by Robin Landry

Created on: May 13, 2008   Last Updated: March 19, 2009

Racism, few other words can cause the torrent of emotion among both people of color and Caucasians as this one. As an African-American woman who grew up in the 1960s and 70s, for me the word conjures memories of the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the controversy in Boston surrounding forced busing of school children, the continuing debate over affirmative action laws and the contrast between the handling of two hurricanes, Andrew and Katrina and the stark differences in how quickly and expertly recovery efforts were handled in each of these situations.

I have also encountered a surprisingly significant number of people who seem convinced that there is no such thing as racism. They contend that these types of abhorrent attitudes somehow magically disappeared as soon as Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, never to surface again.

While individual positions vary, there is one common thread. Racism is a topic, that when discussed at all, is approached with the utmost seriousness. Although other tragedies often give rise to awkward jokes in order to help ease the tension, racism somehow seems strangely off limits.

My mother and father, however, shared a humorous story from their adolescence that causes me to wonder if it might somehow be better if we could learn to approach some instances of racism with a bit more humor. Racism is no laughing matter to be sure, but as it stands today the lack of comfort with the topic leads almost everyone to avoid it altogether. Perhaps injecting a bit of humor might ease the tension enough for both people of color and whites to clearly see the ridiculousness of racism and discrimination and to relax enough so that we can start working together to do something about it.

My parents met as 8th grade students at Woodrow Wilson Junior High School in a small, southern Indiana town in 1946. Even though Indiana was far from being part of the Jim Crow South, in 1946 segregation was still very firmly in place. While their junior high school was integrated, the elementary schools that the students had attended through grade 5 were not. My mother recalled having to catch a city bus at the tender age of 6 in order to attend a black school some eight blocks from her home even though there was another elementary school just 2 blocks away. It, however, was for whites only.

My parents lived every day of their young lives with the harsh reality that there were water fountains from which they were not allowed to drink , restrooms

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