Just a Small Town Girl in a Midwest World
I was raised in a rural Midwest town in the 1990s. I saw life there as the heart of America. The center of the continent, our country, and also being centered in the typical American experience. Everyone helped everyone out. Doors to homes were never locked even at night, and everyone was in everyone’s business like one big extended family. The community also had very little diversity. Less than a dozen families in town were BIPOC, and diversity in religion was Methodist, Lutheran, or Catholic.
Growing up I was never taught the true horrors of racism in America. I was never taught slavery outside of chores on the farm, and didn’t understand all the racial violence that existed past the Civil War. The Civil Rights Movement was characterized as peaceful protests and activism, with none of the violence against Black Americans acknowledged. I saw racism in our country as being wiped out in a slow steady climb. History and change was characterized as always getting better. The conflict, actual violence, murders, genocide, and constant pushback against BIPOC in our country that happened every step of the way was never mentioned. All I knew was this steady noble march to our truly perfect union had reached the peak decades before my birth.
I was taught that racism was a very specific cult-type hatred and was not taught how it showed up in our daily lives in all sorts of ways. I was never taught that racism looked like policies, legislation, and cultural abuse that disproportionately targeted minority groups. And when I did learn about actual genocide and tragedies it was framed as being unfortunate without the actual horrors and human suffering covered. Without this context I had no empathy for how bad these events in history really were. I was however taught that racism looked like the Ku Klux Klan and the uneducated extremists in the south who flew Confederate flags. Those people were the racists and that was racism. And just as Jesus’s death washed away sins, the death of Martin Luther King Jr. was taught in the same way. When he was assassinated it was the last great racist act, and sins of our past were all but forgiven. We all saw the errors of our ways, and the slate was wiped clean to move forward without consequence of past sins.
I believed the country I grew up in now didn’t have racism except for the rare extremists. We were now a nonracist society since the Civil Rights Movement. We had risen above racism completely—we didn’t see color. The generations before me had conquered racism and I was already enlightened just by being born in modern times. The work was already done for me decades ago.
Growing up I was told racists were bad people, and since we weren’t bad people we weren’t racist. This was often accompanied by the anecdote of my father going to an all black wedding ‘that one time’ as proof. If being racist was a test, we checked all the not racist boxes. In fact mentioning someone’s race was seen as rude and poor etiquette. We do not talk about such things. In true Midwest fashion, anything uncomfortable such as race and racism was avoided in discussion.
That was how I was taught. I never questioned the lack of Black history in my schooling or literature. I never questioned the cop shows we all watched featuring BIPOC as the enemy. We didn’t see color, so there was no reason to examine why the hero centered in every narrative was white. In our color blind society, roles obviously were cast by qualifications and not stereotypes. Right? And no one ever pointed out that the only time a BIPOC individual was on our TV they were either entertaining us as an athlete or a musician, or they were depicted as a dangerous criminal. Race wasn’t a factor anyone considered. We didn’t see color, so we didn’t have to see any of this as problematic at all.
Part of how I grew up also wasn’t traditional for a Midwest kid in a rural town. My aunt was a dorm mother at the local college and every holiday we would have the international students over for a day playing games and a hot holiday meal. I don’t remember a single holiday without welcoming a stranger at our table. My grandma would also regularly have international students living with her. Having people from all over the world represented in our daily lives solidified in my mind that racism no longer existed. I lived in an American melting pot and I didn’t see color. My daily life was evidence of this truth. In daily life I had almost no chance of confronting race in a way that would be uncomfortable. There was no diversity anywhere in town except in my grandma’s little red house where the experiences were joyful. Life without any racial conflict was evidence that racism no longer existed in our country.
Off Into the World
Off to college I went to become a fully functioning adult. I saw no need to take any Black History courses. I already knew history. Why would I repeat what I knew? (Same goes for Women’s Studies by the way, I thought I knew it all.) On occasion I would run into racial topics I didn’t understand and quite frankly couldn’t understand because I didn’t even believe they existed. I swept the importance of those instances under the rug because I truly didn’t even have the vocabulary to participate in these situations. I figured others were just ‘being weird’ and didn’t even consider my own naivete in the situation.
