My first experience of racism occurred when I was in grade 1, in 1980-81. There were a number of kids there that would constantly call me nigger and other, more childish names. I took it personally and obviously felt shitty for much of the year. Luckily, I had a good friend in the class so that I wasn't isolated and completely alienated. Plus, I was smarter than any of them or all of them combined. I know that other kids haven't been so lucky. My mistake was in telling the teacher about it. Mrs. McIntyre did absolutely nothing about it except to say that I should ignore them and "take the high road". Back then I believed that teachers knew best and that their word was gospel. Unfortunately, this advice didn't help and I was resigned to the fact that there was no one that could help me.
What I should have done was to tell my mother. She didn't take shit from anyone, and when someone was bothering her children, well, that was pretty much the end of them. If I had realized this then, things would have been a lot different that year. I never mentioned it to her until about 8-10 years later. I wasn't hiding it, I just didn't think to bring it up. Actually, that's not entirely true. After Grade 1, it didn't really come back for many years, but in that year, I saw it as a sign of weakness to run to your mommy. Teachers are different because it's their job. At least that was my 5-year-old logic.
When I was in my final year of high school, a classmate and I were working on (actually heading up) a task force to examine the lack of multicultural awareness and to design a multicultural educational policy in Leeds-Grenville county schoolboards. The task force consisted of, besides the two of us, principals and vice-principals from several high schools and elementary schools from around the counties. Towards the end of this process, we (my co-chair and I) were invited to speak to the local school board about our findings. My job was to talk about my experiences in Grade 1 and some of the insensitivity shown to me by my so-called friends and even staff later on. I gave an inspired speech, briefly going over what happened to me during that time. I had mentioned that I had met people that had never seen a black person except on TV until they met me (and these are only the ones that had admitted it to me) and that I was completely different from what they had seen. Unfortunately, the school board (it's 1992 at this point) did not want to hear about it. In fact, one superintendant in particular, Grace Wyatt, after whom the new media library in my old high school is unfortunately named (she must be dead by now as she was a fossil then) denied my experiences to my face, in front of everyone there. And this is a matter of public record, by the way. She said that these events must not have happened and that I must have made them up, or exaggerated. And then the chair promptly ended all discussion of the topic. The reforms that we had worked on for months were scrapped and never seen again as far as I know.
Three years later I went back to my high school to talk to one of the math teachers. I was home for reading week and had a problem with an assignment at university. I was hoping that he could help. He couldn't, as it had been years since he had done any such work, and class was about to start anyway. He then asked me to look at the kids entering the class, to examine the diversity in front of us. There were Middle Eastern kids, a Jewish kid, some East Asians and so on (no black kids, though). "Look at that," he said. "Isn't it awful?"
Needless to say, I excused myself and never spoke to him again. I must really appear to be white or "like everyone else" if this white teacher can say such a thing to me.
I tell you all of this because I wonder; what are your racist experiences? Have you ever really been on the receiving end? Here's a much tougher question: have you been on the giving end, or did nothing when you saw it happening? Before answering that question, you may want to check out Jane Elliott's work here and here, especially if you are Canadian. I highly recommend you seeing her if you get the chance.
Lastly, here are some stats about where I grew up.
I went to synagogue one day and some people driving by called me something like dirty kike, though I can't remember since it was a while ago. In college, people said some pretty stupid things too.
Also, there are two main streams in the Jewish community. Having one parent in each has had me be on the receiving end of a fair bit of slurs from both sides of the community, which is pretty pathetic when you think about it. I imagine mulatto kids get the same.
I got similar satisfaction as you did by outperforming the racists. For instance, I'm headed to University now, in a good program with limited enrollment. (Here in Quebec, there's pre-university college in the same way the States have Junior high.) The bums from college... are still there, taking classes over.
It's a kind of bitter satisfaction, but I can't/choose not to help it.
The intra-community hate has had me stereotype some of my fellow Jews, of which I'm not proud. It's a strange irony of our community that the worst haters of Jews... are Jews!
Anyways, I sympathize.
My girlfriend's parents warned her against seeing me because I was white.
Years after we had been seeing each other, her aunt and uncle invited us both to their place for dinner. During dinner conversation, her uncle was talking about doing business as a jeweler and how he prefers not to do business with Africans. I wasn't sure what he meant and he specified he meant 'black people'. Especially immigrant black people. The irony is that he's an Indian immigrant and his wife is a West Indian immigrant. It made me sick to my stomach being in their presence and both Arsheena and I got out of there.
This morning, while at the grocery store with my two-year old, there was an old asian gentleman at the cash, ahead of us. He didn't speak any English or French. The cashier rebuked him for not speaking the language and told him he should learn, then tossed his receipt at him. I was stunned and the anger didn't well up in me until I had left the store and processed what I had seen.
Needless to say, racism is alive and kicking and each time I've witnessed it it's been born of ignorance and fear.
It doesn't surprise me, though, what you say. And as for what happened this morning, Quebeckers are speaking out more and more about Anglophones and allophones these days. Do you speak French by default at most establishments?
I think a lot of the racism that we experience as kids is more of a juvenile reaction to difference. Kids will pick on anyone who is different, be it black, jewish, short, fat, thick glasses, whatever. A lot of the kids who do that outgrow it as they mature. Unfortunately, the receivers of this punishment don't get over it so easily, as these jabs are delivered to them when they are young and very impressionable.
What's really disturbing is when you see "grown ups" exhibiting that kind of thinking/behaviour.
In my case, the only thing that comes to mind at the moment is this: when I was a kid (14 or so) I was doing some kind of fund-raising thing (delivering flyers or something) in the poor part of town. (There were not a lot of black people where I grew up, but pretty much all of them lived in the poor part of town.) Anyway, me and my buddies are walking along and a group of older (and way bigger) black kids spot us. You know where this is going -- one of them ends up grabbing me by the throat and inflicting some pretty dire threats upon my white ass.
Needless to say he scared the bejeeziz out of me (I was totally not a "fighter"). Thank gawd I didn't piss myself. Anyway, they eventually let us go. After that I was totally befuddled around black people for like the next five years. It wasn't that I assumed they would all spontaneously grab me by the throat, but that I had developed a deep-seated feeling that pretty much all black people hated me because I was white.
Of course that kid wouldn't have done that to me if he didn't have the feeling that all white people hated him because he was black. The endless circle.
On a totally different track, I'm always amused by "liberal" white people who think the answer to racism is to "not see color." That generally translates to "pretend everyone is white."
That's crap. The answer is to not value-judge based on color. Heck, if I were black, or Asian, or Inuit (etc.) I think I'd be pretty happy to have that color/ethnicity right there on my sleeve. It -- and its history -- is part of who I would be. See the color. Embrace the color! Just don't judge the color.
"Do you speak French by default at most establishments?"
Yes, unless I know they're anglos. I couldn't say why.