Racism has been a hot topic on the news recently. I have seen a lot of posts from friends and acquaintances, and it seems that everyone has an opinion. A lot of people have been up in arms about racism and prejudices that are going on in our country. My question is, how many of you have actually experienced real racism? I'm talking first hand. How many of you have actually been put down, either verbally or physically because of your race? For being a certain color? For being a minority? I don't think very many of you can honestly say that you have, yet I keep reading an awful lot of really strong words and opinions on the matter.
I have been subjected to racism, and I'm white. I grew up in Corona, California. In a little community called Home Gardens to be exact. My parents moved into our home in Home Gardens when I was about 3, and we lived there until I was 12 years old. I hear that when our family first moved in there, it was a nice, and respectable neighborhood. Over the years, the neighborhood went from being a good mix of White and Hispanic families, to mostly Hispanic. Before long, there really weren't any other White kids my age in the entire area, besides myself and my little brother Steve. As I grew up, myself, and the other kids my age who lived on our Street played together. We had sleep overs, played football, baseball, traded cards, and knew nothing of racism whatsoever. My friend Rique 2 houses down was Hawaiian, and Peter and Junior were Hispanic. I loved those guys. We had a blast and I was treated like family anytime I went over to any of their houses.
One of our favorite things to do was walk to the Circle K convenience store, which was about 1/2 a mile away to spend our allowances on candy and play the arcade games there. Around the time I was about 10 years old, things were starting to change around the neighborhood. By then, several gangs had established themselves in Home Gardens, and the violence was getting worse. There were shootings, drug deals, and drive-by's. Gang fights were getting more and more common. Some of the guys who lived right across the street from us had started a gang, and fights, drug deals, and shootings were getting to be a normal thing. It was around this time, I started having trouble with other kids in the neighborhood. Not any of the guys on our street, of course. We all grew up together and "had each others backs", or whatever we thought that meant back then. Problems occurred when I would leave my street. I started hearing words like "Cracker", stupid White Boy, Whitey, and a slew of derogatory things in Spanish anytime I passed them. I was made to feel unwelcome, and told that I didn't belong there. At first, the problems were just verbal and intimidation. It wasn't long before the fighting started though. Getting "jumped" became a regular thing. Getting into fights because I was White in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood turned into the norm. Sometimes fights were fair, and it was just between 2 guys. Usually one of them would come and initiate the fight, start pushing while the others encircled, and egged the aggressor on, and it would be fairly simple. Just 2 guys who would push each other until one eventually hit the other. Sometimes a few blows would fly, but these fights were usually over fairly quickly. I usually took my beatings, and that was the end of that.
I remember being scared to leave my street. I remember trying to hide bruises from my parents. I remember a lot of pent up anger building up inside of me, because I didn't understand why these other kids hated me so bad. I didn't know them, and they didn't know me. Why did they want to hurt me so bad, all of the time?
There was one particular beating that stood out from the rest, however. I believe I was either 10 or 11 years old at the time. It was a hot Sunday afternoon, and my best friend Rod, my little Brother Steve, and I had decided to walk to the Circle K to spend our allowance. I was wearing these black overalls that were shorts, instead of pants that I really liked. We were bored and wanted to go get some candy and snacks to munch on for the rest of the day. I should mention that we had been having some trouble with a particular little gang of Hispanic kids that lived somewhere in the neighborhood around this time as well. Anytime they saw us, harassment would ensue. Typically it was just verbal, and then we might get shoved around a little bit as well, but that was about it. This day would be different. We were inside the Circle K, Rod and I were checking out what candy we wanted to get, while Steve was playing an arcade game. I heard the door bell rattle and noticed that these guys had come in. There was somewhere between 8-12 of them altogether, including a couple of girls. They were pretty loud as they entered, and immediately took notice of Steve playing his game, and proceeded to surround him and start picking on him. Rod and I walked over and tried to stand close to him, as I'm sure we felt some sort of obligation to protect the little Brother in some way. One of the girls in particular had singled Steve out, and was hitting the buttons while he was playing his game, until he lost and his game was