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   Frank Bennett (fgbjr@indieweb.social)'s status on Tuesday, 27-Dec-2022 11:29:00 JST Frank Bennett

   in reply to

   • Blackfist

   @Blackfist I'm white, but this does ring bells. First was in North Carolina, during a working break from Uni in California to see the South. Stopping at a bar near a local college with a black friend, he refused to get out of the car: "I can't go in there." Then much later incidents at that level and higher, mostly involving my wife from Japan. She passed away this year, but those experiences and the better memories remain. It's targeted, you can stand next to the person and not notice.

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     Blackfist (blackfist@c.im)'s status on Tuesday, 27-Dec-2022 11:29:04 JST Blackfist

     I was recently going to spend the night in a very white upper class beach city. I drove through the area looking for Thai food and simply "felt" that I didn't belong there. Of course there were no "sundown" town signs. Just the feeling of being an out of place other. So I decided to go back home. I was alone and had no one to disappoint or to put on a brave face for so I left.

     I went to a less affluent area. Still decidedly upper class and white. I grabbed a room there on a whim. Again hunted down a Thai restaurant for food. It was in a decidedly poorer area with less affluent white folks. The food was delicious, but I still felt like the other. I was made to feel that way by most of the folks I interacted with.

     Friendly hellos and happy holiday gratings barely returned. Mine was the only black face I saw for two days. I ended my trip early and returned home.

     The rudeness was...rude. But no more than I have become used to.

     I am sure that if you had asked any of the folk with whom I interacted they would have all said that I was "welcome" to be in those spaces. But there is a difference from knowing that I couldn't be excluded to being made to feel welcomed or merely tolerated.

     If I spoke to 20 people, only 2 maybe 3 were nice. This is the real world. Think how friendly it is here whe. Black folk tell you the don't feel welcomed or that this space isn't a safe one.

     #BlackMastodon #cw #racism #black