Babies

Last year I was hosting a virtual baby shower for a friend. I was looking for pictures of "cute babies" for a game . When I typed the words "cute baby" into a popular search engine, I noticed something immediately: of the first 40 pictures that came up, 34 of them were little. white. babies. Eventually I spyed an asian baby, then finally, a black baby. Curious and kind of disgusted, I went to a second and third search engine and typed in the same thing. Not a black or asian baby to be seen. Anywhere. "Well, I can't unknow this.", I thought - I find myself saying that a lot these days.

And we wonder why internal bias is blazed into our brains. I get many of my photos from a popular online website. And again: Where are the black families? Where are the black parents? Where are the black children? Black teachers? Apparently there are none. Only smiling white, skinny, female teachers - with blonde hair of course.

Sweet Jesus. Where can we possibly go from here. I've done quite a bit of reading and work with anti-racism. I still have a LOT to learn. I took an anti-bias test online. Apparently, deep in my "woke" self - I am still not woke. My test showed that I was most frightened by: black men and that I associate black men with guns. I was PISSED.

Recently I went on a date (oh the joy of dating in your 50's) and on the surface, this guy seemed to have similar values as me. We chatted for a bit. The chat was just ... hmmmm, o.k.

FINALLY, he started asking me about my job, which is always a huge mistake. I haven't learned yet that not as many people find my job as interesting as I do.

I began telling him about the Anti-Racist Educator class I had just finished. He looked at me and without missing a beat said, "Well that must have been an easy A". I looked at him and in the same instance wished I wasn't there and wanted to stay. For me it's always important to have conversations with people who think differently. Especially about the important things. I want to get into their brains so I don't feel angry anymore, so I have a better understanding of where they are coming from. I took a deep breath and asked...

"Why do you say that?"

"Because. You just don't see it anywhere."

"Can you tell me more?" (can I STAND the more he was about to say?)

"Well there's no such thing as black or white. I mean, I don't see color. I have a friend who is black and he doesn't see color either! Every Wednesday we go out for watermelon and chicken. I mean, both black and white people eat that. And we always have a great time!"

I just looked at him. I was dumbfounded. I literally did not know what to say or if to say anything at all.

I know I'm supposed to speak up or I am just as culpable as he is in allowing racism to continue and black lives not to matter. So, I stammered and said,

"Hmmmm. Interesting." Not a strong repsonse I know but, WOW. Then I pulled it together and said:

"I know it exists. It is rooted in all of our political, economic and public school systems. It may not look like the KKK all the time, but it is an insideous form of cancer in our country."

"Well, I just don't see it", he said, then he moved on to his lifelong dream of living in the woods and his problem with the government for auditing him and cheating him on his tax return. "That's white racism!", he said with his his eyes squinched up and his jaw clenched.

As you might have guessed, I asked for the check. As I said good bye what I wanted to say in response to his white racism comment was, "but I thought racism doesn't exist!". Instead, I left him with this:

"Go search 'cute baby' on the internet. You'll see that all the cute babies look just like you and you'll feel much better. You'll see that white racism doesn't exist at all."

Mic drop. I was out.

(Just to exemplify what you get when

you type in "cute black baby" - these pictures were

right next to each other.)