Race Blind Biker

When I meet people, even talk to them for awhile, I often don't notice their eye color. I wouldn't mind becoming more away of that detail, because eyes can be pretty cool, and there's also very little societal value placed on eye color, ignoring that unfortunate Aryan fascination with blue eyed blonds. Unfortunately, the same isn't true for skin pigment.

Our culture surrounding skin color is learned. It isn't naturally fundamental, just like eye color doesn't define a person, and yet if people in the world enforce an idea strongly enough, it starts to have a impact on reality. Race becomes race instead of just a description of someone's skin pigment. 

I still remember when I learned race existed. I was preschool aged, and my family went to see a movie. Before the screening time, we went to the strip mall department store next door, and my older sister and I were each allowed to pick out a Lego set. Timing became a hair tight. Lego selection is an important decision; my sister and I couldn't be rushed. When there were lines at all the registers, my dad left before us to buy the tickets. He made it back to the store before we were finished with the cashier, and once the family reunited, my mother was chastised on the walk to the theater for choosing a line with a "black" cashier, as that explained why we'd taken so long.

We made it to the movie fine. I don't remember what we saw, but I do remember that was the night I learned that "black" people are different. The problem is, our parents are our foremost introduction to the world, and we need to trust them to survive. If one of them gets something wrong, possibly like their parents did, we, as kids, just accept it at truth. It's hard to unlearn a truth that is imprinted early enough.

During that impressionable age, nobody even taught me that Asians or Hispanic people or whoever were anything different than I was, so while I could discern characteristics, fundamentally, I lumped everyone who wasn't "black" together. They were "white" like I was. In sixth grade, on a group trip to a skating rink in the next town, local kids had an altercation with some of my school's group and yelled something at our bus as we departed. One of my classmates made a disparaging comment about Puerto Rican's and I remember being surprised that he, yes "he", ascribed them as different. I just saw them as "white".

I'm racist. I don't want to be, but I am. I was programmed early. If I meet someone who is "black", I see them as "black", not simply another human. I try really hard to not let that awareness impact our interaction, but it is there, and even an awareness of race is a form of racism. It doesn't have to make me a bad, harmful person, but I consider it a flaw. It, along with many other things, makes me imperfect. I wish I could drop it.

Yesterday, I rode home on the Norwattuck Trail, and just after crossing the Connecticut River, I saw someone walking with a bike. With some basic tools and even some knowledge how to use them, I asked, "Is everything ok, need any help?" With the prospect of a fellow biker in need, it wasn't until I received a reply, "All set, thanks," that I noticed the person had dark skin pigmentation. Not noticing was really nice. I liked it, a lot. There's the saying, "People are people," but maybe for me, the equivalent is, "Bikers are bikers."

In case you care, I have blue eyes.

For more internal conflict,

I'm excited that garlic mustard has arrived,

and there's now salad everywhere!

Alas, it's a non-native invasive.

At least I'm also eating the seeds.