| Years old: | 28 | |
| Tint of my iris: | Huge brown | |
| I understand: | English | |
| I prefer to drink: | Gin | |
| My tattoo: | None |
I am a mixed-race parent of two boys, which makes the Ferguson situation hit home in complicated ways that are hard to put to words. I was fostered and adopted by a white family, raised mostly in white communities and strongly influenced by my Bostonian, first born Polish-American, very racist grandparents.
The pink pill
I am that rare dark-skinned woman who can dance a polka while exchanging racial and ethnic slams in a Maine accent. My Irish Catholic name wraps the craziness up nicely with a mismatched bow.
In Maine, my race experiences have usually been awkward moments and sources of great hilarity. She was sure we were masking our mixed-race, mixed-generation lesbian relationship under this unnecessary false pretense.
Weirder still but not so funny was a kind of inverse racism when a liberal white college professor refused to let me make an anti-affirmative action presentation. He announced his refusal in front of the whole class — of white people. InI was unexpectedly offered chances to interview for positions out of state.
I said I was interested, but I had concerns because I am mixed and my boys are fair-skinned. They knew what I was up against: our particular family dynamic was safer in the great white north.
I’m a mixed-race, middle-aged woman. is maine my safe place?
Things have subtly shifted in recent years, though. In Maine, I never particularly worried about the police treating me any differently than my white friends.
On the contrary, I was pulled over more than 20 times for various infractions before receiving my first ticket. As the well-traveled granddaughter of a racist Boston cop, I knew that could only happen in Maine. Sadly, since the percentage of blacks has crept up from 0.
Last winter, I was pulled over for having a headlight out. Next thing I know, the officer was shining his flashlight in my eyes and asking if I had drugs, weapons or bomb-making materials in the car. Totally off guard, I was like, what? He kept repeating the question.
My children and their friends found the story hysterical and started calling me gangsta-mom. Underneath the humor was the reality that Maine may no longer be my safe haven. My grandfather used to say that blacks were ruining Boston.
Mainers used to say the same about Franco-Americans, and from that experience we should know better than to succumb to racial and ethnic lines of demarcation. That blacks make up 7 percent of our incarcerated population in Maine suggests we might not. Our youth centers and behavior programs are full of white youth expressing the same mistrust of authority as their black peers in Ferguson.
They share things such as poverty, lack of opportunity, unsafe childhood experiences, lack of mentoring, etc. Our experience tells us that race and ethnicity biases may be deeply steeped in the American psyche, but the aforementioned issues run deeper still, and are the true source of what ails our society.
Trish Callahan is a mother and writer who lives in Augusta and does consulting work for a local nonprofit. More articles from the BDN. Man ple guilty to threatening Newtown residents after Sandy Hook shooting. Next The Katahdin area can fight for what it has — or rebuild with change, collaboration.
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by .
