Connecting with someone of a different color, race or culture

Butterfly said:
My neighborhood is a mix of races and ethnic groups (and sexual orientations) and nobody thinks much about it. If you've got a problem with one group or another, you're not going to get along very well here.
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Same here. I love my diverse neighborhood. So many different ages, races, sexual orientations, religions, countries of origin and ethnic backgrounds. All are friendly and look out for one another.
 
Gary O' said:
I've been to a few outa the way places on this planet
Turns out, food is a great connector, no matter where you might be
Don't even have to speak the language

Other than that.....one on one beats hell outa groups

I've got other stories too, but.....it's almost tomorrow here
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This is a fun youtube video put out by Beryl Shereshewsky on grocery shopping in various countries:


I love how she has input from her subscribers around the world; they make the point that food brings us together
 
My white suburban introduction was during the summer of love and the music. I jammed with with many different races on hippie hill in Golden State Park.

Played in integrated bands.

Then went to the ghetto's in NYC to teach remedial reading and math.

Joined an integrated (both race and gender) intentional community.

One my my few best friends is very black, 6' 3", 200lbs, has a black belt in taekwodo, has 2 Phd's ( law and food science ), was Director of the Interior of Missouri, and he is going back to school to brush up on his Astronomy. Met him when I was 22, that's about 47 years ago. We call each brother, I mean for real...that's the way it is. :)
 
These days I don't live around many non-European people, most of Utah is pretty lily white. I do work with a few, and get along fine, but they are mostly professionals and fit in pretty well.

My more frustrating experiences have been in the US South with black people. I am afraid that divide that will take generations to break down. I had a few black friends, but never anything close to a percentage representative of the population.

One experience that stands out was a man and his wife who we contracted with to take care of some rentals. They were black, and I really liked them, thought of them as friends. Then I tried inviting them to dinner and after a few failed invitations the man told me honestly, and privately, they just couldn't be seen with us, or any white folks in a restaurant. He offered to go without his wife but it never happened. He was being pretty open with me, and honest. I believe he was embarrassed. After that I started looking around in the restaurants nearby and I did see some black people, but never together with whites. Made me kind of sad. This happened in rural North Florida about 10 years ago.

On the flip side I have a niece who lives in Washington State with her black boyfriend. We just saw them at a family gathering in Oregon, and she is pregnant. All was fine, he seems a nice guy. I don't think anyone reacted or has treated them differently than they would have had he been white. He is from Southern California, a world away from the old South... Got to hope the South is headed that way, it is better than it was when I was growing up. Just not as much as it should be.
 
SmoothSeas said:
not tryin' to hijack this thread, but just wanna say - welcome aboard...

back when I was working as a Merchant Marine - all I wanted to do when we were up against the dock, was go ashore, hang with the locals and absorb some of their culture - talk about an education...
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My Dad was a Merchant Marine during WWII. Blind in one eye (due to scar tissue from childhood injury) no other service would have him. He was a radio operator and after the war became a HAM radio operator. Often assisting families trying to connect with loved ones after a hurricane--he lived in Tampa some 50 yrs.
 
Alligatorob said:
These days I don't live around many non-European people, most of Utah is pretty lily white. I do work with a few, and get along fine, but they are mostly professionals and fit in pretty well.

My more frustrating experiences have been in the US South with black people. I am afraid that divide that will take generations to break down. I had a few black friends, but never anything close to a percentage representative of the population.

One experience that stands out was a man and his wife who we contracted with to take care of some rentals. They were black, and I really liked them, thought of them as friends. Then I tried inviting them to dinner and after a few failed invitations the man told me honestly, and privately, they just couldn't be seen with us, or any white folks in a restaurant. He offered to go without his wife but it never happened. He was being pretty open with me, and honest. I believe he was embarrassed. After that I started looking around in the restaurants nearby and I did see some black people, but never together with whites. Made me kind of sad. This happened in rural North Florida about 10 years ago.

