I remember during my freshman year in high school me and a friend of mine were in the store around the corner from where I lived. At this point my family and I had already moved out of Passaic (which was a predominately black and spanish city) and relocated to Rockaway (which was the exact opposite) There was an older guy in the store with a weird mustache in front of us. My friend (who was white) was chuckling to himself about the mustache and I being a fourteen year old started doing the same. At no point did we point or out right laugh at the guy, but my friends laughter made me laugh. When we went outside I noticed the older guy was still in his car. As we walked past it he started saying something, at first I didn’t think he was talking to us because in my mind why would he be. His car was running so it was hard to hear and then as he backed out he called me the N word and sped off. It happened so fast that I didn’t really understand what had just taken place. My friend had the same look of shock on his face that I had on my own. It was the first time I had to deal with a racist up close and personal.

As I walked back home I started to think about the incident. I went from being shocked to being angry. I had been living in Rockaway for a couple of years at that point and besides the occasional stare or whisper I never experienced someone calling me the N word. That night I didn’t want to tell my mom what transpired at the store. I knew that she would be angry, well let me rephrase that my mom would most likely start driving around the neighborhood looking for a car that fit the description. So I chose my words carefully and broke down the story to her. She did get angry, and she also went to the store that it happened at and talked to the manager. The manager apologized over and over again and promised that if he saw a car fitting that description he’d “call us”.  I never ran into the guy with the weird mustache again but I also never forgot the incident. 

Back when I was in high school black history month lasted about one day, usually on Martin Luther King’s birthday. We would watch old civil rights videos from the sixties, like the watts riots and excerpts from Dr.Kings speeches and I remember sitting in my history class feeling like every eye was  on me. Not only was I the only black kid in my class, I was also one of about ten black kids in my entire freshman class. Never have I felt so alone than during those times. It made me angry to see black people being sprayed with water hoses, attacked by police dogs, and in some extreme footage hanging from nooses. 

As I watched the grainy video it almost made me feel like its from a time long passed. Then as I got older  I realized that the sixties weren’t that far away. My mom was in her twenties at that time and my oldest brother was born during the same decade. With that being said it was still so hard for me to imagine this happening during my mom’s youth and into her adult years. She’s originally from the south (Virginia) and grew up in an area that is still for the most part segregated. My grandmother hated white people, and it still amazes me how open minded my mom is to other races. She could of grown up adopting the same views as my grandmother, but she never did. Despite experiencing plenty of racism throughout her life, my mom cried for JFK just as much as she cried for Martin Luther King when they were both assassinated. When I started dating my wife (who is white) all my mom asked was if I was happy, and how she treats me. It was about the person not the skin color and despite my mom’s history she had no issue with me getting married to someone who wasn’t the same race that I was. 

You hear about “how far we’ve come” as a country in terms of race relations, and then you hear about racial profiling, and hate groups (from all races) almost every day. It’s not just in the United States it’s all over the world. 

“Hate is spewed from the mouths of those who don’t know love” 

What if color wasn’t an issue? What if we were all one color? We would end up judging each other by our actions not our race. It wouldn’t matter what the color of someone’s skin is, if they were a jerk they were a jerk and no stereotype would influence our judgment. Kid’s don’t have that issue when their younger. They don’t see race, they see the person for who they are. They end up getting polluted by other people’s judgments and views as they grow older. 

I have friends from all different races and backgrounds. I love the diversity I have in my life; I feel it gives me balance. I didn’t determine who my friends were by what they looked like, I chose who they were by how they treated me.