pilgrim.not.wanderer

I’ve come across a bunch of youtube videos of news reports on racism in small town America.  This got me thinking.  Maybe I have lived a sheltered life.  I grew up around the kind of Christians who would find overt racism completely ridiculous and incomprehensible.  The first song I learned was probably “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight…”  

I’m a grad student at a university.  Here too overt racism simply isn’t a live option.  It has been so thoroughly shamed as to be laughable.  We all have an instinctual distain for overt racism.  We can’t help but feel shocked and shaken when we encounter even a whiff of racism. The only thing left to worry about is ’systemic racism’.  BTW - I learned about systemic racism way back in grade 7.  Grade 7!!!  I can hardly remember a time in my life when I wasn’t trained and ready to be on guard for hints of racism.  This, even though you could probably count the number of visible minorities in my hometown on a couple of sets of hands.

Anyway, for years now I’ve thought overt racism was nothing but a sad but distant memory.  Sure, I’ve heard people tell me rude race based jokes (although to be honest right now I can’t think of any specific memories of this).  But never for a moment did I suspect that the people who told these jokes harbored serious racist beliefs.  They just liked telling rude jokes.  

Maybe I’ve been hanging around too many Canadians, too many Christians and too many of the university set.  I’m out of touch?  Apparently small town America still harbors a bunch of overt racists.  I’m talking about the kind of folks who go right out and say that they’d never vote for Obama simply because he’s black.  They said as much directly into a TV camera with little to no shame.

Weird.  I don’t get it.