No Swimming While Black

I was reading an article on CNN.com today about how a group of African American children were asked to leave a swimming facility because of the ignorance and prejudice of others. It makes my skin crawl and my fist clinch when I hear about people mistreating children. Furthermore; it makes my nauseous to hear about racism in a society that has accomplished so much and prides it’s self on being a land of opportunity. As appalling as the situation may be there is a growing experience amongst the drama. Many will say I never want my children to have to experience racism, but that is a very unrealistic desire. Though parents will do everything they can to keep their child away from hurt, harm and danger. As children grow their way through each stage of life and to become productive adults, they must experience some bumps and bruises along the way. This experience will be for some of the children something they will never forget and it’s at the moment the situation unfolded the children learned that everyone is not nice and everything is not always fair in life.

This reminds me of my first experience with racism in the 6th grade. A friend named Carly invited me to her birthday party. I was so excited about going until the next day at school Carly came to me crying because she had to un-invite me to the party because her father said no black people could come. I didn’t know how to react, I just told her it was ok and not to worry about it. When actually I wanted to cry because I couldn’t go, but I just couldn’t understand why I couldn’t go. When I got home I went to my Ma-maw’s house who is Caucasian and told her what happened and she yelled “oh now that just a bunch of Sh*t!!, he needs to have a foot stuck right up his a$$” Then her husband who I called Pa-paw said to me “not everyone is nice to black people and don’t ever think that all white people act like that girls father. People who treat others mean because of the color of their skin are just lower than a d@mn dog” After that experience my once jaded eyes had been open to the reality of the issues of racial discrimination. I started to pay more attention about how some family members referenced about how white folks do this or don’t do that or try to stop them from doing this or that. I also noticed how the ways I was treated by certain teachers in school, in the grocery store, on jobs or where ever I went. That experience taught me a lot about people and my family showed me how to deal with it and how not to deal with it. I hope the families of the children educate them about the ills of this world and how to overcome them by not stooping down to their level of other peoples ignorance.