At 19 I moved to Florida. I had my first Black roommates and also a roommate with a Confederate flag bumper sticker on their car. I saw this flag as an affront to my sensibilities and never once considered what it meant to my Black roommates. In fact writing this is the first time I have ever considered their perspective. And that perfectly illustrates how you can look the other way for years, unless you force yourself to confront that your white-centric reality might not be universal.
Time moved on and I moved across the country a few times. I understood the morally superior (so I thought) Midwest I grew up in, but living in the south was where I was challenged. I shrieked when I walked into the room and found my Black roommate cutting off all their braids, I didn’t know that they had extensions in their hair. I didn’t even know that was a possibility. “Why are there radio stations in Spanish? Are we picking up a station from Mexico?” Yes, I actually said this. I had no concept that our country (that has no official language) would have radio stations that weren’t in English. Living in the south, experiences kept bumping into my fragile and finite view of the world, chipping away at what I thought I knew. Revealing more and more that my life experience was hardly as universal as I thought.
When I was 25 I took my first career leap as a professional intern in communications in the hospitality industry. This was when I first had race truly show up in my daily life. It was very obvious that white people like me were in leadership roles while BIPOC were mainly in housekeeping. The huge discrepancy in quantity of white employees in leadership compared to BIPOC was something I had never been confronted with before. Being outnumbered hundreds to one was something I couldn’t ignore and made me uneasy. I felt very accomplished yet also uncomfortable in my professional business attire on a Segway, rolling past dozens of house keepers who had to wear costumes. I was an authority figure, but I was also brand new there and could not put into words why I was uncomfortable.
The Day I Saw Color
After a month or so on the job I was directed to attend the all front-line staff meeting. The meeting was run in three languages and I was just there to observe. Being the largest hotel on the eastern seaboard this was a meeting of thousands of people in a hotel ballroom. When I walked in I experienced something I never had before in my life. I was the only white person in a room of people I didn’t know. I looked around trying to figure out where I was supposed to go. Where did I belong? Where were people like me? I was looking around for white faces, but I didn’t realize that was what I was doing at the time. I eventually located where the Hispanic staff were and walked in that direction. And honestly I felt the most comfortable there because they were the closest to my skin color even if I didn’t speak Spanish. I then saw people way at the front of the room in professional clothing like mine and headed up there. I was glared at as I walked up to the front, obviously making some kind of faux pas. The people at the front of the room had seniority and had worked there since the hotel opened, I was just a newbie in similar clothing. I felt like everyone was staring at me. I then slunk into a corner wall trying my best to hide till the meeting was over.
Something happened that day. Something that shattered my belief that I didn’t see color. Because I did see color. And I had so many emotions that it took years to even have the vocabulary or understanding to unpack them. At that moment I was scared. And that didn’t make sense. Because if I didn’t see color why was I scared? I was looking around for people like me. And that didn’t make sense. Because if I didn’t see color wasn’t everyone like me? I was embarrassed I had these two reactions and was in denial they happened. I believed I shouldn’t have had those reactions. Someone who wasn’t racist wouldn’t have those reactions right? This was my first experience where I couldn’t apply minimization to race the way I was raised to. Because for the first time ever being white did not make me centered in this experience, I was the outsider. This was the first time that I had to realize that there are experiences BIPOC go through daily that I didn’t understand. If I didn’t see color I didn’t have to acknowledge there was a very real human experience I had no real way to empathize with. Because I would never be any race that wasn’t white. And I was just lucky enough to be born that way. And this was the first time I had to acknowledge that really was an advantage.
My whole life I was self-assured how race wasn’t a factor I needed to consider. I even made (and believed) racist statements such as “I don’t care if you are Black, green, blue or pink, I see everyone as equal.” Equating race to an imaginary color that humans do not have. Because I looked at racial disparities as imaginary and nonexistent, this was a statement I thought was completely non offensive. I didn’t find it problematic at all. And this is minimization. The belief that I didn’t need to know any more about someone else’s experience because I already knew it all. That belief was racism all the same. I may not have been the roommate with the Confederate flag bumper sticker, but my denial was just an excuse for my form of racism.
