There’s a restaurant in our town that has the following message on one side of its sign out front: Let’s take back our country! The owner is very politically conservative and believes two of the greatest evils eroding our nation’s character are illegal immigration and a liberal co-opting of foreign cultural and political practices that will strip away what makes us distinctively “American”. The other side of his sign? Best spaghetti in town. Stop me if you’ve heard this one.
If you live in a larger city it will be difficult for me to explain to you just how white a place can be. Allow me to make a few factual statements that will help you understand: I literally cannot remember the last time I spoke face to face with a black person in Greenville. The only times I have ever spoken to a Latino person in this town (who wasn’t my daughter or my best friend) have been at the Mexican restuarant. I talk to a Chinese family a couple times a month…when I order carryout. Indians? Arabs? Japanese? Be serious.
The 2010 Census revealed Greenville to be 96.7% white, 1.4% Hispanic, 0.9% black, 0.7% Asian, 0.2% Native American. All other races were either non-existent or statistically negligible. In the year before we brought Yoselin home, another family we know in town also adopted from Guatemala. I did the math – these three children increased the Latino population in our town by almost 2%.
When we aren’t able to spend time around a people group who aren’t like us, it’s difficult to hold an accurate, healthy image of that people group in our heads. We may want to, and we certainly can if we try, but it’s tough. A town with racial homogeneity ends up with subtle, latent prejudices that would counterintuitively decrease if the objects of those prejudices were actually present in greater numbers. Some people are prejudiced because they can be and have never had to confront why they shouldn’t be.
A few years ago in a Bible study a man in his thirties said to me I hate it when I see these illegal immigrants driving around. For once, I wasn’t tongue-tied in a situation like this. Yeah, I said, and since they have Illegal Immigrant written on the back of their cars so you can know for sure, it’s like they’re taunting you. He chuckled, saw the look on my face and realized what was going on, and the smile faded from his.
This is what I need you to know: that man? He’s one of the best men I know. He isn’t racist. He and his wife are foster parents, and they’ve had black children in their home, and he has loved them as his own. He believes God loves every human being on this earth. If a Latino person’s car broke down in front of his house, I have no doubt he would spend the entire afternoon helping the person fix it, and feed them dinner, and go out of his way to be kind, and probably have his own heart changed in the process. He is not racist. He had just allowed an assumption, educated by popular stereotypes and unchallenged by regular experience in his daily life, to be influenced by his political convictions and, because there were no social pressures to prevent it, he spoke out of that ignorance. I love this man. He’s a good person.
In the absence of racial diversity, it only takes the smallest seed of prejudice, conscious or subconscious, to lead a person to hold unhealthy opinions of other people. We do this about more than just racial differences, all of us. When I see people who fit the stereotype of being “white trash”, I assume they are uneducated and narrowminded. Oh, the irony. We all carry a certain amount of tribal defensiveness, whether our tribes align along racial, religious or cultural divides. And if we aren’t regularly bumping shoulders with people from the other tribes and having our sharp edges worn off, we think stupid things, and we say stupid things.
Yesterday one of my readers, Vicki, asked why on earth we were choosing to raise Yosi in this town. She is half-Mexican and grew up in a similar setting and shared the frustration she felt growing up. I appreciated her heart on this, and my own heart aches at some of the alienation and awkwardness Yosi is going to experience. Lyndie and I have considered many times moving to an area with more diversity. Ultimately, we made the decision to stay.
We felt Yosi would benefit more from have an extended family and community around her than being in an area where she might belong more ethnically but lack those things. Her race and ethnic cultural heritage are important, and we want to do all we can to provide opportunities for her to identify with those. Ultimately though, when faced with the choice, we felt it was more essential to her sense of identity and belonging to grow up in a network of close family and friends who love her, cousins to play with, grandparents to spoil her, people we trust who can help raise and nurture her. She needs people who look like her, yes. And we need to do better about seeking them out and providing those situations. But it’s not the only thing she needs. She needs love, and she has that here.
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Beautiful post, David. I am learning so much as you write your way through this.
Having spent most of my life in larger cities until moving to “white hickville” 9 years ago, I often find myself wishing for more ethnic diversity; but I think you nailed it with the statement, “We do this about more than just racial differences, all of us.” It is such a human tendency to pre-judge another who is different from us in any way – whether it be looks, personality, perceived intelligence, passions, etc. Interestingly, my kiddos don’t react differently at all to a child (or any person) of different-colored skin, but they can be very unforgiving of anyone who THINKS differently than they do. I myself am guilty of this way more often than I’m comfortable admitting! Good food for thought.
Also . . . I LOVE your family pic at the end of this post.
I’m glad you acknowledge your own little prejudgments. We all have them. I hate to admit it, but I do. I sold my TV recently to a gentleman in Dayton. He needed to come to Greenville to get it, and he was bringing some strong men with him to help move it. I knew from his voice over the phone that he was black, and that his assistants would most likely be black. I am not sure if it was because they were black or because they were from Dayton, but, either way, my duty to my wife demanded extra precaution that I would not have considered for a local person. I completed that transaction with a loaded gun hidden in the front room, ready to defend my keep if needed, to a 70 year old, educated, active member of his community who is married to a school teacher working to improve Dayton schools. I felt a little shame over the matter, but he set my mind at ease at one point (without any knowlege of my hidden “nine”), saying, “I don’t know you. You don’t know me. This was a great exchange for having that gap between us”. I’ve began to appreciate a qualitative difference between prejudgements and generalizations/ stereotypes. Stereotypes are an essencial component in the way that we learn. When we are young, we have very few catagories for things. For example, at first, anything with four legs might be concidered a “dog”, but eventually, dogs get their own catagory, and then those dogs get catagorized into breeds of dogs. We do the same thing with reading aquisition, math, science..ext. I think I’ve decided that generalizations are not always prejudgments and they can be an excellent tool for learning and growing as a person. Becoming dogmatic with those generalizations…committed to them, is where growth ends and ignorance begins.
I thik you are doing a great job with Yosi, and I think she is going to be a well rounded person as an adult due to the thoughtful, considerate, and loving parenting she grew up with. I think it is going to be fine, although her ethnicity will often present chalanges that I’m sure you will confront with the same consideration as we have come to know you for, Dave.
Let’s see…Greenville…what state?
I just made a mental note to avoid the place.
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Reblogged this on Christus Victor.
Thanks, Ryan!
My wife and I are completing the paper work for a second adoption opportunity. We are motivated primarily by our extroverted son’s need for constant companionship (he’s two), and we are motivated by the scripture’s call for the Church to be a people of reconciliation. Our tiny contribution as Kingdom people might be to adopt across racial and ethnic lines, showing what it looks like when people love each other inspite of the barriers established by our culture.
I am enjoying your posts about the obstacles your family faces. It is helping me think through the issues.
From a mom of three black (adopted) children in another small, very bland Greenville…thanks for sharing this…makes me feel a bit more confident in staying here even when we are told we need to move to a more racially diverse area to our children’s needs. They are LOVED loved loved in this community and as you said, THAT is what they need, for now at least.