March 17, 1965

Still becoming an antiracist

March 17, 1965

There was a forum at Masuk High in Monroe tonight. It was fun, cause T and S went. V did not.I did meet a nice guy from Abbot Tech, though.

The forum was on the Negro Revolution. In our panel group, one guy kept calling Negroes "niggers". There were two colored boys, one colored girl plus the guest speaker also Negro, in the room. What a choke!

March 17, 2006

When I just tried to publish this entry, I got an error, and my immediate reaction was that Blogger won't let you use the N word. I almost considered not using it, myself, but in the end, preserving the authentic language and tone of my diary won out. That’s how he talked.

There was one African American family in New Milford, and one mixed family; and they sent a total of four kids to my high school when I was there. I watched the civil rights movement (bizarrely called the Negro Revolution at this forum) on television, not in my backyard.

I remember being deeply shocked that anyone in Connecticut would use that word. Racists lived in the South; Northerners were the good guys.

March 17, 2023

My education in race in America is ongoing. Many things that have happened in our history I know about but cannot comprehend. Owning people. Breeding people. Treating your own offspring like livestock. Murdering people for wanting their rights as citizens. Blowing up children in Sunday school. And that only takes me up to the 1960s. In the decades since I attended that forum. Some things have dropped off the list, but some have not. Discrimination got sneakier and more polite for a while. But I watch the voter suppression laws spread their ugly stain across the country and know it’s back out loud and in the open. I listen to politicians use the word “woke” as an insult, without an ounce of awareness or shame. I used to teach cultural history courses about diversity in the US and its impact, subjects that in many states would be considered illegal.

I know all this, but still do not comprehend how humans can do this to other humans. But I know this: I don’t need to understand their motives to know that what they are doing is wrong and ugly. I don’t need to know their reasons to resist their actions. 

Trivial note: fifteen year old me went to a forum on race to meet guys.