On the flip side I have a niece who lives in Washington State with her black boyfriend. We just saw them at a family gathering in Oregon, and she is pregnant. All was fine, he seems a nice guy. I don't think anyone reacted or has treated them differently than they would have had he been white. He is from Southern California, a world away from the old South... Got to hope the South is headed that way, it is better than it was when I was growing up. Just not as much as it should be.
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I’ve lived in GA for 40 years, we have come a long way and, yes, there’s still room for improvement. But I’ve been out to lunch at nice restaurants with black co-workers or friends and we felt comfortable
 
One of the things i loved about working at University of Wyoming from for over 9 yrs was the diverse nature of the student and faculty, we had Grad Students from around the globe and they often were part of work study program too, so came thru HR. The Dept was huge and we all 'cross trained' to know enough about each other's jobs to help out when people out sick, or couldn't make it in due to weather. Consequently, the girls at reception desk learned that i was good at listening carefully to people with accents and finding out what they wanted, so if they couldn't figure it out quickly they'd ask me to come up front. 80% of the time the visitor did not need my services (i provided verification of employment that was needed by landlords and banks among other things) but i was able to find out and help them.

i've always tried to learn at least the 'niceties' (greetings, excuse me, thank you) in languages common to places i've lived. When i lived in NYC and then in Santa Fe in 70's i learned those in Spanish and in Honolulu picked those up Hawaiian and Japanese. Sometimes just knowing you made the effort to greet someone in their language helps them feel more comfortable about using their accented English to communicate with you. Now i'm back where Spanish more common and have learned at least a greeting in Navajo. Tho over the 18 months with masks and social distancing most of my community nods and waves even more than we did before.
 
There's room for improvement in the South, but so much has changed for the better so fast in perspective of time that I have hope. Blended families will go a long way towards continued healing and that's a big segment of babies currently being born in the South.

I have loved my 30+ years with close interaction with Black coworkers and patients. Loved home health in the Mississippi Delta ...going into homes of Black patients who made me feel so welcomed. Establishing years long relationships with Black dialysis patients and coworkers. I've loved the connection (called it 'building rapport' in nutrition/dietetics grad school) with Black and White. It's easy to do when people sense respect, a desire to connect and an effort to 'meet people where they are.' I had a Black coworker (a tech, not a professional) who was an irascible old fart and she kept a running feud going with someone at pretty much all times ...Black or White, it didn't matter. When it was my turn, she wanted to follow her standard MO of leaving the dialysis floor and going one-on-one to yell and insult. I told her we could talk right there and it was fine for her to say whatever she wanted to me. That threw her for a loop and she got madder than ever. I kept treating her like nothing ever happened for several weeks and got the opportunity to help her out a few times during our busiest shift changes. She came back awhile later and said: "You know, I think you're alright." Warm fuzzies coming from her! One of the all time best compliments I ever got in my life was when leaving a job as the Nutrition and Food Service Dept. Head at a hospital. A black male subordinate told me I was the most fair person he had ever known (I think he meant White person) ...I know typing that is tooting my horn, but it did/does mean so much. There are other things I could've done careerwise (even got another MS to do so), but it's that connection with people from all walks of life ...the breaking down of barriers that healthcare necessitates that gives so much satisfaction.

As for stereotyping, there are fallback things every homogeneous ethnic groups do that irritate the others ...even our own. What we have to keep trying to do is look beyond those things to see and find the good in individuals. When we do and connect on that level, sometimes the cultural irritations are easier to understand.
 
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@ Alligatorob: Your remarks about Florida don't surprise me, spent first decade of my life there and visited later in life because my Dad was there and eventually my Mom moved back with her last husband, plus a couple of Aunty/Uncle couples retired there. From things i've seen when traveling thru there are still issues.

But the Northerners never got a pass from me just because they were more subtle. The same kids who in 9th grade teased me for my southern accent, and made cracks about was my Daddy in the KKK (How i wish i'd known then what i later learned about who burned down our home when i was 8 and why) gave me grief in 11th grade when i joined NCCJ and was seen around with an interracial group of friends.
 