Minimization Style Racism and The Midwest
Much of the racism in the Midwest I grew up with shows up in denial that racism exists. There tends to be acknowledgement that events and circumstances ‘could’ possibly have racial bias, but unless it is 100% finite with no intersectional factors we overlook it for the other nuances we can recognize and find important. If racism isn’t as blatant as a hood and a burning cross it could possibly not be racism in our eyes, and we will fight fiercely to maintain the racist practices. We focus intently on all other aspects of issues and throw out the race component because it doesn’t warrant our consideration. Just because slurs aren’t used in everyday conversation doesn’t mean racism isn’t there. Most racism I have seen in the Midwest is much more ingrained and insidious and not as blatant until you learn to see it for what it is. We still show up on the same side as segregationist racists but claim we have an ulterior moral standing that doesn’t actually involve race. It relies heavily on centering the white experience and possible white inconvenience, and the refusal to admit responsibility as being part of racists systems. We see white inconvenience as being more important than Black injustice but we won’t admit it and refuse to learn more. We refuse to learn more because we see it as nothing more to learn.
I now realize that how I was taught/not taught about racism and racial violence in our country’s history laid the groundwork for maintaining my avoidance of the topic. There was so much I just didn’t know. Not knowing context was complimented perfectly with believing racism didn’t really exist. I didn’t know about redlining, sundown towns and what the Green Book was for, Black Wall Street, the Tulsa Race Massacre, Juneteenth, what segregation really was and its impact, reverse freedom rides, the sacrifice Emitt Till’s mother made, or even how Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. were connected in history. I didn’t understand how modern policy and legislation targeted BIPOC in our country with legal segregation maintained with school vouchers, law and order policies, the war on drugs, voter suppression, and over policing of Black communities. I should have taken a Black History class in college but I didn’t think I had anything else to learn counter to my narative. It took me till I was 25 to even be shook enough to question what I knew about racism and race. It took me till now (writing this at 36 years old) to not be ashamed and to be able to talk about this experience publicly. By not learning about real racial history and the racial violence, my belief foundation was basically a mythology that allowed me to explain away racist things happening as one-off circumstances.
I didn’t think getting uncomfortable was part of the process of learning about racism or that I played any role in racism at all. I literally thought I had no connection and no responsibility whatsoever to the racial discrimination (if I even believed there was any) in this country. But discomfort is part of the process and you can’t skip that part. And finding out where you are wrong and where you played a role is also part of the process. I feel shame, embarrassment, fear, responsibility, grief, anger, and frustration. All these emotions are making me panic off and on even while writing this. It is all uncomfortable, but it is an honest experience. And going through the discomfort and fear is the only way this essay gets written.
The avoidance tactics to not discuss race has been taught our whole lives in the Midwest. Canned rhetoric and predictable script-flipping arguments place blame on anything but color. When we minimize racism we find all sorts of ways to skip that discomfort and to abdicate all responsibility around needing to know more about the subject. We point fingers at every other possible factor to detract from the big issue staring us in the face. We can’t admit we see color and it is a factor because that destroys a hugely defining foundational belief.
And the arguments and statements are completely predictable when we claim we don’t see color. I know we see color because:
we instantly go on a hunt for a man’s previous offenses to justify why he was shot in the back seven times.
we mention our good relationship with the one Black student we went to high school with whenever we feel we have to defend ourselves from any accusation of racism.
we claim talking about race only makes things worse and anyone who talks about race as a factor in issues is ‘too political’ and just pulling the ‘race card.’
we find any nuance to make a situation not about race. Thinking a taser is a gun was why this situation happened and we will completely avoid the overarching pattern of these repeated situations escalating based on skin color. We write it off as not counting and as a one-off event.
we will find and share any video or meme featuring a Black person condemning other Black Americans asking for justice. We knowingly weaponize their color against the movements calling for change.
we reassure others that our one black friend thinks our joke is ok. (This is problematic on two+ fronts; not only are we assuming one person of color speaks for all people of color, but we are also putting an emotional burden on someone of color when we should be doing the work ourselves. We are also putting them in an impossible situation if they think our joke is actually racist. Why would they risk telling a white person what they did was racist?)
we voted for Obama and are sure to tell everyone.
we use words like anchor baby, race card, and talk about how affirmative action is reverse racism.
we won’t watch a single documentary, read a book by a scholar in the field of race, or attend any event having to do with discussing race because it makes us very uncomfortable and we don’t consider it ‘our problem.’
