Suffice to say, we were single issue voters.

"Don't vote for Democrats, or they'll come to our house and take away our guns." That was the only rule when it came to politics.

We went to every gun show in the mid-west. I remember Driving to Tulsa Oklahoma to go look at guns.
4/

at very gun show there were gun booths, knife booths, NAZI paraphernalia booths & Confederate memorabilia booths. For every Stars & Stripes there was at least one Confederate Flag and one Swastika. They were normalized in my young mind before I even knew what they meant.

5/

As I got older, my Dad and my Uncles explained to me that those things were expressions of freedom of speech, which is what made us the best country in the world. And that maybe the people running those booths didn't believe in that stuff, just thought it was important to show
6/

To show history, and opposing views. What could be so bad about that?
They were training me how to derail debate. This normalization was just one piece of the puzzle. My parents were (at the time) very compassionate people. They always made room at the table for our friends
7/

They taught us hard work and honesty and to help one another. I volunteered at church, at recycling centers, food banks, etc. And at the diner table we decried the phony liberals who talk a big game but don't help (how did we know they didn't?). That made a false impression
8/

the impression that people with swastikas and Klan iconography were the "real good guys", just misunderstood. It played into a "bad boy" narrative. Bad boy on the outside, saint on the inside. And that was what I was taught to be a "real American".
9/

so, deductive reasoning, anyone that wasn't that way, wasn't a "real American". Soon Rush Limbaugh got a radio show and from that moment forward there was nothing else allowed to be played on the radio. Then Bill Clinton was elected in 1992. That's it, the liberals are coming
10/

and they are going to take our guns. Luckily, Fox News launched a year later and stopped them. I guess. Or something. We railed and screamed about how unfair it was that they were coming for our guns! And that obsession ignored all the flagrant bigotry that was spewed

11/

we tuned into those platforms trying to "save our guns" and we ended up getting an associates degree in White Supremacy. When a black man was accused of a crime, we saw a scary mug shot and heard about the terror and aguish of victims of violent crime.

12/

When a white guy was arrested, they show him in his college year book and we got a civics lesson on Habeus Corpus. Just like the 1st Amendment lecture I know by heart that comes along with NAZI and KKK crap. I was a teenager at this time. And I didn't realize it, but..

13/

I was being trained on how to be an apologist for White Supremacy. It was also weird, because my family were genuinely kind to their neighbors. We never had much and we ALWAYS shared with those less fortunate. We never went to a NAZI or Klan rally, or burned a cross in a yard
14/

Racism was putting on a hood and lynching a black person for no reason, and we certainly never did that, so we weren't racist, right? There was a black family on our block and I played with their kids. So I'm not racist, right?
But all the racists jokes. And tropes too.

15/

at home we listened to my father as he would casually say things like "it's a shame that black people just can't behave. They have a higher propensity for crime. They have smaller brains. It's science." See, we weren't racist, we pitied the lesser.. er, um.. race? Right?

16/

Some of that didn't sit right with me at a young age, but that doesn't make me a testament in courage. I ran off to college and studied abroad. I shed bigotries as quickly as anyone who travels and studies in different countries. Mark Twain (fellow son of Missouri) knew this
17/

I felt that real and hard. I had opened my eyes a little, but it was blindingly bright how much I had ignored that was right in front of my face. When I came back to the States I worked as a trainer for a door to door sales company. Then I saw a tsunami of racism

18/

When I was training people of color, I would see how differently I was treated at many white people houses. I was horrified by what I witnessed on a regular basis to my colleagues of color. Things that NEVER happened to me, ugly things, that were just another day for them

19/

It wasn't uncommon for me to come around a corner looking for someone I was training only to see them on the ground being searched by a cop.

The cop would tell me the permit wasn't real and he'd been reported for trying to break and enter. But the cop would TALK to me.

20/

Then I showed them the permit was real. And they would let my trainee up. But not before telling them something like "don't do anything stupid, or else". And those things NEVER happened to me, but in front of my face a millions times.

21/

Last story from "the field" for the thread:

I was in the back of a car with my 4 trainees after a good day. We were about to drive back to the office as it was getting late. before the driver even turned on the engine sirens went off behind us..

22/

I was the only white person in the car, and I was out of sight in the back seat. The cop came up to the window with his hand on his gun and the flashlight in our faces yelling for everyone to keep our hands were he could see them. I was confused & alarmed, what's happening?

23/

The other 4, who were all POC and much younger than me, were calm. That horrified me even more. This was normal for them. He was yelling and demanding to know who we were and what we were doing. I leaned forward & made eye contact with the officer and asked what was going on
24/

The flashlight went down immediately and his hand went off the gun. He asked "Are they with you?"

"obviously, yeah. This is my staff, we are doing door to door for a charity, we have all of our permits, what were we pulled over for?"

Cop: "we had a lot of calls come in..

25/

(continued from tread)

Cop: ".. anyway, you guys are alright, just get home safe."

He left, and let us go. My heart sank. If I hadn't been there, or if I was a person of color what would have happened next? That could have been a tragedy.

25/

I had a temporary window into what it was like to be a person of color just doing normal day to day things in this country. And it was shocking and terrifying. And the worst part, was how accustomed my friends of color were. Most of the time they just shrugged it off.

26/

And there it was. The other half of the normalization of racism in my upbringing was the normalization of societal and police abuse of people of color in this country.

My fellow White people. We have to do better than "not be racist". We must be ANTI-racist, aggressively.

Thank you for reading through to the end of this thread, I know it's long. I have more stories of course, but nothing compared to the stories from the average person of color.

Please feel free to share your stories.

- An Imperfect Ally.