Another “Karen” named Amy Cooper...

I'm so all over the place.

I grew up in Southern California. During my elementary school years, I was one of less than 10 white kids in my grade. I'm from the generation that was taught "color blindness." I now live in a suburb of Phoenix that is equally white and non-white.

Until I came to twopeas as a young adult, I truly had no idea this shit happened on such a regular, pervasive basis. I know that ignorance is part of my privilege.

17 years ago, I went to visit my white best friend, who had a black roommate. This was in Washington DC and they both had professional jobs on the hill. The roommate got up at 4:00 in the morning to straighten her hair. One night we all stayed up late hanging out and she was bemoaning her early wake up. I suggested she just skip the straightening and sleep longer. She was adamant that that wasn't possible and it wasn't til years later that I could sort of grasp the expectations that she felt were at stake for her. White women roll out of bed and throw their hair in messy buns all the time and go on about their lives without consequence.

About 8 years ago, I was eating in a fast food restaurant and a visiting out of town high school boy's athletic team was there. It was a large group. They were all non-white, and primarily black. They were so loud and rowdy that they made it difficult to hear each other and they were scaring my 2 year old son. I (what I thought was) politely asked them to quiet down. The coach came uncorked at me. He made it very clear to me that he perceived my request as an act of white aggression that I would dare tell them to quiet down in my presence. He also said that if I had a complaint, I should have directed it to the manager and he could speak to them. I was gobsmacked. I said "why would I "tattle" on you when we're two adults capable of speaking to each other?" I can 100% say that I would have (and have had) made the same request if the team were white or any other color but I truly had no concept that my actions could be taken racially. I now see that if you've spent your life perceiving that white people wish to put you in your place, that that shaped how he saw my words, no matter how they were intended.

When we went through our adoption classes, they were very adamant that if you adopted a child of another race, you needed to intentionally seek out community in that culture. One example was making sure someone taught you how to care for your black child's hair. Again, in my ignorance, my first question was "What do you mean? Hair is hair?"

Watching the Olive Garden video last week, a commenter posted about the racism of the onlooking crowd (none of whom were visible on camera), by pointing out that no one said a word until the non-white person put her hands on the hair of the white aggressor. Again, I didn't even SEE that until it was pointed out to me.



I can truthfully say that I don’t know of any active, overt racist feelings or opinions in my heart. I also realize that there may be things I hold that I don’t even know have racial bias. I am trying to overcome colorblindness. I realize that I have a life experience of privilege.

We spend most of our life in an almost "commune" style of living with two families. My family is all white, with both children adopted. One family has two white parents, with one adopted, fair skinned, non-European multi racial child. The third family has one white parent, one Hispanic parent, their two biological boys, and two adopted Black daughters. We are constantly having conversations about how to shape our children's world views. With 5 of the 7 being adopted, that's one component that we try to tackle. Of the two biological boys, one looks more white than his brother. Of the two girls, one is much darker than the other. They grew up until last year in a white foster family, so they gravitate toward me and my white neighbor differently than to their Hispanic mom. Their mom grew up wealthy in Mexico so even see says she struggles to see racism right away because she grew up as a privileged majority, though she isn't now. The boys were playing toy guns last week and we had the conversation about not pointing them at cars and I had to tell my white son that if he and the 4 other boys did that to a police officer, in certain parts of the country, he and his brother would be treated differently than the other 3, and even among those three, there might be differences based on their shades of darkness. We're constantly asking each other how to see things through each other's eyes, and through the eyes of our kids. My friend last night compared it to adoption and how people say stupid things all the time about adoption and adopted children without realizing how offensive they are and how terribly shaking to an adoptee's identity such comments could be (think things such as "real child" and "real parents" and "gave up for adoption"). We all went through lots of training to be taught those things to identify them and defend our children and help them shape their identities with those unique foundations.

I want the same kind of education about issues of race, but I also don't want to go out and find "the token black friend." I understand it's not the black person's job to educate me. But then what? That's where I'm stuck. I'm not even at the "what can I do to help" stage because I first have to learn to see. I don't want to be surprised by this crap anymore, because I want to better grasp the reality that black people experience. But I don't know how. And I don't know how to learn how without contributing to more racism in the asking.

Oh I agree. There are consequences that even the victim can't stop from happening. Losing your job, people hearing and knowing your name is just a consequence of being a racist ass. 

Honestly, if Christian Cooper ever wrote a book about racism and his thoughts, etc. I would be the first in line to read it. 

You said this so much better than I could have.

I grew up as a military brat in a white family around people of all races and backgrounds. Then dad retired and we moved to my parents' hometown. The only "difference" was whether you were Italian or Greek, worked at the pottery, the mill or were white collar. I joined the military at 18 and left that town. I have cultivated relationships and friendships with people from all over the world, that look different, eat differently, eat the same, and from so many different backgrounds. There's that.

When I was in my early 20's, my sister got pregnant and had a beautiful baby boy. I love this kid as if he is my own. He is a couple years older than my son, and he and my son grew up closer than cousins. More like brothers. My nephews dad is black. I didn't think about it much, or often, when he was younger. Every now and then, someone would point out for us, and that always always sucked, but it was "small", and I didn't think my nephew noticed, and I just left it alone. But as he got older, the taunts became bolder, more frequent, and hurtful.

