It is disturbing to know that Danny is from Tennessee, the state where the Klan started after the Civil War and I am from Visalia in the San Juaquin Valley, the California ag town supported by immigrant workers where the Klan flourished in the 20s and 30s. So prevalent was the KKK in the San Joaquin Valley, that when I was 6 years old, in 1986, business owner Loren Lowdermilk announced that he would be named grand titan for the Ku Klux Klan in California and Visalia, my home town, would become the KKK's headquarters. Fortunately, that set off demonstrations of protest outside Lowdermilk's auto-parts business, and KKK headquarters were moved elsewhere. I am sure Danny and I are raising boys now who would have demonstrated against hate, not for it, like those is Charlottesville, and we will always celebrate diversity with our boys, so that gives me hope, but I wonder what kind of world they will have to navigate.
While I never personally witnessed any klan activity in the SJ valley, I remember finding it shocking when someone told me the public pools were only relatively recently desegregated. Pools were a way of life in the SJ valley where it was often in the triple digits all summer. I came across several articles below which documented the ways desegregation laws were avoided, starting with the YMCA and private clubs, where private pools could make their own laws. If you fly over the valley today, you see the privatization of pools is complete, as nearly every backyard has a pool. There are very few public pools available to those who don't. For those of us who grew up happily swimming our summers away in private pools, these articles show just how pivotal and important public spaces are for social integration.
Last week I attended the groundbreaking for a new public pool in Arvada in an underserved community. Colorado's swimming season is not nearly as long as California's which is basically year round, but reading these articles now really gives perspective on what that new pool will offer that community as I take my son to our private neighborhood pool to learn to swim, and pay for our monthly membership for swim lessons at the YMCA.
Having grown up in a predominantly Hispanic farming community, I recognize the stark separation of populations here. I see how the public/private Apex partnership in Arvada provides resources to underserved communities with outstanding recreational facilities, to the extent they can with voted in bond funds, but I also see how various communities rarely overlap and I wonder just how intentional or unintentional segregation policies are that still remain. The infrastructure of racism has a long strong history in this country and its confines all around us can not be ignored. The whole pick yourself up by your Bootstraps argument doesn't hold water, if you drown before you ever have the opportunity to learn to swim. Black children are still 3 times more likely to die from Unintentional drowning than white children, and the article below clearly outlines the segregation that still makes it so, not the myth perpetuated where Danny grew up that said "black people are too dense. They can't float."
There are those who will read the first line of this post and call reverse racism. They will try to highlight my admitted biases against Southern whites and my distasteful tendency to group, to which I've already admitted. So let's be clear: There is a difference between prejudice and racism, in that we all come to the table with pre-conceived ideas, but when we can't see the person past the stereotype, we impose racist views. I fell in love with and married the Southerner after acknowledging I had clear prejudices, then recognized he rose above my expectations, and I have since embraced many parts of Southern culture. Of course you can't lump all Southerners as racist and Likewise, you can't lump all black people as drug addict convicts, and you can't lump all Mexicans as those who will steal from you or steal your jobs, and you can't lump all single mothers as living off the system, and you can't lump all Russians as mafiosos (unless they are connected to Trump), and you can't lump all women as emotional defensive nazi fems, and you can't lump all Asians as math geniuses, and you can't lump all Indians as smelly curry eaters, and you can't lump all Californians as shallow "valley girls", and you can't lump all Jews as conniving, or all Christians as self righteous, or all white people as entitled elitists, and you can't lump all Muslims as haters of western ideals. Stereotypes exist everywhere and among all groups, and there is no escaping societal influences which give us pre-conceived notions of a person or group. It is when we acknowledge and challenge those notions in our heads that we are moving beyond hate and embracing love. Here I was acknowledging my preconceived ideas of the South, but also recognizing Danny's experiences there. There is a reason he said he would never move back, and it's not the humidity. It's the ingrained accepted attitudes he has rejected, and the stifling grouping of races and classes which was isolating. While you can't lump all Southerners as racist, you can look at regional voted in policies that reinforce discrimination and challenge the attitudes that put them in place. I'm not a comedian, but many comedians do a good job of calling out stereotypes and challenging them. But viewers have to be smart enough to recognize parody and reject those same stereotypes. Then the next step is asking yourself things like "why is it that black men are incarcerated at 5 times the rate of white men?" Or "Why is it that single mothers on minimum wage with no access to affordable childcare need welfare to survive?" Then sharing love could translate to instead of demonizing people who live under bridges or trash parks, we can evaluate the policies that keep them there and recognize the resources lacking. But make no mistake, there is no "two sides" to racism. No one should ever get shot down while playing baseball, or run down in a crowd at 23 before she even started living, or slung up in a tree, or incarcerated for life without adequate defense. Evil, pain and suffering are all around us, but a little bit of good can make a big difference, starting with a smile and empathy.
http://kvpr.org/post/when-kkk-was-mainstream
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php…
https://www.google.com/…/black-children-swimming-drownings-…
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/20/america_resegregated/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41172036…