listening in.

​So on this next shift, I was ordered to do multiple jobs, cook fries, make milkshakes, clean the lobby, and back all the staff up. I quietly did so but on my pass through the lobby I heard the second manager say he was "going to get rid of me and that would teach me since I had just moved into an apartment on my own and couldn't argue."

​The next shift, the second manager ordered me to tell the pretty black girl to change her hair do because it didn't look good.  So I did, telling her "the second manager told me to tell you" and writing the same words on her application. I then suggested she tell her parents and to get a lawyer.

​So I do know that people can be mean, can bully people, can get "even" with people, can hurt, attack, abuse and do other illegal things that all revolve around hate. I am not naïve.

​But I do like the word bigotry much better than racism. For one reason, bigotry puts the blame for the hate where it sits, namely in the person doing the bullying, having the mean attitudes, and doing the nasty things against people that earn them the title.

​With racism, the guilty edict goes against an entire set of people, placing the activity society wide and making everyone aware that we are human in the worst ways. Even if we are the nicest, most charitable, friendly, kindly acting people in the world, we are still guilty.

​I don't believe anyone is guilty until proven so. It's the way in the United States that many of us have been brought up to believe. Racism convicts everyone without trial, convicts everyone to a set of beliefs based on bad science, convicts everyone of being suspicious of everyone because we are all different.  With bigotry, the same is true on a small scale where a person's acts convict them of being hateful and mean. This was true of my second manager while everyone else came and went to our work place, all doing the same job while paying their bills and going to school. Except for that one person, there was little evidence of hate.

​I quit working at that business the next day, when my supervisor couldn't accommodate my desire to work a shift where he wouldn't be in charge. Three days later, I had a new job and a $0.35 raise. Three months later, I was working at Boeing for $6.00+ an hour more, making more money than my supervisor or my second manager.
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Will Race Submit to Science and Please Die

7/13/2017

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The only race I never won I fell backwards into sand, ending on my ass. The measure though went to the front toe of my foot. It might seem odd that a race can be won falling down, but in the grand scale of humanity, we all fall down. Standing Broad Jump was my best skill in the art of track, best known for running in a circle where you don’t get anywhere. I figure, my race was shorter, only three steps and whump. Likewise, race doesn’t exist. Race is bad science done backwards and we all fell from grace.

I’m truly sorry that life isn’t fair. I demanded fairness as a youngster. It made my father who was normally the jokester, the laugh and let go kind of guy truly angry. He grabbed both my shoulders and shook me. “Get it through you head, there’s nothing fair in life.”

I walked off, teary and mulish and silently washed the car by myself while my sisters giggled at the dinner table. I didn’t know why I was required to do this task when no one else had to. Cinderella and me were two of a kind all of a sudden. It truly was no fair. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I was picked on and abused.

The reality was car washing was fun in a backward way. It was hot outside. I got out of the stinky kitchen and didn’t need to do dishes, hurrah. I could get as wet as I wanted and no one could chide me. When you wash a car, there’s immediate pay off when the scum turns soap black and then you spray it away, feeling mist on your face and arms. You can stand and hose off soap for as long as you want as a kid because you don’t pay the water bill. As long as I was playing with cold water, I didn’t get into hot water and I had some amount of fun. I worked off whatever rage I had at the unfairness of the world. I accomplished something I could take pride in, a shiny clean car.

Because my dad cared to take me by the shoulders, shake me up and tell me the truth, “We are not all born with the same wealth, pedigree, ancestry, skills, knowledge, interests, skin color, weight, hair color and type, muscles, frame, IQ, etc.”

When we look at skin, no one came up with a gauge that offered pride. Skin had no pride but may have a pelt, it can be removed, shredded, injured, punctured and change with the rays of the sun. Some people are born with more or less melanin and some have greater and some less chance of skin cancer. There is no direct correlation with ancestry and skin color. There is a direct correlation with skin color and sun exposure and therefore location.

What we all should have in common is the disaster caused by Hitler and his desire to create a super race of Teutonic Germans and kill everyone else. Resentment at minor slights like extra duties assigned by parents can twist a person if they let it. Instead of building our resentment, we should build our armor. We should twist ourselves so that extra assignments are privileges meant to teach a life of accomplishment.

Because the science of evolution doesn’t promise anyone a rose garden, a specific skin color, parents you want for their wealth or family name, we should first try to look at what evolution says. It says, that statistically we reproduce those more adapted to the environment than not.

So the lesson of adaption does not go along with whining for extra privileges or thinking life will be fair. Race was supposed to record who our family was by the color of our skin or hair or eyes. Race didn’t do what it was meant to do. Race, racial, biracial are all historic words that led us into war and hatred. 

Differences in hair, skin, eyes, make us individuals who can nurture their worth or decry it however they choose but the reality will be, it’s not fair we’re not all the same, but thank heaven I don’t have to look at myself in the face on every person I meet.

We call differences between people, diversity. We call differences from one group of people to the next culture. Race only exists in track and field events, every other use subverts culture, individuality, diversity, accomplishment.

​I'm sorry to be so racist as to tell everyone so.

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    Sheri Fresonke Harper

    Sheri loves to golf, travel, take photographs and make new friends.

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