I Was Colorblind But Now I See

It was 1985, my Junior year at South High. Every time I walked on the school campus my skin crawled a little. Everyone said it was fine. “Rebel Pride!” was something we all were supposed to embrace. At the time, the student body to me seemed to be 40% white, 35% black and 25% other. I am not sure of the exact statistic. 

I would hear my white friends complain about how we couldn’t fly the General Lee/Confederate Flag anymore at football games. Political Correctness was robbing us of our heritage. I was at a total loss of what that meant. The North won the war. The South lost, why would anyone want to fly a flag as if something was a victory. I felt embarrassed for my black friends wondering if they were hearing any of it. Wondering why more fights on campus didn’t happen.

The mascots of our school were Jody and Johnny Rebel. Yup… That’s right. Jody wore the complete baby blue taffeta ballgown WITH, hoops. Johnny bedecked in the Rebel blue and a hat on top. Each football game I would wonder why no one was saying anything. How this could be ok with everyone! How it was possible Everyone embraced 

Rebel Pride.

I went along. I wanted to fit in. However, I didn’t grow up here. My early childhood years I listened to stories about my parents marching in Civil Rights marches. How my Mom related to discrimination because of the religious bias she encountered in her state. She was not LDS (Mormon) and in the 1950 thru 1960s that was a huge issue. No dates. Exclusions from social gatherings or babysitting jobs. Her empathetic stories would go on and on. I was raised to never exclude people because of their differences. I was raised to be Colorblind. If I didn’t see color, if I only saw people, there would be no racism.

Poof… it would be gone.  

No need for Affirmative Action. No need for Wage Equality. No need to change history. If we would treat people like people and not a color or a disability, the Parentals told me, the problem would be solved.

I believed them right up until the end of my Junior year. 

People told me I was moderately popular in high school. I heard a rumor that I was liked. It would be my Senior year so why not?

Why not run in an election to be part of the school mascot team. I was told I would be a cute Jody Rebel.

So I ran. I made posters. I campaigned. I didn’t go out for cheer leading because it was a potential scheduling conflict. As did a few other girls. One of the girls was black, Georgia. The other girl had the same name as mine, Becky.

It came down to a runoff. 

Becky 

Becky H. (Me)

Georgia.

The morning after the final vote I was so excited. I couldn’t wait to get to school and see who won. When I arrived, I saw the announcement, Georgia won. I was happy for her. Naturally a little disappointed, but Georgia was a huge soul. Everyone loved her. She would make a fantastic Jody Rebel. She definitely would be better at it than me.

I moved on with my day.

As the classes transitioned, I began to hear a murmur. Towards the end of the day it finally was reported to me through some acquaintances. They agreed with the rumor. They were mad at me too. What I had done was completely unjust. It was offensive. I should have known better.

I should have known that Becky C. was more popular than me.

I should have done the honorable thing and dropped out of the race.

I confused everyone because the underclassmen couldn’t tell the difference between us.

I had split the vote and allowed a black girl to win Jody Rebel.

Didn’t I know? Jody Rebel was supposed to be WHITE? I completely ruined our classes Senior year. How selfish I was. Blablabla.

Suddenly, I was no longer colorblind. I now understand what looked at me that day in the face was systemic racism. Many friendships silently ended for me that day. I was ok that they were mad at me. I was ok that their opinion was I somehow was an awful person for a day.

I felt proud. I, unknowingly, did my part. Yes! this school was racist. Yes! our mascot was racist. The whole premise of our high school celebrated oppression. Somehow, unwittingly I defied it. I made room for a change. I never apologized for staying in the race. I still don’t. I wanted to be Jody Rebel. Georgia won fair and square in that runoff.

More importantly,  

It was time we had Georgia as our Jody Rebel.

The Ancestral Dimension: Freedom or Bondage

Growing up, family gatherings were filled with tales of blazing a trail within a land of opportunity.

On my Father’s side, my Great Grandma Pfiester came to America from Switzerland at the age of 11. She married my Great Grandfather Dooley a second generation Irish immigrant- originally it was O’Dooley, but they dropped the O’ because it sounded too Irish.  They were Pastors, inventors and rebel rousers. If you thing Italians are passionate, wait till you spend time with the descendants of a Swiss German/ Irishman.

On my Mother’s side, tales of Great Great Grandparents traveling the Mormon trail to a land of hope and religious freedom. Names like Gould, Pearmain and Coombs followed the call of Brigham Young to fill the promised land of Deseret. One of the Grandmothers died within weeks of reaching Fountain Green. Another, my Grandmother remembers speaking in a Cockney accent.

Other immigrants within my family tree I am not so close to. Those trace back to the Mayflower, Revolutionary war and some mystery as to if we are related to Mary Todd Lincoln.

What all these people have in common is this: they wanted to be here. They all came hoping for a better life. Fighting, blending in, and sometimes separating themselves from a world they saw as evil for the right to Life, Liberty and Pursue Happiness/property. 

But what if…

What if at those family gatherings, the stories had been different. What if they were filled with disillusionment and injustice? What if those Great Greats didn’t have a choice to come to this country? What if my Grandparent’s stories were filled with denied opportunity.

All my Great Grandfather had to do was drop the O’ from his name in order to avoid discrimination. To be able to get a job. A name like Dooley would have been accepted freely, promoted and granted liberties. A person cannot change the color of their skin.

For them, this was not a land of opportunity. It was a land of bondage. During the Revolutionary war, those who fought were promised freedom, only to be denied it in the end. The Astonishing Life of OctavianNothing is a brilliant series dealing with this very subject. My Revolutionary war ancestors' stories now have a deeper dimension. 

Around the tables of color, family stories of triumph in the face of adversity instead of hope and promise. They talk about how to love an enemy in the face of violence. The value of hard work is flavored with tales of injustice, being passed over and sometimes hopelessness.

Drew Hart wrote about his own experience as a black man. In a town where discrimination is still prevalent I often frustrated with those who say:

Slavery was long ago.

Why does it matter now?

Can’t they just move on?

Racism does not exist anymore. 

But just as I am a product of my lineage, so is my fellow man. My privilege of having immigrants who journeyed because they chose to, can be named. The ability to know exactly where they came from blinds me to those whose only point of origin is the name of a continent. The slave trade decimated cultures in Africa. They don’t have the luxury of a cultural diversity as I do within: Irish, Swiss German, English.

My story would be much different if all I had to say was: my immigrants were from Europe.

It is my responsibility to remember the persecution my own Irish heritage felt. To keep in perspective the isolation my Mother felt as a non-Mormon growing up within a Mormon culture in the 1950s. It is for these reasons my parents marched with Martin Luther King for equality and I endeavor to teach my kids to live these same values- Love your neighbor, no matter the color of the skin. Share the hope of opportunity. Build those up around the corner because the cause of equality starts with me. Living within White Privilege.