we cite Martin Luther King Jr. as the right way to protest. (This is problematic because he was arrested dozens of times for breaking the law, his house was bombed, and he was also killed for his peaceful protests.)
we post videos and memes of Black people being assaulted or killed and in some posts accompanied by comments of how we would do the same in self-defense. I have never seen imagery of violence against white people ever shared the same way.
we will use every meme, tweet, YouTube video, and Hollywood blockbuster as evidence, but won’t acknowledge evidence of a man being killed right in front of our eyes as wrong.
we share religious themed articles and posts claiming to hold the moral high ground on issues, but clearly it focuses on leveraging White is Right style racist narratives. These articles showcase white people as being honorable and BIPOC as not.
And I could go on and on with this list.
Our fear of possibly being caught acting racist also sends us into a frenzy and puts us into attack mode. So much so that we refuse to address racism by deflecting and claiming it to be political correctness run rampant. We scream about ‘cancel culture’ instead of dealing with racist imagery and practices we have held on to and perpetuated for far too long. Just think of children’s books with racist imagery or heaven forbid a sports team changing its name! You will never see so many angry white people. The perceived impact/non impact on us will receive unbelievable backlash. And lordy, we will strut around in the offensive team t-shirt and vow to never change. This act of defiance is a badge of courage and completely deflects responsibility of how that imagery is known to be problematic now. I have even seen absolute outrage about changing a syrup bottle... Long social posts claiming a meme’s version of history is justification that our children should be passing around a bottle of a happy Black Mammy stereotype on it. And the list goes on and on... But in truth, it is embarrassing to realize that we didn’t notice the blatant racism and it is shameful to admit we thought it was okay.
I can easily identify and rattle off these tactics and reactions because they are rehearsed over a lifetime and have been passed down to me my whole life. And they are currently being passed down to our children. They are phrases and reactions I have learned and I have made. Every one of them. This kind of Midwest racism doesn’t show up as slurs, but anecdotal truths and practiced one-liners that work well at ending uncomfortable conversations or self-realizations that elicit shame. I learned it all so well I didn’t even have the vocabulary or courage to even write about it till now. All I had were those tactics when it came to the topic of race and racism and that is not enough to have a real conversation. It took actively and intentionally learning about my racism, and racist ideologies and practices for years to be comfortable enough to write this. And I have so much more work to do. I shouldn’t worry about my discomfort and making other white people I know uncomfortable but that very thing has kept me from publishing this for over six months. Just being open about these things is hard for me because of how I was raised and my unlearning will take my entire lifetime.
If we follow and maintain the status quo, pretend we don’t have a racist bone in our body, and we swear we are a good people but aren’t making any effort to learn more—then nothing will ever change. Because daring to follow learning about racism beyond protecting the ego might uncover shame, horror, pain, embarrassment, backlash, and the unknown. We will have to acknowledge that we have never known the kind of trauma BIPOC in our nation are fighting. We would have to acknowledge we have white privilege despite claiming it doesn’t exist.
We all see color. And you might have been raised just like me to deny that you do. You might have been raised like me to believe racism isn’t real (except reverse racism of course). Right now the world is too connected to pretend that you can just stay out of it. Ignoring a problem doesn’t extinguish it, it allows it to grow. You don’t get a non-participation trophy for staying out of it. That isn’t the moral high ground. And if staying out of it is still your stance you have a lot of catching up to do. Not only unlearning how you were raised, but leaning into discomfort and acknowledging how you have helped racists systems prosper by not challenging them.
We were born into a country built on slavery and racism at its very foundation. And you can’t ignore that full history and how it is still playing out in our lives today. Any progress was paid for by the blood of our BIPOC brothers and sisters. By ignoring their sacrifice the blood is on our hands. And it hurts like hell to acknowledge that we have played a role when we thought we were staying out of it. But now we have to work like hell to improve that.
What Did It Take and What Is It Going To Take?
