When I was 16 years old in 1964 around the time of the Watts riots I was working for Ernie's camera shop in Glendale as a delivery driver of cameras films and other Camera shop type supplies that I would both pick up and deliver.
On one of these drives around Los Angeles County on my after High school job I got lost and drove into Watts by accident. I began to notice that I was the only white person I could see and realized I was in danger then. Now it isn't like this anymore in California but if you were the only white person in a black neighborhood you might not be safe unless everyone knew you in 1964.
I had another experience in 1960 when I was 12 near USC which was then a Mostly black neighborhood. My father was an electrical contractor and I was helping him wire a Catholic Nunnery or school (I'm not sure which now because it was 1960). However, Black kids across the street were throwing rocks at me and hitting our truck and almost breaking the windows out of my Dad's electrical utility truck. I went inside and asked my father what to do. If I was in my home turf I would have just thrown rocks back at whoever it was. (That's just how boys were then) you returned violence with violence until someone got scared and ran away or someone was injured. But, I was completely unfamiliar because the only black people I had ever met went to one of my parent's churches and they weren't violent because they were older and religious instead.
So, I had no idea how to successfully deal with this situation then in 1960 because I was out my culture. My father told me just to keep finding parts for him to finish the job and to watch the rocks and to dodge them as he didn't want it to turn into a race riot (there were lots of these then) and watch people die or get injured. Also, back then police didn't go into black areas at all unless they sent 10 or 12 police car units armed to the teeth back then either. And in order to send these 10 police cars into an area many people would have to be either dead or shots fired or someone knifed or something really serious like this. So, this was just how things really were in 1960.
Today, I'm not afraid of black people anymore most of the time unless they are dressed like gangsters and have their own gang sign or walk. Because most of the craziness of those days is now gone. Thank God.
However, now the problem is more when you see women with hair coverings like Islamic people wear. You can only tell the women are Islamic so you look for things like children with them to see if they are safe or not. It's very strange to have to look for a woman's hair covering and sizing up the men with them to sense whether you are safe there or not. And if there are children present, usually you know you are safe enough to be there with them and they are not going to blow you up or something.
I went into an International Market recently to buy some Baklava (a Greek or middle Eastern Desert) with my son because he likes baklava and I'm okay with it too. The women in there were wearing hair coverings so I knew they were Islamic and they gladly welcomed us in as is often a middle eastern custom. But, then I was taken aback a little by them trying to get us to buy something different than what we wanted. But then I realized this was also cultural and that I shouldn't take this personally. Just because someone moves to the U.S. and opens an International market doesn't mean even if they speak good English that they don't bring some or even all of their customs here too. And those customs are going to be different than Americans.
So, we all need to learn how to get along with all cultures. However, trying to be politically correct likely isn't going to work either, because it is just a lie that EVERYONE can see through.
And nothing is worse than people lying to you all the time no matter what culture you are in!
So, each of us has to figure out how to deal with people who are very international or from subcultures we are not used to.
The people who often have the hardest time with this live in the middle of the U.S. in a white only culture and mostly didn't finish high school which also tends to be the demographic of a majority of people supporting Trump too.
No comments:
Post a Comment