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Blog archive

November 2024

October 2024

ARBORIST WALK: NOT FOR TREE HUGGERS ONLY!
10/29/2024

Bill Wishner: Visual Hunter
10/29/2024

Can a Village Group Fix Our Healthcare System?
10/29/2024

Community Board Directors Strengthen Village Board
10/29/2024

Connecting with Village Connections: The A, B, C, & D’s of Medicare @ 65+
10/29/2024

Grief is a Journey: Two Paths Taken
10/29/2024

Message from the President
10/29/2024

Promoting Informed & Involved Voters
10/29/2024

What Will Be Your Legacy?
10/29/2024

1619, Approaching the Election...
10/27/2024

Beyond and Within the Village - A Star is Born
10/17/2024

Happiness by Priscilla Leonard
10/11/2024

Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden
10/11/2024

Unpainted Door by Louise Gluck
10/11/2024

In the Evening by Billy Collins
10/10/2024

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
10/10/2024

Betty Kilby, A Family History
10/01/2024

Betty Kilby, A Family History
10/01/2024

Betty Kilby, A Family History
10/01/2024

September 2024

August 2024

1619 Wide Ranging Interests
08/19/2024

1619 Wide Ranging Interests
08/19/2024

First Anniversary
08/19/2024

Alexandra Leaving by Leonard Cohen
08/16/2024

Muse des Beaux Arts by W. H. Auden
08/16/2024

The God Abandons Antony by Constantinos P. Cavafy
08/16/2024

Ch – Ch – Ch –Changes
08/15/2024

Cultural Activities Team offers an ‘embarrassment of riches’
08/15/2024

Engaging in Pasadena Village
08/15/2024

Future Housing Options
08/15/2024

Message from the President
08/15/2024

There Are Authors Among Us
08/15/2024

Villagers Welcome New Members at the Tournament Park Picnic
08/15/2024

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas
08/14/2024

A narrow Fellow in the Grass by Emily Dickinson
08/13/2024

Haikus
08/13/2024

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop
08/13/2024

Poem 20 by Pablo Neruda
08/13/2024

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
08/13/2024

Trees by Joyce Kilmer
08/13/2024

July 2024

June 2024

May 2024

Emergency Preparedness: Are You Ready?
05/28/2024

Farewell from the 2023/24 Social Work Interns
05/28/2024

Gina on the Horizon
05/28/2024

Mark Your Calendars for the Healthy Aging Research California Virtual Summit
05/28/2024

Meet Our New Development Associate
05/28/2024

Putting the Strategic Plan into Practice
05/28/2024

Washington Park: Pasadena’s Rediscovered Gem
05/28/2024

Introducing Civil Rights Discussions
05/22/2024

Rumor of Humor #2416
05/14/2024

Rumor of Humor #2417
05/14/2024

Rumor of Humor #2417
05/14/2024

Rumor of Humor #2418
05/14/2024

Springtime Visitors
05/07/2024

Freezing for a Good Cause – Credit, That Is
05/02/2024

No Discussion Meeting on May 3rd
05/02/2024

An Apparently Normal Person Author Presentation and Book-signing
05/01/2024

Flintridge Center: Pasadena Village’s Neighbor That Changes Lives
05/01/2024

Pasadena Celebrates Older Americans Month 2024
05/01/2024

The 2024 Pasadena Village Volunteer Appreciation Lunch
05/01/2024

Woman of the Year: Katy Townsend
05/01/2024

April 2024

March 2024

February 2024

January 2024

What makes a racist?

By John Tuite
Posted: 08/10/2020
Tags:

  - Submitted by  John Tuite -

Racism has now become a major matter for discussion, the subject for articles, books, podcasts, and media treatment.  I used to think I could identify the racists.  They were the ones who spoke the “n-word with ease, spoke of minorities as "those people” and categorized them with universal deficiencies and faults.  Racists were “opposed” to black people.

But I grew up in Chicago “in a white neighborhood”.  I was early aware of where Black people lived and it was called “the slums”.  They weren’t “supposed" to live in my neighborhood.  I was a Catholic, and, as far as I knew, only white people were Catholics.  I went to an elite high school and there was only one Black student in my four years, and he was a friend, but considered an exception.  And my family was poor and immigrant, but we were white.  And that made a difference. That made us superior to black people in our eyes and the eyes of our neighbors.  I grew up racist!  My parents were immigrants from Ireland and didn’t know what to make of this new world.  They didn’t want to “fight over the bottom rung”, so we didn’t use the n-word and we kept our thoughts to ourselves.  But our little world was racist.  I was “trained” to be a racist.

A definition of racism I found calls it a combination of systems, institutions and factors that advantage white people and cause widespread harm to people of color and disadvantages in access and opportunity.  It is grounded in the history of our laws and institutions which were created on a foundation of white supremacy.  I have been part of the systems, belonged to the institutions, and enjoyed those factors for 87 years.  I’ve enjoyed the fruits of racism.

I have two dearest African grandchildren who were adopted from Sierra Leone, now in their early twenties, and trying to cope with their transition from a childhood in a friendly white suburb to an adulthood in a confusing and contentious racist urban world that they have to learn to navigate on their own.  And I have Black friends whom I love who have never confronted me with belonging to the enemy camp.

And I have been running hard all my adult life to keep ahead of this strange reality that has been my racist life.

How about yourself?

- John Tuite -

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