Examples: My son was super active and a climber. I used to call him monkey butt. We were in the grocery store, and the boys were looking at cereal and discussing what kind we needed for our camping trip. My nephew tossed a box of lucky charms in the basket, but my son wanted cocoa puffs, so he tried to climb into the cart to remove the lucky charms, and my nephew tried to stop him. I said, you two monkeys better settle your tails. This woman (who perhaps failed to notice the blonde haired blue eyed kid I was looking at!) tore into me, how dare I call "that boy" a monkey. Now. In retrospect, I can tell you it came from a place of my son and nephew were both little boys I loved and I adored, and I would never, ever, do something to hurt either one of them, nor would I treat them differently. But, maybe I should have been more mindful. I don't know. I do believe that my nephew thought nothing of it when they were little. Would I do it today? Probably not. Not because of social pressure, but because they are no longer squirmy little boys, lol they are young men. 

There was a time when the boys were 12 and 15 ish and we were leaving a skating rink/climbing wall/arcade place, and some older teens in the parking lot were loudly hanging out and joking. Mixed races. One of the kids called another (not sure which) the " word." My nephew said... I didn't know white people were allowed to use that word. The white mom in me kicked in, and I just said, no one should be using that word, no matter what color. The look on his face hurt. I think it was the first significant time that he saw "us" as white and black. Different. In my mind, I don't think anyone should use that word. It's horrible. It stands for alot, especially from my frame of reference. On his dad's side of the family, it's pretty openly used. And you know, in his grandmas living room, I would have called my nephew (and certainly my son) out for using it, but one of his uncles or cousins, no. So, that left me, thinking, alot. I had quite a few discussions with my sister, and we talked about black spaces vs white spaces. My sister is married to a (different) black man, and she says her home is a black space. I love and respect my sister, and I think I understand, but damn, it sure is an evolving understanding. At the risk of sounding super Karen, "I have lots of black friends" and while our conversations sometimes touch on race, we don't have alot of in depth discussions about it. Our friendships are based on other things, and I don't lean on my friends for my frame of reference. Often it's about our kids, our interests, work, books, our lives. And race is (alway) part of that. But I see them as people first, black second. And, I know, some people will take that as careless, or oblivious. I don't mind bending my sisters ear, because, well, she needs to talk about it too. Having a black son she has the same worries about her son as I do, and then some. And his grandma, she has no problem discussing it.

More recently, my nephew has dealt with blatant and down right scary racism at school, and it breaks my heart. It's hardened him a bit, and he's definitely disappointed the bigger world isn't like the safe family (both my side and his dads side) he grew up in. He's 20. Very smart, caring and perceptive and obviously he's not just now learning this, but I think it must be horrible to feel such hatred, based on absolutely nothing. And it absolutely infuriates and sickens me that it could just as easily be my smart, kind, beautiful nephew that someone devalued and dehumanized. 

Well....Elaine has only been kind to me. When my dad was battling breast cancer, she took the time to help me understand what was happening and how I could best help him. I don't give two fucks what tier Pea she is - she showed me kindness in a time that I could not breath and was afraid. I will defend her every damn day when someone posts her address on a public message board. And yep. I saw it with my own eyes when it happened because I reported it to admin.

I don't have anything against you at all. Doesn't mean we'll always agree, but I won't tell you you're a sick abusive fuck who needs mental help.

@fuzzymutt sorry you felt you needed to delete but I'm sure it was for the best

That's a nice story. Can't say my experience is the same. You agree with calling someone mentally ill because you're stressed out in your own life, that's your choice. The same grace is not equally shared on this board.

It was last year. And I'm bringing it up now because while I've left her alone since I came back here, she decided not to do the same.

@missjen :

MissJen, I have a friend on Facebook who is black and reading her posts has educated me time and time again. in the 10+ years I've known her, I've thanked her for posting articles and information that educated me. But in 2016 she posted something that shook me. It's not her job to educate me as a white woman on the black person's struggles. And I really thought about it and like you was confused; how am I supposed to learn when I don't know what some of the issues are to begin with?

So one of the things that she suggested is to find some POC on social media and follow them. Don't comment on anything, but read everything. Investigate for myself what those people are saying and educate myself. After many years of doing that, then I can start slowly commenting with my educated information. And if I am handslapped or corrected, don't take it personally, use it as a lesson to grow.

And you know what? She was right. I've learned so much, but not even nearly enough. So I keep investigating when I have the ability to do so, my twitter and IG are full of POC in various occupations and roles in the community and I read every chance I get. I like or heart some statements and take photos of others so I can add them to the things I read about.

Yes thank you. I've gone right down this rabbit hole today. I had a pm that sent me looking. I'm not a controversial sort of person in my real life. I'm also very protective of my mental health. So when a thread derails I generally get off as quickly as I can. I know I live a life with rose colored glasses. Some of it is because I'm part hippie. And some of it is a matter of protection because I'm a very sensitive soul.

I didn't know quite how to recover on this. I could have tucked my tail and slunk right out of here. But I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to say what's on my mind and heart and if people want to fight with me or think less of me then I'm going to be ok with that.

It wasn't right to suggest you were crazy in this very thread. That isn't fair. It's harmful to imply that someone isn't thinking clearly in a way meant to demean. That's the intention I took from that post here.

Second, it also wasn't right to suggest that you are a stereotypical angry black woman. That whole stereotype is racist and unjustified. I think that was out of line too.

And I will credit @blitzburgirl she suggested to me that maybe just like with racism, we choose not to see what's in front of us until it affects us. And that when it doesn't touch our lives maybe we get too comfortable in our blindness. True. I own that I project my own experience onto everything I comment on here. But I need to open up my eyes and read a little more carefully and be a little more sensitive.

And that's all I've got to say.

MerryMom thank you for the incredibly draining and heartbreaking work you do on behalf of innocent children.