Prejudice and Consequences

I am not proud of the fact that I live in the whitest county in California. In fact, when we moved here 18 years ago from San Francisco, one of the things I missed most was the lack of ethnic diversity--especially when it came to food. One of my favorite pastimes was experiencing new tastes especially African, Cuban, Thai, and French cuisine. But my husband's work took was a priority and so we landed in this foothill community, and focused on the benefits of raising children in a small town.

One morning, shortly after we arrived, I dropped our daughter off at preschool and one of the teachers--an older woman with a British accent, who I learned later was raised in South Africa--asked me how I liked living here. I answered honestly, "I miss the ethnic diversity and the food." Looking down her nose at me as if I were a child who had just blurted out the f-word in church, she said, "Well, that's the reason most of us moved here--to get away from all THAT." Shocked, I walked away speechless. The next day I spoke with the head teacher who assured me that she did not share the view that had been expressed by this teacher. She told me "there would be consequences," and within the week the bigoted teacher was nowhere to be seen.

I am not so naive as to think that people aren't prejudiced against various races, but I am always shocked when they are stupid enough to verbalize their thoughts. This past Saturday, and incident occurred that brought me right back to my childhood, when bathrooms in the South were labeled "white" and "colored" and when social clubs were segregated by race and religion. Fortunately, I wasn't alone at the time or I wouldn't have believed my ears.

Nevada County, where I live, has two radio stations--the liberal FM station, KVMR 89.5, which is worth checking out: www.kvmr.org; and the AM station, KNCO 830, which hosts "Swap Shop" an on-air garage sale, "the perfect place to buy, sell, or trade." It was 8:45 a.m. and I was making breakfast and listening to various wants (hoping someone would want something, anything we have in our garage), when a guy came on the radio with an item he wanted to sell for $500 or $600 dollars. In an effort to be helpful, the host of the program, said, "Well, why don't you ask $600. That way, buyers can try to Jew you down." Pause. "Oops, pretend I didn't say that."

Sorry, buddy, but I'm not pretending anything. I picked up the phone and left a message for the station manager to call me, which he did first thing this morning. Thankfully, he didn't try to defend the station. In fact, he said several others in the community had also called (thank God for that!) and there would be consequences. He'd let me know.

My self-righteous-filled-with-indignation-self thought, Consequences! There better be consequences. If I were you, I'd fire the ass. Then, my more compassionate and realistic side thought, Whatever the consequences, it probably won't change who the host is or how he feels about Jews...or blacks or the other "ethnics" he was programmed to believe are less than he is. Because, the truth is, there are a lot of people who, because of they way they were raised, wouldn't see this as a big deal at all.

This is when I'm grateful that once I get my knee-jerk emotional reaction out of the way, I'm willing to be unconditional--to bypass judgment--because after all, we are human and we all make mistakes. Fortunately, we all are given endless opportunities to learn. The grace is in what we choose to do with them; just because opportunity knocks, doesn't mean we'll answer the door. I'm guessing the editorial page of our local newspaper, The Union, will have comments about this incident--I'll be curious about how others in the community respond.

P.S. I just got a phone call from the station manager who told me that the announcer is no longer with the station and that the station will issue a public apology.