Sometimes I wonder if that day wouldn’t have happened if I would still claim to be color blind and hold it as moral high ground? But then I remember Trayvon Martin was killed when I lived and worked in Sanford, FL. Philandro Castile died just a mile from my home. I remember Erik Garner, George Floyd, Breona Taylor, Tamir Rice, Elijah McClain, Daunte Wright Jr., and the inevitable next name to be added to the list. I realize the damning amount of evidence would have made me see color somewhere along the way. You would have to expend tons of mental energy to ignore footage of murders happening in front of your eyes. You now have to do mental gymnastics to justify and uphold this imaginary belief system. Yet it is 2021 and that is exactly where many of us are at. Because entire communities have rallied together to maintain ego at all costs instead of acknowledging possible shame of admitting participation. And despite my sadness and loss of seeing people I know and love post their racist memes and logical fallacies, they inspired me to write this essay, and to be honest about my own racism and my learning.
Though I am frustrated with our education system and with where many in the Midwest are at, I need to remember to have patience because I was once there too. The important thing to remember is to move forward everyday. People can change. I am not the same person yesterday as I am today. Even writing this has given me insight into areas I have failed in the past. And we can all change if we put intention behind doing so. Being set in your ways is purely an irresponsible excuse. And we have to accept that it won’t be perfect and it will get hard. A perfect example of this is my former roommate. Remember that roommate with the Confederate flag bumper sticker? They know the error of that ideology and are now a fierce ally and are adamantly anti-racist. They know better and are now doing better and actively fighting for change. They are a fierce anti-racist advocate and they lead by example. The whole point I want to get across is we all can change and learn. And next year when I look back on this article I should see huge mistakes. I will have learned more between now and then. Growth should always be happening but it takes intention to do it. Blaming childhood education is irresponsible, and as an adult it is all of our responsibility to further our education and do better than the generation before us. It is our responsibility to do better tomorrow than we did today.
Resources
Don’t take it from me, take it from experts. I hope my story helped someone but to understand racism you actually have to take time to do so. Here is a list of resources and advocates. I recommend you do a social media audit and make sure you are following accounts with the intention to learn more from people who have a different experience than your own.
“This Book Is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do The Work” will help you understand your relationship to racism. It really opened my eyes and it is a middle grade level read and easy to comprehend. If you have never read a book on racism this one is an easy read and easy to understand yet displays the concepts with power.
“White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism” is a really
important read if you find you are uncomfortable even talking about race. I was uncomfortable. And I needed this book to show me how my reactions were stereotypical and how they were counterproductive to learning.
“Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson is beyond amazing. Comparing the hierarchy in the US to a caste system was a concept that I had only been peripherally aware of. This book helped me understand so many things that I knew were unjust but I didn’t understand why so many people fight to maintain it in our country. I also realized my knowledge of lynchings and deep seated racism was vastly naive, and even though it was painful I am glad this book opened my eyes to the truth in those horrors.
I also wasn’t aware how the wording of our racist laws inspired so much of the implementation of laws created by the Third Reich to systematically target a group of people. Learning more about how the foundation of the country was created specifically to target a single caste and keep them down has helped me see so much and I am so very grateful for this book.
“The Radical King” by Martin Luther King Jr., Cornel West (Editor) is the book you should read if you have never listened to any other speech by Martin Luther King Jr. other than the “I Have A Dream” speech. If you don’t know how Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. are connected, then this book is for you. If you don’t understand how Emmit Till related to police brutality today then this book is for you. If you think Martin Luther King was purely a pacivist and don’t understand his thoughts around the Salt March (or even what the Salt March is) and how it influenced his activism then this book is for you.
This is probably the most impactful book I have read in a decade and it opened my eyes to the white washed version of King I was taught and made me cry because his words could have been spoken today. Nothing has changed and every word is still timely and relevant.
“How to Be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi helped me identify the types of racism I kept seeing showing up from where I grew up. I didn’t know how to fight the racists memes but I knew they were showing up on the same side as the Confederate flag waving racists and this book helped me understand why. It gave me vocabulary around racism showing up in a way that isn’t so easily classified as Klu Klux Klan type racism.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham | instagram
Ibram X. Kendi | Instagram | Facebook
There are many more advocates to follow but these are my favorites.
This post is my experience as a white female and comes with a lot of privilege. It is truly my experience and if I made mistakes with my use of terminology I am sorry and you can contact me and let me know. My truth is not meant to offend, but if it does, know I am growing and I will do better intentionally moving forward.