Unintentional Racist- Final by Rebecca Bayman

Unintentional Racist

By, Rebecca Bayman

The Pig and Calf Scramble happen every year at the Champaign County
                 Fair. Girls and boys from 16-20 years old wrestle pigs(girls) up to 250lbs.
                and calves(boys) up to 500 lbs. into a small chalked circle in the middle
                of a mud pit. If you catch a pig or calf you get a free pig or calf to raise.

I grew up in a small village named Westville, Ohio. It's located between Dayton, Ohio and Columbus, Ohio. My county is where life is truck/ tractor pulls, derby races, and when the year revolves around the Champaign County Fair. I went to Graham High School, named after the founder of 4-H, A.B. Graham, who was born in my county. We were known nationally for one thing and that was wrestling. When we played other schools in football and basketball most school's student sections chose "redneck" themes to make fun of our social structure. I graduated with around 120 other students in my class. Despite the small size of the classes Graham Local Schools district is one of the largest in Ohio in area. Covering small towns (including my own) combining in area comparable to the size of Columbus, Ohio. To put it into perspective, my elementary bus ride was an hour and forty minutes long but I only lived 15 minutes away from the school. We drove tractors to school, went square dancing in PE class, and had a course for agriculture sciences course that consisted of raising chickens in the field behind the school. There was two groups of "cool" people, ones that played sports and the others that showed livestock and whose parents farmed.

Raising and showing dairy steers.

My school and my county was not diverse in the slightest. I graduated with one bi- racial student and the rest of us were Caucasian. According to the United States Census Bureau, in 2010, 94.7% of Champaign County identified themselves as white while our second highest race was a black population of only 2.2%. You knew everyone and their families and who they voted for because there was only three families that voted democrat. Everyone either was not religious because they worked on Sundays/ farmed or were practicing Christians. No one admitted to being gay because it was looked down on in our area. We lacked diversity and never learned or experienced more than one side of world- wide issues. These combined reasons I feel contributed to my culture shock of moving to Athens, Ohio for college at Ohio University.

I loved Ohio University the first time I stepped on campus in the 6th grade. I was heavily involved in the marching band in my high school which practically mirrored the Marching 110. Although I applied to other colleges, I knew this was my first choice with the main reasons for being a part of the Marching 110 and the Communication school. I was ecstatic getting accepted and basically had everything packed for three months coming up to my move-in.

When I got on campus I met my first Jewish person and when they told me they were Jewish I ignorantly thought they were joking because I had never met anyone Jewish, nor had I traveled where I had had the chance to meet a Jewish person. I quickly found that accepting other races, cultures, and religions was something that I never had to deal with before in my life. I would have to say that I started to notice how out of the loop I was with the communication classes I was taking. I learned about cultural issues in America and around the world. I had no idea that the world was full of so much hatred for others, I felt guilty for being so uneducated on the issues that people deal with on a daily basis. I felt that I had it well growing up, almost too well, and I felt the need to educate myself on issues that I never had the chance to experience firsthand. I slowly started to realize how sheltered I was growing up in a county and school district that lacked diversity.

Graham High School during Relay for Life.

I would say that I am very fortunate to be able to learn about these issues in society with an open mind after being uneducated on the issues for so long. I look back at people that stayed at home and did not move away from the county and I can see the difference.  Along with the lack of diversity in school and in my environment, my family was a contributor to the way I viewed the world with an absent mindset. I would like to start this portion of my paper to set the record straight, I love my family and they are a huge part of who I am today. I am extremely grateful for the opportunities I was given and what they have taught me and continue to teach me. With that being said I would like to start off by saying that I grew up in a racist household. I grew up in a household that watched Fox News beginning at 5AM and didn’t turn off until 7PM. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity was what was on in the car. Racial injustices were not real, just people complaining and you can bet that Barack Obama is the “worst thing to ever happen to America.” I thought this was all normal, even I was always extremely bothered by the topics and I believe that it was a main reason for my hatred for politics today. I never learned about my privileges as a white person because I was never presented with the opportunity to see my privileges.

