Racism

     It's an ugly word, isn't it?  Worse, it represents a behavioral mindset that still exists in this day and time.  What business do I, as an older white woman, have in addressing this issue, having never personally experienced racism to the degree that others have?  It is my business because I know it still exists and to act as if it doesn't is wrong.
     A short example, if I may:  I was a public school teacher for many years.  My heart has been touched and broken many times over by various things I have witnessed, but none more so than an incident that happened relatively recently.  I had amassed a large personal library of books over the years, books of all kinds for all levels.  The 5th grade class next to mine had a weekly service project that required each class member to select a book from the library during their scheduled period to read aloud to a 1st grader once a week.
     Apparently, Lila had forgotten to check out a book to read to her first grader.  She stood in my doorway, and said politely, "Excuse me, ma'am?  May I please borrow one of your books to go read?  I promise I'll bring it right back."  My response was, "Of course you can."  Yet still, she hesitated to come in my room and pick out a book.  Lila then said,  "You trust me?"  My response was, "Of course I do.  I know you'll bring it back."  Well, that wasn't enough for Lila.  She asked,  "Why do you trust me?"  I replied, "You haven't given me any reason not to."  With that, Lila bounded into my room, snatched up a book, and hurried off to do her service work with a big smile on her face.
     As for me, I sat at my desk and cried.  I understood what Lila was really asking when she asked why I trusted her.  What her question really was meant, "Why are you, a white lady, going to trust me, a black girl, with anything?"  It broke my heart to know that an eleven year old black girl has to grow up in this day and time thinking and feeling that she didn't have a right to another person's trust just because of her skin color.  Still.  Have we really made substantial progress against racism if a child has been taught she's not going to be trusted because of the color of her skin?  I think we have miles to go.
     I am not going to comment on the recent events that occurred in Ferguson, Missouri.  I wasn't there.  I didn't see what happened.  I wasn't on the grand jury, and I didn't hear the evidence presented.  It would be presumptuous of me to make any kind of comment.  What I do know is that no child should have his or her trust brought into question just because of the color of skin they have. I do know right from wrong, and that is wrong.  I have no one-size-fits-all answer to the atrocity of racism.  I only know that when it confronts me, even subtly, as it did with Lila, I can make a difference, if only a small one.