[ShantheArtist23]

SO...
Growing up into middle school and sometime around there, my dad was (and still is) a very racist man. My mom too, kind of. They would both crack jokes about people being Chinese and imitating their voices, sounds and accents. My dad would tell us a lot that people who are African American are thugs, gangsters and "gang-bangers". They kill, steal and rob, and mug people. That's how it's always been with my dad.
Today, I was looking up apartments and places to live during my first year of college, and I found this one apartment place that's near the Capitol of my state, and I told my mom that I was pretty excited about this place, and she just came back with "Well, that's a black neighborhood..."
Really Mom?
I can't believe the amount of racism in between my parents. I feel so bad because now I'm afraid of people who are African American and of Spanish decent (like Mexico and so forth, but Spain was always proven "okay"). Oh yeah, my dad also told us that everything from Mexico was poisonous, and that Mexicans would basically kill you if they could. I think that's what he said anyway. So one year on Holloween, (spelling) I got Mexican candy, and my dad and another guy both told me to burn it in the fire pit, so I did...
I feel terrible about all this. I'm also kind of upset with my mom for saying that... I know she's concerned about me living in a safe place and neighborhood, but should I live by my standards or hers?
Am I a racist person, or have I just been scarred by all the things my parents have told and showed me as a kid?
Thanks... I also mean no offense to this post whatsoever... I'm a pretty nice person... :'( That is why I feel so bad... I'd be friends with everyone if not for all this crap...

[CANDC]

I understand your dilemma about family racism and prejudice. No one can change that but can seek another way for their own life. Sometimes websites will rate neighborhoods on how safe they are or will give reviews by people that have lived there.

Being safe is important. The color of people is not as important as what things are like at night. Daytime neighborhood can look peaceful, what counts is what happens at night.

If the college has dorms, living the first year at college could be safe way to go or living off campus near the college, at least till you get the sense of what is the best place to live.

[ladytiger]

My birth people are closet racists I was shocked to find out how birth man has racist tendencies my sister told me that before I was born because I never heard him say anything. Now, he talks **** about the Mexicans yet kissing their asses and running after their wives all the time.

Living in a safe neighborhood is important what you need to do is go to the police station give them the address ask who is the officer that does his beat in that area and see if you can talk to him or her about what the neighborhood is like during the day but most importantly at night.

[krisakira]

My parents are both racist. My dad believes slavery "wasn't that bad" because "it was God's way of bringing christianity to the africans." And my mom wouldn't let me go to my friend's house when I was in elementary school, because she was black and my mom said "you don't know how they will be." It made me almost fearful of going to black people's houses, because you don't know how weird they might be. But as I got older, I knew it was just their racism and I could distance myself from it. I still have a feeling of fear but my rational mind goes "that's just the fear your parents instilled into you, there is nothing to be afraid of" and I go on with my life. It doesn't mean I'm racist. It means I'm going against racism, by understanding that my parents were wrong and not acting on it.

[nicoleflynn]

We aren't born racist (or anything else), we have to be carefully taught.

[libragrrl_9]

The fact that you all are being honest and confronting what you've been conditioned to believe is a huge leap toward UNlearning racism. For white people and non-white people, it is literally a lifelong process, but it's beautiful and worth it. I'm unlearning so much harmful crap about my own people, my skin and hair, my ancestors and history as a black woman. I'm finally learning the truth, about all people, and it's immensely sad and angering but so freeing. I know that what I'm learning will be translated into empathy, understanding, and real love for others and myself. Love means wanting the truth and justice for oppressed people AND those who oppress... I'm learning to live by that.

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[CopperStar]

The more impoverished people are, the more desperate they tend to feel.
The more desperate people feel, the more danger there tends to be in a community.
A lot of communities that are majority black are also impoverished.
Which means that a lot of majority black communities are unsafe.
But it has nothing to do with their race, and everything to do with poverty and desperation.
As long as you understand that, you can keep racism at bay.
You can both understand how the stereotypes manifest, while also understanding that they are not true. Just correlation =/= causation errors.

[Dog on a Tree]

I'm sorry to hear about your situation and your parents. You have a choice though in this matter. You change your view of the world and understand it better. Your parents have not helped at all, in fact it's the opposite. The colour of one's skin does not define a person.
You can overcome this. I admire your courage in admitting to a forum about your problems, well done.

[Perna]

Sounds like your parents have tried to teach you racism but you have been a very poor student :-) Keep using your own eyes and good head to tell you what you need to know for your life. The problem with most "isms" is that they are stereotypes about groups, not individuals. Different is not bad or wrong, it's just different. I try to remember when I was 4 or 5 and started going to my friends' houses for sleep overs or just a meal and how "different" their parents and lives were compared to mine. Even as late as high school; my friends would come in and my mother would make them go in the refrigerator for a drink and/or snack, ask them over to dinner on the spur of a moment, etc. whereas their mother would have to invite me a week ahead of time and there'd be just the right amount of food (everybody got "one" of whatever, there were no seconds or anything) and it was so formal and I was so afraid of making a mistake. . . I thought it was funny that some friends had a hard time, even with my mother encouraging them with getting a soda from our refrigerator; it did not occur to me that my house must have seemed strange/"wrong" to them like theirs did to me.

We're raised a certain way and hopefully learn some good lessons or take away our own good responses to bad lessons, as you have to your parents' racist speech. But eventually we get grown and have to work it all out on our own, what we want to keep of our upbringing and what doesn't makes sense or seems harmful to us and/or others.

[Oneiros]

Coming from an asian that's grown up in a predominant caucasian society...

I have felt judgement and criticism all my life, and I still do and I have done some acceptance and growing of my own. Long story, but I had to join this forum when I saw this post. I hope there is something in this post that may leave you feeling a lot better about yourself.

What we have to remember, is that our parents' generations have been one of the first to actually integrate and come together on such a scale, following a long period of segregation (pre-WW2), and civil liberty and equality was a greater issue then whilst our parents were growing up...more or less. Not just skin colour, but class and so on.

I honestly believe your parents did the best job they knew how to do, in terms of social development. They wouldn't have had anybody to inspire them to integrate into other communities. It doesn't mean that they are less capable of loving their fellow man. The fact that you are self-reflecting, and like to question your beliefs, suggests that you never actually learned racism or took it on, and conversely, it seems like you respect their wishes for you to be safe. I think it's the human condition that generations never fully agree with their parents, and generations think differently.

Speak to a lot of younger teenagers these days, and issues of race, creed, religion, sexuality, are inconsequential. They tend to (at least in my experience) take human equality as a granted.

For me, your post is inspirational because by yourself, you questioned these values and belief systems when you probably have no reason to. It's so important for all of us to do this, only then can we evolve as a society.

[Shaly78]

Is your parents view due to television. Is there trauma from that race that them or their family and friends especially close have gone through? Is your parents not wanting to help because of these views? Decide where this is coming from get over it then by any means make the best decision for you. Pick up an extra job so that u dont need parents help