One example of me learning about my privileges and beginning to see what I was lacking in exposure was when I took a communication class about cultural differences. One of the readings was a piece by Peggy McIntosh called the The Invisible Knapsack. I found this writing to be my most influential when understanding the importance of self- educating myself on such topics. In the article McIntosh talks about what white privilege is and how we as white people can go about excepting, educating others, and creating awareness on the very misunderstood topic.

“To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences and denials surrounding privilege are the key political surrounding privilege are the key political tool here. They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete, protecting unearned advantage and conferred dominance by making these subject taboo. Most talk by whites about equal opportunity seems to me now to be about equal opportunity to try to get into a position of dominance while denying that systems of dominance exist.”

This excerpt explains that discussing about white privilege will never be simple and that we will never truly be able to “understand” our privileges because we have not experienced first hand the injustices that

Ben and I in high school
marching band.

            Like I mentioned before, there were other forms or inequality that I never saw due to my upbringing as an extreme conservative. Inequalities not only against other races but different sexual orientations. People in Champaign County did not accept someone coming out as gay, bisexual, or transgendered. I was able to experience four of my guy friends coming out but only after graduation. One of these people being one of my best friends Ben Clos. Ben and I played in the marching band together since the 6^th grade, our older siblings graduated high school together, and our parents are great friends. When my parents found out that Ben was gay their perceptions on homosexuality seemed to change. It was no longer a hateful reaction, instead, my father calmly and almost weirdly fake says “Well, he’s still the same Ben we all know and love and we will continue to support him.” I sat there in the kitchen in pure confusion, trying to figure out why accepting Ben was easier than accepting the rest of the LGBT community. I think this is the moment I started challenging these ideas with my family. I would casually bring up these controversial issues and leave the conversation with my opinion on the table of what I believe is logic at its finest.

Ben and I during the 2014 OU Homecoming.
Ben was crowned OU's Homecoming King.

 People were judgmental, even I was. I grew up learning that being gay or transgendered meant you were calling out for attention and it was a choice to express your troubles in which therapy was needed. Although I had reservations about the idea of other sexual orientations being a “choice” I still believed it because everyone else did. According to The American Psychological Association, “there are few resources and supportive adults available and little peer support individually or within student groups for gender and sexual orientation diverse children and adolescents, particularly those residing in rural areas or small towns.” I believe because the majority of people neglect to be themselves because they are afraid of what people will say to them, do to them, or think of them. When asking Ben why he waited he said he just didn’t want the judgments from others in out conservative community. He almost always had a girlfriend and was flamboyant to the point where everyone expected it, but he never came out. Ben got teased often in high school and all I could say was “he’s not gay, he’s just feminine” I didn’t always believe what I was saying but he was my friend and I wanted to protect him from negative people. When Ben finally told me he was gay we were sitting drunkenly on the side of a bathtub at an OU house party. I remember him telling me and the only thing I said was “Yes, I know. I think we all have known for some time.” We laughed and talked about how he was unsure how to bring it up to his parents and quite frankly so was I. Ben and I are now graduating Ohio University in less than a week, his parents proudly support him, he’s happily in a relationship, and he is leaving with the love and support from Ohio University as our 2014 Ohio University Homecoming King.

I would say that my time here at Ohio University has been a learning experience of a lifetime. Not only did I learn to see other people as individuals and understand our differences but I was able to understand myself and how I fit into society as an open- minded individual. Coming from such a conservative small town taught me many great values but I am extremely grateful for what I have learned in college. I believe that today I am a more accepting, caring, and forgiving towards others.  I am able to learn more and more without judging people first. 

                                                 References 

American Psychological Association & National Association of School Psychologists. (2014). Resolution on gender and sexual orientation diversity in children and adolescents in schools. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/about/policy/orientation-diversity.aspx

McIntosh, Peggy. "White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming To See Correspondences through Work in Women's Studies." Diss. Wellesley Collage Center for Research on Women., 1988. Abstract. White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

United States. Census Bureau. U.S. Department of Commerce. Censtats Database. N.p., 2010. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.