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aaron klinefelter
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January 16, 2007
> 2:17 PM
race and culture > my experience Well I'm a day late for an MLK day post but here we go anyway. You might also want to read Michael Spencer's interesting take as well. Every year at this time I generally post something about Dr. King, race relations, etc. I don't see why this year should be any different. I thought it might be interesting to share a little bit about my history in reference to racial issues, where I grew up, childhood memories and influences, etc. Culture is huge in all this. Those learned, shared ways of thinking and habits that are passed down from generation to generation. Many of you know I have a degree in Anthropology so these things are fascinating to me. I was born (and spent my young life until College) in Harlan, Kentucky. My family has been in Harlan for nearly 200 years, since before it was called Harlan. These are the mountains of Appalachia, and not just that, they are the mountains of Appalachia with coal in them. There's no coal in East Tennessee or North Carolina to speak of. Therefore, the culture is different. From Kentucky and Virgina, North, there is coal in them thar hills and once it was discovered, life for the people in that region changed forever. Just a little side history there. Here's another side historical note. Even before the coal was mined, the mountains were different than the rest of what is considered "the South" in America. The deep South may overlap Appalachia but Mountain people and Southern people do not fully share a culture. Especially in that part of Kentucky, predominantly in the mountains, the culture of slavery wasn't a huge part of people's lives or the economy. There were a relative few slaves in that area and the people, by a large majority in the Appalachian region of Kentucky fought for the Union in our Civil War in the 1860's. The black population of Harlan is made up mostly, as in most other coal mining areas, of people who moved from the deep South in order to work in the coal mines near the turn of the century. And these black men worked in the mines along side white men, some of whom were also European immigrants from Italy, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. And when they were ALL tired (some again) of being treated like slaves, they all organized into one Union and fought together for their common rights as workers. Now, am I saying this was and is some non-racist eutopia? No. It wasn't then and it isn't now. But the racism that exists there, and it does as it does everywhere, is not the kind of sometimes violent and overt racism that one once found in the deep American South. It was, and is still to a degree, a segregated area. But Klan? Never heard of it except on TV. Never saw anything like that. Did I hear unsavory racial labels being used, even in my own home? Certainly I did. It was an unfortunate part of the culture. Was I forbidden to play with black children, or children from any other race? No. Nothing like that. Were people of other races ever in our home? Sure. Like I said, not quite the same. Racism is racism, to a certain extent anyway, I suppose. None of it is excusable, nor can we allow it to become acceptable. But we have made the excuses and have accepted it, in the Church as in every other place. So, here's why I turned out not allowing the "N" word to be used in my house. Here are some possible reasons why I, from a fairly early age, turned away from the culural racism, albeit non-violent and "polite," to which I was exposed. First may well be that even though I was where I was, and even though some racism was there, I was never taught that blacks were somehow not human or anything like that. Here's a shout out to TV. Can TV affect you? It sure can, both positively and negatively. I'll talk about the positives. Sesame Street, Electric Company, Mister Rogers, Roots, Good Times, and many many others. Shows like these, I'm guessing, influenced the way many kids like me saw people of other races and cultures. They helped mold my mind and my heart toward openness. Roots was a phenomenon, I believe, for whites and blacks alike at that time. Things had begun to change a decent bit by the mid 1970s but there was much leftover muck. Roots cut through some of that muck for many people and faced us all with some very hard historical realities. I think it effected me, deeply. Even before that, too, I had been sent to school by my parents, to a small Catholic grade school, Holy Trinity. In my classes every day were white kids, black kids, poore, middle class, maybe rich, all kinds. I don't know how they kept the school open as long as they did (closed now unfortunately) because I don't think half the kids there could afford to go there. My Mom said they paid "as much as they could afford." I'm sure that was most kids there. I was taught by Nuns who marched with King in Alabama. That atmosphere helped to mold my mind and my heart toward openness. So, as a result of, basically I believe, the Grace of God, I became a person who wanted interaction and relationships with people of other races and other cultures. I've talked before here about growing up, also, in a "hospital neighborhood" where I had mostly friends from other countries. I'm sure that had a big influence on me as well. I think anyone who spends most of their lives in a place with only other people of the same race and subculture will have a bit of a myopic viewpoint, black, white or otherwise. However it has always worked out, in every period of my life since a certain time I've ended up being in multi-racial social circles, having friends of different races. The church we were a part of was one of the only truly multi-racial churches in Lexington. That was a great thing about that church. And it wasn't even planned, how 'bout that. Anyway, right now is probably the "whitest" time in my life that I can remember. And no, we don't live in some mythical lily-white suburban neighborhood. Our suburb is pretty racially mixed up. Our last neighborhood was like this too. And that's a good thing. Our kids have always had a very diverse group of other kids to play with. Anyway, it has just ended up that we're not regularly hanging out with many people who are black right now. We see and talk to some of our friends from the old church from time to time, but you know, that's more of a "if you're not in the same church you don't really talk that much" thing more than anything else. I don't like it. I mean, the super "white-ness" right now. I'm not used to it. It doesn't feel right. I'm not planning on going out and trying to recruit me any new black friends or members for vbcc though. I tend to think you can't construct that kind of thing. Not on a relational level, not really. Can we be intentional about it? Sure, I think so. Mostly what we hear, though, about that kind of intentionality is more mechanical and I'm not sure it ends up accomplishing much. It's forced and that doesn't work too well on the level of "real." Well, that's that for now. I thought, even tough longer than I'd planned, might be interesting to share. Hopfeully in the future we will eventually have less and less stories about people ever having to move away from parts of their native culture in areas like this. I hope I have helped my children be one more step down the road toward the dream. Peace be with you. technorati tags > race, MLK, appalachian culture, racism Labels: culture, life, personal 0 Comments:| permalink | e-mail me | 
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