Alligatorob said:
My more frustrating experiences have been in the US South with black people. I am afraid that divide that will take generations to break down. I had a few black friends, but never anything close to a percentage representative of the population.
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The racial divide is still thick enough to cut with a knife, in some places down South. One time I was with my ex-girlfriend(who's black) in a place just on the Georgia/South Carolina border, a white female employee there made a comment with-in earshot: "our pastor says it's a sin for the races to inter-marry...". Yea, we heard it, just ignored it.
 
Nathan said:
The racial divide is still thick enough to cut with a knife, in some places down South. One time I was with my ex-girlfriend(who's black) in a place just on the Georgia/South Carolina border, a white female employee there made a comment with-in earshot: "our pastor says it's a sin for the races to inter-marry...". Yea, we heard it, just ignored it.
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What year was that?
 
Nathan said:
1999.
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Since then, there's been a boom of biracial relationships and resulting beautiful mocha children. I went to an all white high school and several friends now have much loved biracial grandchildren. And when I say beautiful ....I mean it. The kids are usually really attractive going by facebook pics.
 
AnnieA said:
Since then, there's been a boom of biracial relationships and resulting beautiful mocha children. I went to an all white high school and several friends now have much loved biracial grandchildren. And when I say beautiful ....I mean it. The kids are usually really attractive going by facebook pics.
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I'm glad to see that happening, I was surprised by the incident in 1999, I thought things had changed in the 30 years since the last time I saw racial ugliness(in Virginia), when in public as an interracial couple.
 
Pepper said:
o_O
More, please!
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The KKK burned down our home. i was 8 so of course my parents shielded me because we stayed in the town for another year and a half so the middle of 3 older sisters could graduate high school from the same place she'd started it. Mom slipped and then i learned more from older sisters. Several powerful people in our little town belonged to KKK. My parents refused to sign an agreement to never sell their property to Black people. Dad had trouble holding a job (long story why) but he left the bill paying to Mom and when he first started a job that kept him away 4 weeks then home 2, money was still tight. She chose feeding us over paying insurance premium, so that meant rebuilding would be difficult.
Mom, when she wasn't working as a waitress often cleaned houses for the few better off families in town. One of clients insisted she come on a particular day when we 4 girls were in school. A neighbor said it seemed to just explode into flames. The appliances and Dad's tools melted almost entirely (the hinge of broiler door on oven survived, took us a while to figure out what it was. My bike was 4 ft from house in the yard and the rubber burned off of it. When years one of my sisters told me what she'd overheard not long after, we pieced it together. Some of the other men in area came to Dad and offered to help rebuild our house. But Dad kept saying 'Elizabeth wants to graduate from Wimauma (sp?) High but then we're leaving i won't raise my girls here with this.' And other things making it clear what happened.
The sister who had eavesdropped and i talked about (we were both adults by then) and figured the reason they did when they did instead of night as usual, wasn't just because we were white, likely had something to do with what excellent shots both my folks were, especially Mom, who would have been home if that woman hadn't insisted her clean that day. We figure she knew something but couldn't say.
 
feywon said:
especially Mom, who would have been home if that woman hadn't insisted her clean that day. We figure she knew something but couldn't say.
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Do you think that woman who insisted your Mom come that day because she Knew your house was going to get burned down and the KKK didn't want deaths, just wanted to send a warning?
 
Pepper said:
Do you think that woman who insisted your Mom come that day because she Knew your house was going to get burned down and the KKK didn't want deaths, just wanted to send a warning?
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Possibly, also she really liked Mom--admired her sewing and cooking skills (tho Mom was also known for her skills at hunting and fishing). And we sometimes played with her kids, rode their big old Draft Horse, Red, bareback. There was little my folks could do afterwards since the most powerful people in town were KKK, one of them even ran a 'Tenant Farm' operation nearby, and likely law enforcement would have been no help, might have been involved.
 

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