Yeah- it’s all relative. I grew up in Aiken and moved away in high school. I went back a couple years ago to visit and was shocked by how little it had changed mentally/psychologically.

I had to tell my best friend (of 30+ years) that if she starts a sentence with, “I’m not racist, but.....” that she saying (and being) racist AF!...and that by STILL saying it (knowing how racist it is) makes her a racist POS.

Thank god we’re basically sisters so she was able to hear me without being offended, but it was so hard for me to say it to her.

Her husband is a native New Zealander (Maori) thereby making her daughter a person of color in SC. I had to remind her of that. Until then it was completely lost on her that her own daughter would not be seen or received as a white child/woman in our home state. She seemed to think that because her daughter wasn’t half black that she’d automatically be accepted as white. Her daughter is noticeably not “white”, but my friend well and truly could not/did not see it. I had to spell it out to her that not only was her daughter NOT white, she would never be fully seen as white in SC, and that she (as her mother) had a duty, as the mother of a female child of color, to fight for causes like BLM- because like it or not, her daughter wasn’t “white”.

I’ll never forget the look on her face. I knew that in her mind her little girl was white and, therefore, had nothing to add to or gain from the BLM movement, so it didn’t pertain to her at all. Her daughter was five and I think it was the first time she understood that her own daughter was a woman of color in a deeply racist and color segregated state/norm.

The moment of recognition in her eyes...remembering what we’d witnessed as children and the words we’d heard growing up in that environment...what our own family had said about mixed-race children. Seeing it finally hit her actually broke my heart a little.

I think it might be the first time I noticed our white privilege in real time, too. We/she assumed that because we are white that our children were necessarily and automatically also assumed to also be white. Looking at her little girl’s bronzed skin, full lips, and her jet-black hair we knew that she would not be afforded the same privilege that we were. We knew that white girls are treated better than black (& brown) girls in the south.

I took a great Sociology class in college called Self In Modern Society. It examined the reality each of us experiences in our life, how our “place” in society shapes who we are, how our sense of person is shaped- who we are/perspective/personality is a product of the society. For example: women can tend to be more cautious because we must be more cautious to survive- we know we are more vulnerable to predators. We grow up being given tips and advice on ways to keep up safe, and shamed when we are victimized because we didn’t take proper precautions. It makes us highly observant of our surroundings. These kinds of behaviors have been described as “neuroses”/“sensitivities”/“hysteria”by men. But it’s a part of our reality in nearly every society that women are attuned to threat from (primarily) predatory men. Conversely, men don’t feel these threats and they perceive the display of caution from women as a weakness/ paranoia. But the two perspectives are the natural outcome of the reality that their societal norms dictate. Women are primarily victimized by men- we’re aware of that reality. Men aren’t typically randomly victimized to women. My mom never yelled to my teenage brother to remember to park under a light in dark parking lots when he drove off to hang out when friends.

.....now I’ve lost my train of thought. I don’t know how I got to survival strategies of women in society from BLM in SC.

I’m three whiskeys deep and the edible my husband gave me is kicking in.

How do I save a comment to come back to later??