PEELING AWAY AT THE SKIN OF PREJUDICE

opinion by Glenn Reed, contributor

Overall they were just some upsetting incidents for me: Trying to find a map at REI and having an employee, rather obviously, follow me with his eyes glued to my every movement (it must've been the second-hand clothes on my back). Walking with a male friend in Mt. Vernon and having two guys in a pick-up yell "fags!" out the window (hmmm....the second-hand clothes?). Being stopped by a cop on Highway 99 and his making a show of staring long and hard at my political bumper stickers and then at me as he copied down my license plate number (not the clothes this time....Ralph Nader's fault!).

Just minor occurrences, of course, but they still left me with a feeling of having been violated and belittled--slight glimpses of the awful burden of prejudice faced by tens of millions in our country on a daily basis.

I try to imagine having my essence laid open every day to such assaults, feeling the rubbing of salt into wounds created by casual slurs under the breath, watchful eyes from behind a store counter, police always paying just a little more attention while you walk by on a city street.

I think of such incidents puncturing my spirit each day like needle jabs, then multiplied by weeks and years. I sense how my anger would accumulate as a result of the injustices, the lack of "socially acceptable" or effective outlets for that anger, the failure of others in our society to validate my feelings, the constant refrain that, somehow it's my fault coming from individuals who can't truly understand what it's like to be in my skin.

My few personal experiences, along with recent police shootings in Seattle, evidence of racial profiling, attacks on Arab-Americans as a result of 9/11, and other incidents, have driven me to explore and confront the cancer of prejudice wherever it leads. Sometimes it's uncovered the understandable, but still disturbing, hatred of me for the color of my skin. Sometimes it's made me feel a hint of the utter despair that others live with.

Sometimes it's made me wonder what it's like to be targeted for the color of your skin, the type of clothing you're wearing, the way you talk, even just for having dreadlocks. It's made me want to gain a sliver of understanding.

And, being a white male, I have an obligation to understand.

Yes, I'm lily white, totally Caucasian, a bland, Pillsbury doughboy mixture of English, Irish and Swedish who moved here from a town that was about 99 percent white. I have an obligation to understand because I still hear white, middle-class, privileged males rant against affirmative action or whine "reverse discrimination!" I'm obligated because, even in (mythically) politically correct Seattle, I all too often hear the "n" word or other racial epithets casually rolled off tongues. I'm obligated to understand because I sense prejudices all around, festering in the societal conscience, a dry rot in the wooden structure of civility.

I'm obligated because, as a child, I was taught that such words as the "n" word were worse than curse words and that people should be appraised through their behavior rather than their looks. I'm obligated to understand because when I hear someone white use such words, it makes my guts roil and want to ask them how they would feel if they were looked at differently at least once, every day, for the rest of their lives.

I'm obligated because, regardless of how I've lived my life, I'm still residing in a nation that was built on the subjugation and oppression of many others. And only by acknowledging these injustices and addressing the inequities that remain can we truly move forward to a society where we're all equal and valued for who we are.

I've had many informative discussions on the topic of racism, but it's the simple incidents that stand out. I'm thinking of an African-American co-worker who told me of driving his VW here in Seattle, with an African-American friend who has dreadlocks. He said that they passed a police car and he noticed the policeman watch them go by, then he muttered "uh-oh" to his friend, in anticipation. Sure enough, they soon saw the flashing blue light behind them and, after pulling over, were told by the officer that they had a tail light out (when, in fact, they did not). In fact, they were stopped for the crime of driving while being black....or for having dreadlocks. Always a cause for suspicion in all too many quarters.

"I'm so sick of this," my co-worker said at the time. And we all should be sick of it. We should be sick of it to the point where we are willing to stare straight into the gaping maw of any prejudices that exist in this country and experience their putrid breath first-hand. And, if that uncovers some uncomfortable truths, then we'll all be better off for it.