Before getting started on the content of this post, read this disclaimer:
If you are a Snowflake or a member of the Perpetually Offended, you had best stop reading here. This post contains some words and pictures that you would no doubt find disturbing which would likely lead to your whining. So read and whine if you want, but your complaining will be ignored.
Second, I am using the term
innate not to imply that there is an inborn or genetic component to racism, but rather that for many of us, we grew up embedded in a local culture that had a variety of racist components. I will give some examples from my days growing up in New Paris, Indiana, an all-white, lower to middle class, Protestant community in which the minority group was the Catholics [who had to drive go Goshen to go to church]. When I share these stories with younger people or with folks who grew up in more diverse settings, we are all quite amazed at how these things were simply an accepted part of our lives.
I love black licorice and thus it did not seem odd that whenever I had a few extra cents, I would go to Reynolds/McMeekin's corner store and buy a few nigger babies. Bald heads and big stomachs did not matter since it was the flavor that interested me. For a while, the candy was referred to as tar babies. Obviously these candies disappeared from the stores, but some folks claim that
black licorice NIBS are simply a not-so-subtle reference to nigger babies. Today, I satisfy my black licorice craving with licorice twists!
One of our favorite winter-time activities at the New Paris homestead was getting a large bag of mixed nuts still in the shell and spending time cracking and eating them. The Brazil nuts were always the last to be cracked because they were so hard to get out of the shell. For many years, I did not know that they were called Brazil nuts.
And speaking of Nigger Toes, I cannot tell you how many times we used this little ditty to chose sides:
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe
Catch a nigger by the toe
If he hollers let him go,
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe
My mother told me
To pick the very best one
And you are [not] it.
Thankfully the 'nigger' slowly gave way to 'tiger'.
For many years, New Paris High School put on Minstrel shows as a part of their theater productions. This picture is fairly representative of the black face that was used and the stereotypical outfits. One Halloween, my sister and I dressed up pretty much like this to go trick-or-treating. Nobody mistook us for real black kids, particularly since there were none in New Paris and none were allowed to stay overnight in nearby Goshen, IN.
I am pretty sure that I had never heard this term until we went to a White Sox baseball game at the old Comiskey Park. Our seats were way, way up toward the top of the stadium, and my dad told our companions "It looks like we will be sitting in nigger heaven." I am not sure where he would have learned the term since there were no places around us the had balcony seating where the black people were supposed to sit. In retrospect we were probably lucky not to get rightfully harassed by the many black people around us.
A fair number of people, including some folks from our church, had these in their front yards or gardens. I never understood why in the world they had them since they served no functional purpose as far as I could tell. No one had anything that would be suitable for hitching up to these things since they were generally smaller versions of the original hitching post. I highly recommend the
Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia website and its informative articles such as this one on
Lawn Jockeys.
It seems as though black people bore the brunt of the racist comments and attitudes in New Paris, never being referred to as black, but as
colored people, Negroes, darkies, spades, jigs, coons, jungle bunnies, spear-chuckers and Sambo [There used to be a
Sambo's Restaurant chain decorated with paintings depicting the story of
Little Black Sambo].
However, I remember a few other terms that were less than edifying, referring to some of the local non-WASPS:
heebs, kikes, mackerel-snappers come to mind, and although not racist, I heard
pinko commie cowards for us pacifist conscientious objectors. Sadly racism still runs deep, if not as wide, in Elkhart County with Hispanics now also being the target for race-based comments. Many folks cannot abide President Obama, and a couple of years ago I heard a local old-white-guy complain about "
the niggers in the White House." I have not seen the shirt below around town, but would wager that there are some.
So what's my point - I am not sure. It is interesting to reflect on the fact that a town like New Paris, with the closest blacks living over 20 miles away, could have such negative attitudes. Perhaps one of the reasons is that the main thing that they heard about blacks was always bad news - robberies, shootings, welfare cheats, etc. My observation is that many locals who did not go off to college or to work elsewhere have continued this 'heritage' if you want to call it that. Not all, to be sure, and the inverse is not necessarily the case either. There are highly educated, wealthy whites who have basically the same attitudes that I witnessed 60 years ago. However, I think that it is true that many New Parisians who went off to school or to live elsewhere somehow managed to become more accepting of "the other". Am I free of racist thoughts and attitudes? No - I do not think that anyone is. But, the rubber hits the road on how we act or don't act on those thoughts.