over. Steve was around 8-9 at the time, so he was pretty little. These kids ranged from early to mid teenagers. I am guessing because I remember they all had facial hair, and that made them seem a lot older to me back then. Once Steve had lost his game, he was pretty mad, and the group of them were laughing and making a lot of ignorant comments about him and us. While Steve was standing there fuming about his lost game, apparently he had clenched his fist at his side in anger, and one of the older guys had taken notice. He immediately became more aggressive and started yelling and swearing and saying, "What white boy, you gonna hit my Sister..?" He was right in Steve's face, so I stepped between them, and told Steve and Rod that we should go. All this time, the Clerk did nothing to intervene. As we started to walk outside, I felt a hard shove from behind, but continued to walk out the door, making sure to keep Steve and Rod in front of me, between these guys. They followed us, loud and still swearing. As we got out the door, my heart was pounding, and I knew a fight was inevitable. Just then I felt someone slap the back of my head. Without thinking anything else, I turned around and took a nice hard swing at the closest person to me, and clocked the kid right in the jaw. Apparently this kid was the leader of their little gang, which meant my fate had been sealed. I looked up just in time to see the tallest of the guys, who was a good foot and a half taller than me, take a swing at me. I remember his fist coming down and connecting with my my mouth, and it was hard enough to knock me back into the wall of the Circle K, where my head whipped back and bounced off the wall. I saw stars, and stumbled forward, only to apparently catch another hard punch to the side of my head and I was out. Next thing I knew, I was being kicked repeatedly by a crowd of these guys, and I was trying to cover my face and head. I started to push myself up off the gravel, only to be picked up and thrown across the parking lot. Meanwhile, Rod had run back inside the store and was asking the Clerk for help. This was all taking place directly in front of the store, and right outside the door. The clerk did not call the police, or do anything from what I know. After I got tossed across the parking lot, I lay there for a minute, until Rod came over and tried to help me up. My lip was split from the first punch, my nose was bleeding, I had a small cut above my left eye, and my hands, elbows and knees were tore up and bleeding as well. I remember that it hurt to breathe, and my stomach and chest hurt pretty bad. With Rod's help I hopped as far as I could and we started to head home. I remember blood dripping from my face and running down my legs. Several times, I had to stop and sit down, but the gang of kids weren't too far behind us and continued to follow us all the home until we got to our street. At some points I remember crawling because it hurt too much to walk. Lots of cars passed, but no one stopped to help us. I remember by then we were all crying as well. It took us a while to get home, as it was about 1/2 a mile away, and when you are young, that seems a lot farther.
As soon as we walked into my house, my Mom heard us crying and came around the kitchen corner. She took a look at me, and her eyes got REALLY big. She was like a big pissed off Mama Bear, and I knew she wanted blood. She told us all to get in our mini-van, and went looking to find these guys. I had a rag pressed on my lip, to try to stop the bleeding, which I remember stung pretty bad. Also my hands were shaking pretty bad, so it was hard to hold it there. It wasn't long before she found them, since apparently they lived right a block away from our street, and were all outside in one of the guys front yard. I saw them, and instantly had this fear that my Mom was going to go piss them off even more, and another beating would follow. As my Mom screeched up in front of their house, I dropped down to the floor of the mini-van, in an effort to hide. Also, I remember being a bit embarrassed, because it was a pretty terrible thing to be a snitch. From the inside of the van, I could hear her yelling, and then a minute or two later, suddenly the van door swung open. My Mom was standing there with what appeared to be another Mom, and the whole group of these guys. My Mom pointed down to me with an angry finger, and declared,"Look what your boys did to my son!" The other Mom looked down at my with big eyes and a look of shock. I heard the one boy who was the leader kid I had punched start to say something in Spanish, and his Mom turned a strange color of red, then spun around and slapped him across the face harder than I have ever seen someone get slapped to this day. He instantly shut up, then turned and walked away into his house. We left and a little bit later I was taken to the Doctor, who stitched my lip, picked all the little pieces of gravel out of my hands, elbows, and knees, X-rayed my ribs, which weren't broken but apparently several of them were bruised. He also said I had a mild concussion, which I assume was when my head bounced off the wall at the Circle K.
I never saw or was troubled by that group of guys again.
