sarah@ci.wasilla.ak.us
The first time I heard that phrase, "... not like us", a white woman was telling her daughter why not to play with her friend Toxie, because Toxie was black. "She's not like us," the woman said.
This is daily bread and indoctrination of a whole generation of white children in the 1940's and 1950s. I heard someone say: “He’s not like us.”
But it was not Sarah Palin, who is too young to know the pain and the humiliation and the shame it caused me while I was growing up. It made me feel like there was something dirty on me, like a skin color that smelled like human waste.
One day, I woke up and realized that I was not like them, after all, not like John McCain or his friends who grew up with the same 1950s indoctrination. No, I am not a racist like them. And, they would be liars to say otherwise.
When Sarah Palin says "he's not like us", let's thank God we are not.
From Eddie Griffin,
International Prisoner of Conscious (1977)
I agree, thank God "he is not like us"!
ReplyDeleteI have heard these type of comments before and they know exactly what they mean
ReplyDeleteEddie, I was reading this article to my wife and oldest son. I wanted to recount for them your personal story, accurately. Where can that be found? B.
ReplyDelete