Growing up in Chicago in the 1960s was interesting, to say the least. I wouldn’t say that I grew up on the most racially diverse block, but there was plenty of “diversity” in the city. Namely, Chicago was one big, failed social experiment with massive public housing projects built around the city. St. James Street, where I lived, was the pimple getting squeezed between the Latin Kings and the De Mau Mau gang.
I used to have to walk through a big park on my way to school. It was always an adventure. When I was in 3rd grade I got to see police dogs attack a group of kids who were huffing model glue from their lunch bags. (They sold real model glue full of toluene to kids back in the day.) I got hit up for my lunch money. (Good thing about being poor, I didn’t have lunch money. I usually had a few cents, and back then you didn’t get shot because you didn’t have money. More like kicked in the ass.) I learned to fight. And fight hard.
Back then is when I first heard racial epithets directed at me. I grew up in a cop’s house, so I’d heard all the bad words for the Puerto Ricans and blacks. (I hated it then and I hate it now.) But I didn’t process that there were racial words for little white kids. Well, I learned them all: whitey, white boy, cracker, gringo, and one real favorite, honky.
Then we moved outta there. Outta the frying pan into the fire. My high school had race riots twice a year for four years that closed the school down for a week each time. The first week of my freshman year I saw a kid get run into by a police cruiser, a teacher stabbed in the thigh and shoved out a second story window, and the police chief hit on his helmet with a baseball bat that caused him to go into a convulsion. Ah, the joys of the race riots of the 1970s.
Fast forward to present day.
I got out of that environment. Went to college. Moved away. And hadn’t heard any more racial slurs directed at me in 30+ years. (At least that I could hear.) So imagine my surprise when I got this comment on iFlipFlop last week in response to a post I did titled, I’m Gonna Flush That Koran Right Out of My Hand:
Someday these american infidels will pay and all of America will come under the rule of Islam. The Muslims of America and its laws are here to stay Kafir.
— Nahamid Mohamed
Know what a “kafir” is? I didn’t know. Honestly, the article he commented on was about an American evangelical church sign saying they wanted to flush the Koran and I was saying that was wrong. So I thought “kafir” meant “friend.” Um, I wasn’t quite on the ball. It’s not a nice word that you call your friends.
NB: I know that non-whites are not as lucky as me. Many can’t write that they haven’t heard a racial slur since they were a kid, and that’s a real tragedy in it’s own right. This is just a point about my own experience and who’s saying it.