Later the next day, I remember one of our neighbors, an older Hispanic man named Bob call me over to his garage where he was sitting. He said he wanted to see what had happened to me. As I walked up closer, he saw the damage and I remember him saying, "Damnit Cracker Boy! What is your name Son?" I told him it was James, to which he replied, "I am going to have to teach you how to fight back so that I don't have to keep seeing you bleed all over. It ain't right." Apparently Bob was a retired boxing couch, and he had some gloves and a couple of boxing bags set up in his garage. After that, he taught me some basics of how to punch, and how to "work a bag". From then on, things were a little different.
I still got in fights. The difference was that now I could at least defend myself a little better. From then on, I never fought the same guy twice. Bob's philosophy was that if I was going to fight, I needed to make the other guy so sorry during the process that he never wanted to do it again. It wasn't about winning or losing. It was about defending myself, and not being the neighborhood punching bag anymore. I remember quite a few trips to the Doctors, for sprained and broken fingers. If you look at my fingers, you will see that nearly all of them are crooked. All of my knuckles have scars, from getting cut on guys teeth or otherwise sharp facial features. The thing about punching someone, is that it hurts. It is not cool, like you see in the movies. Fights typically didn't last long, and usually didn't last longer than a few punches thrown. All it took was a good solid punch to the nose, and a fight was usually over.
Eventually, the violence grew too much, and the shootings in our neighborhood, on our street, and directly in front of our house, persuaded my Mom to want to move elsewhere. By then, my parents had separated, and were in the process of a divorce. One particular incident involved a crazy guy who had bought my Dog. Apparently he bought the dog to breed with his 2 females, and then tried to bring the dog back and demanded his money back. My Mom had already spent the money, and explained to him that she couldn't do that right then. He started screaming obscenities and pounding on our metal screen door saying how he was going to kill all of us and rape her. Yes, I remember that. I remember being scared, and getting my baseball bat, just in case he the door didn't keep him out. Later that night, he came back, while we were all asleep. Our neighbor Rudy saw him trying to climb through the front window of our house, which happened to be my bedroom. He got his handgun, and then fired a shot to scare the guy off. It wasn't long after that, that my parents agreed it just wasn't a safe neighborhood anymore, and in December of 1993, I moved with my Mom, Brother Steve, and little Sister Angie to Utah.
I have personally experienced real racism. Let me clarify though, and say that I am NOT racist. I do not hate or have any bad feelings toward Hispanics. Some of my best friends growing up were Hispanic or Latino. What I don't like, are ignorant people who go out of their way to hurt other people. After moving to Utah, I got in one more fight, while I was in 7th grade, and have never fought since. I hate fighting. I do not understand why people do it, and why people feel the need to put anyone else down for being different. We are all different. We are all unique. Variety is what makes us unique and different. No two people are the same. What I have experienced first hand, is what some people refer to as "reverse racism". There is so much hate and intolerance in the world today, and I see people lashing out at nearly any excuse that comes their way.
A lot of my White friends who I grew up with in Corona, grew up and became skinheads. I can understand why and what made them go that way, but it still makes me sad to see that cycle continue. I am glad and thankful that I was able to escape that. Apparently the year after we moved, a rival gang came through and executed all of the guys who were in the gang that lived on my street. Even members of their families were killed.
Do I have any reason to have "racist" feelings towards certain people because of what happened to me growing up? Sure I do. But I don't. Like I've said, some of the worst people that I've ever met are White. Some are Hispanic. Who cares what color your skin is? Does it define who you are and what kind of person you are going to be? I don't think so. Our actions do that. Our choices define what type of person we are choosing to be. We all have the capacity to change. My wish is that we would all stop judging each other. Especially people we have never met, and know nothing about. Just because I got cut off by an Asian guy, doesn't mean that all Asian's are bad drivers, or bad people. Maybe he was just having a bad day. I don't know what he had going on, and why he was in such a hurry. Perhaps he had a very good reason for doing so, I will never know. None of us will except for him. Why does it have to be "the Asian guy" anyways? Why not just the guy?
Recently, I saw an interview of Morgan Freeman. The interviewer was asking him his views on racism in America, and what should be done about it. His response was perfect. He simply said, "Stop talking about it." The more we continue to make an issue of it, and talking about it, the longer it will stay an issue. Why do we call Black people "African-Americans"? Why not just call them Americans? If you are a citizen of this country, then why is it important what color your skin is, or what gender you are, or what your preferences are? Do those things define you? I don't think so. It should be your actions that define your character.
Let's grow up America.
