[K. Lynn]

At my sisters’ high school swimming was a phys. ed. requirement. At the time my sisters’ school was somewhere around 40 percent black. ALL of them, including my sisters, learned how to swim. Swimming was also a requirement at my mother’s high school some 40 years before. She too learned how to swim. My father and I each learned how to swim as adults, at our local Y. To this day I enjoy swimming and I know several other black people who enjoy it as well. But I have had one white man act surprised when I told him I know how to swim…he said, ‘I thought black people couldn’t swim.’ Ignorant! Oh, and one more thing regarding black women and hair: We DO have wash-and-go hair…it’s just that most of us straighten it to death so that it’ll fit into the Euro-American beauty standard. But that’s a whole other thread…

User Detail :  

Name : K. Lynn, Gender : F, Race : Black/African American, Age : 34, City : Chicago, State : IL, Country : United States, Occupation : Writer/programmer, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

[K. Lynn]

…’What’s wrong with me? I’ve never done anything bad. Why do these people feel that just because I’m here, I’m going to do something bad?’ This is basically how I felt at the age of nine when I realized why almost all of my white playmates, many of whom I’d known since kindergarten, were no longer around. I internalized this for a very long time, and for years found myself defending myself and my entire upbringing to white people who hollered up and down that they weren’t bigots yet seemed determined to pigeonhole me into inferiority. Fortunately I’ve grown to learn that if white people are that determined to get away from me, that’s their problem, not mine. I’m still a decent person regardless of what they think, and if they don’t want me as a neighbor, it’s their loss! The following may sound like another defense, but I’m putting it in to make a point: The street that I grew up on (in a suburb of Cleveland, OH) is STILL a very nice street AND it’s predominantly black. In fact, because of the old homes and lower prices, there are white people trying to move in. Normally that would be considered ‘gentrification’ except that the black folks there are working-class and middle-class, as they’ve always been, and own their homes, as they always have, and keep up their property, as they always have. I’d like to know why is it that when white people see black people in a neighborhood, they automatically assume ‘ghetto’? ‘crime’? ‘low-life people’?

User Detail :  

Name : K. Lynn, Gender : F, Race : Black/African American, Age : 34, City : Chicago, State : IL, Country : United States, Occupation : Writer/programmer, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

[K. Lynn]

I think we all agree that there are poor, struggling folks of all races. But I maintain that no matter how poor a white person is or was, if you dress him or her up right, he or she can go anywhere in the world they want and not have to worry about receiving substandard treatment. (And yes, that includes black neighborhoods, where quite a number of white people can be found each and every day.) Whereas in certain cases and places I am treated as uneducated, ignorant, and at worst, dangerous. No, this doesn’t happen on a regular basis. Maybe I’ve grown calluses such that I don’t notice it as much. But it happens enough. I have a college education, I make more money than a lot of people, I speak well, I dress well, and my criminal record consists entirely of parking tickets. I am competent, I am professional, I comport myself well. And yes, I am a VERY nice person. Yet I still get followed around in stores. I still get talked down to by strangers. I still get second-guessed on decisions I make in the workplace. Why? Answer that question for me and we might be on our way to understanding each other better.

User Detail :  

Name : K. Lynn, Gender : F, Race : Black/African American, Age : 34, City : Chicago, State : IL, Country : United States, Occupation : Writer/programmer, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

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