I hope I say this right....

I grew up in western Pennsylvania. Racist, western Pennsylvania. It's true. I'm from there, so I can tell you that it is kind of like that. Not in the overt, southern racist kind of way, but more in the "we don't know any black people" or "the only black people we know do bad things" kind of racist. There's a little bit of difference...it's a small difference, but it does exist. I heard the N word growing up and it wasn't a nice word, but it wasn't verboten either. There was like, one black kid in my school. His name was Harrison Dixon the Third and he looked like a tiny little boy version of Benson. I included a picture of Benson just in case you are too young to remember (You infants, you).

oh wait...in my kindergarten class, there was a girl named Shokia. She peed on her cot. That's all I remember about her. But I don't remember much about most of the kids in that class, to be honest.

Unbeknownst to me, about an hour away, outside of Cleveland, my husband was growing up in a racially mixed area where he knew lots of African American kids. Just over the border in PA, though, they were few and far between.

Fast forward a few years to the Cosby Show. They had a girl named Vanessa. I'd never met anybody else with my name and it was kind of cool. I thought Malcolm Jamal Warner was cute and funny. But I never, ever said so. My posters were of the Two Corey-s and Kirk Cameron and an unidentified blond J Crew model in plaid Madras shorts.

Then I went to college. During a magical snow-storm that had us snowed into our dorm, my floor huddled together and dished out all our secrets. Mel confessed that she would love to go out with Dee, the tall, black star of our college basketball team. Mel had porcelain white skin and the most amazing shiny black hair, which belied her very dutch last name. And I had a moment. "You would do that?" I asked, unguarded. She looked back at me and furrowed her eyebrows. "Why wouldn't I?"

Why wouldn't she, indeed?

I felt so stupid. And uninformed. And....and....racist.

A few years later, I found myself sitting in the food court at the Staten Island Mall. ..a small oasis of pleasant smells in the middle of an establishment built on top of the world's largest land fill. I looked around me and realized I was the only vanilla, mid-western, culturally un-identifiable person in the room. It was a moment.
I realized how Harrison Dixon III and Shokia must have felt.

Now I live in the sunny south. It is what it is. And I have a friend who is black. African American. She is actually Pacific Islander, Spanish, Belgian, and African. BONUS. I think she knows this, but she's my first real black friend. It's nice of her to give me a chance and not smack me when I say or do something stupid. She's told me a little bit about Kwanzaa and the racism that exists against white people. It's great to finally have somebody to ask, who knows me and understands that I'm not trying to be annoying, I just really have no idea.

So, now we have a black President. I didn't vote for him, I confess. But I don't mind that he was elected. I actually think it's pretty great. I'm looking forward to seeing how Michelle does things. (I LOVE first Ladies. All first ladies. I identify with them somehow.) I feel like....and I hope I'm saying this right....like I have another black friend. I have a lot to learn. I think probably we all do.

This was really hard for me to write.