Racism...

I am extremely grateful for the many things I have learned about life in the past few years. I am also grateful for the time that I lived in Arizona which is a very diverse place. I grew up in Utah where every single person in school was white, except for a handful of people. I remember thinking it was weird to see a black person in my class or at the mall because I never saw them around. I wouldn't call that racism, but just something I wasn't used to seeing. When I moved to Arizona at the age of 20 the place I worked had more black people than I had seen in a whole year in Utah. I remember being a little afraid because I wasn't used to being around different races. I soon became friends with several black people and it opened to my eyes to the outside world and made me realize how sheltered I was growing up. I think my parents did a great job at raising me to not judge others, but being in Utah it is hard to teach about racism if you aren't actually around different races. I know that I will never know exactly how it feels to be treated the way that some black people are, but having two children of mixed races I do feel a little bit of how racism feels. It's unbelievable some of the looks I get, being a white woman/mother out with my 2 mixed race children. It makes me sad to think that some people can be so cruel with their words or their actions. I know that it will probably be a challenge in my life that I will always face being a mother to my children. I hope and pray that my children will never be treated differently or unfairly because of their race.
Whether we want to believe it or not, racism is STILL an issue in this world and I hope that as a parent I can do my part in teaching equality and setting a good example. On that note, here are some quotes that I wanted to share that get right to the point of racism. I added some of my thoughts after a few of them.

"If you as parents cut corners, your children will too. If you lie, they will too. If you spend all your money on yourselves and tithe no portion of it for charities, colleges, churches, synagogues, and civic causes, your children won't either. And if parents snicker at racial and gender jokes, another generation will pass on the poison adults still have not had the courage to snuff out."
~Marian Wright Edelman

"Racism isn't born, folks, it's taught. I have a two-year-old son. You know what he hates? Naps! End of list." ~ Dennis Leary.........
I absolutely LOVE these two quotes. It is very true, racism isn't genetical, it is taught by parents, teachers, leaders, etc. We grow up being taught by example. If we witness our parents being racist or judgemental, we then think that is the norm.

Martin Luther King Jr.:
"I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions. This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream -- a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of the human personality."

Robert F. Kennedy:
"But suppose God is black? What if we go to Heaven and we, all our lives, have treated the Negro as an inferior, and God is there, and we look up and He is not white? What then is our response?"
God does not see color, he loves us all equally.

"We hate some persons because we do not know them; and will not know them because we hate them." -- Charles Caleb Colton
"If you judge people you have no time to love them." -- Mother Theresa
Every person, including myself is guilty of preconcieved notions about others, some more extreme. We base our opinions so much on others opinions of someone, we forget to form our own opinions. A few years ago at my work there was a girl that many people would talk about in a bad way, I automatically agreed with them before ever meeting her. Then when I met her and got to know her, she became a very good friend.

"We are still conditioning people in this country and, indeed, all over the globe to the myth of white superiority. We are constantly being told that we don't have racism in this country anymore, but most of the people who are saying that are white. White people think it isn't happening because it isn't happening to them." -- Jane Elliot
Very very true. Enough said.