I am struggling with how to respond to
@jssailem's post on this thread. I think it is best to tell my story (in an abbreviated form).
First, the intent of the Burlington Community Sailing program is to provide an opportunity for kids who would otherwise not be be included to experience sailing. That is an admirable goal, but begs the question, why wouldn't be included? The answer is complicated, the short story is people of color over generations have learned there are places they don't belong. The sailing program recognized this and it was mentioned in the piece that yacht clubs were for whites only. It wasn't only people of color who were excluded, Jews were also excluded. The message was clear, you don't belong here and that message was passed on for generations.
So how does that message get passed on? Which brings me to my story, the story of a 70 year old very white guy.
Boarding a bus as a 7 year old I told my mother I wanted to sit in the back of the bus because it was more fun there. With a stern look she grabbed my arm and said "David, we sit here" pulling me to the vacant seats in the front of the bus. Once seated she pointed to a sign at the front of the bus, "Coloreds to the rear." This was Greenville, SC 63 years ago. It was part of the indoctrination that some people don't belong in some places.
A few months later I found myself in a different place far away, a place where this 8 year old white kid was in the minority of the minority. I was not a Pacific Islander, I was not Asian, I was not a white kid with generations of ancestors on the island, and I was not a white military brat. There were few kids who were like me. Over the next six years I learned where I was welcomed and where I wasn't. The number of places I wasn't welcomed far surpassed the number of places to which I was welcomed. I learned.
Many years later I worked in an urban school district and repeatedly saw kids of color given the message, "you don't belong in this school" yet alone any thing like a yacht club. Parents knew and understood, they taught their kids how to deal with this exclusionary message, don't go where you are not wanted.
The Burlington Community Sailing program should be commended for their efforts to undo the messages of the past. To provide a welcome to kids of color to a sport we all love. They should be commended for their efforts to undo the exclusionary messages of our predecessors. They should be commended for easing the entry requirements to our passion for those who would have been excluded.
Three hundred years of oppression and exclusion are not undone by a speech before the Lincoln Monument or passage of a few laws. It comes from the hard work of those who are willing to recognize the problem and work to change attitudes and remove barriers. That is what is happening in Burlington, that is work that should be commended.
That the work is hard and needs to be done is what I began to learn as a 7 year old. And it is the work I have done in my professional life. John, the comments you made negate the work I have done for the past 45 years. As one of a similar age, you might remember the slogan that said something like "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem."
www.cbsnews.com
That's just my opinion.
