It took growing up around people of every race and nationality to recognize systemic racism. I can now say I’ve found it, right here in Port Townsend. I am 67 and have been in business here for over 30 years.
My family lived in a completely integrated working poor, blue collar shipyard town in the Bay Area. Integration didn’t have to be legislated. Nobody had money to live anywhere else but in the cheapest housing, so we all lived together.
Racism was real, and in your face. My friends experienced discrimination, and, as a poor white kid, so did I. It was just something you had to live with. When you went out on the street you looked over your shoulder. Even at the municipal swimming pool you had to be aware of your surroundings. We learned early that the best way to keep from getting your ass kicked on a regular basis was to show you could not only take a thumping, but give one, as well. Once you did that, you were pretty much accepted and left in peace.
We had a few riots and it was common to see Black Panthers doing their “citizen patrols.” I even met Angela Davis. I was the acolyte at a sort of secret nighttime baptism performed by Father O’Connor of her god son in our neighborhood Catholic church. I can still see all those black leather jackets and black berets, the huge Afros, and little me in my robe with my brass candle lighter.
My friends were a mirror of the neighborhood. You had to have friends who didn’t look like you or you just weren’t going to have friends. We went through a lot and grew close as we became men. We all did pretty well because we never let our working poor status hold us back. We never let circumstances or racial crap tell us who we were or what we could be. One of my buddies, who is Black, started out making french fries at McDonald’s, back when they made them on site from whole potatoes. He went on to own three McDonald’s in the Bay Area. He has employed hundreds of young people, paid for college educations and set many a wayward child on the path to success.
Then there is Michael Tee, a Black man. He’s really smart and now a prominent lawyer in Vallejo, California. Dan, Jr. another close Black buddy, was raised by a single parent, graduated from the University of San Francisco and worked his way up to being supervisor of probation for Solano County. After that career, he had his own business on the Napa River. My pal Ray, another Black good friend, retired as police officer in Concord, California. And Gabe, my Filipino bud, owned a number of successful donut shops around the Bay Area. And there is my Black business partner of 13 years, before I moved up here.
Why am I sharing all this with you?
In all those decades of growing up, living and working with Blacks, Hispanics and Filipinos, watching my friends prosper and succeed, I had not seen this “systemic racism” thing until I recently started looking around Port Townsend. Here in this nearly homogeneous White, privileged Utopia I am seeing it fabricated by people who don’t know a thing about real racism, and who probably have spent very little intimate, heart-breaking, shoulder-punching, bear hugging, laughing, working and crying together time with people darker than themselves.
For starters, our liberal, “progressive” (but really primitive) establishment is frighteningly quick to call anyone who does not toe their line a racist. I have learned in the past couple weeks that anyone who supports law enforcement is a racist. I take that finger pointing very seriously because I know what real racism is. I grew up in it, fought against it, saw my friends face it and stood by them. I don’t have a White guilt complex. My friends and I beat the racists in our lives because we did not define ourselves or others by skin color. And we didn’t accept anyone doing that to us, either. We lived Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream: “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
Those pushing this systemic racism thing are taking us backwards, to an even worse place than what I knew as I kid. Key people in our local political leadership want us to see skin color first and foremost. There really is no such a thing as systemic racism in this country anymore. There is no system of racism that kept my pals from rising, or other minorities from being business owners, senators, writers, firemen, mechanics, nurses…even President. It is a pretty pathetic system of racism that gave Barack Obama more popular votes than anyone else in American history.
The only “systemic racism” out there is a structure of beliefs, language, indoctrination and policies being created by those who lust for power over others, no matter their skin color. And it is a narrative that suits the psychological needs of those who, for some reason I cannot understand, want to believe it.
I’ve lived here for decades. Over those years I have employed 76 men and women of all kinds of races and nationalities. I have helped people immigrate to this country. I have never seen or witnessed any kind of system of racism. Sure, there are jerks, and jerks of every color. But in Jefferson County, there is no system–in commerce, education, government, the arts or law enforcement–that is racist.
I’ve heard it said that our demographics are evidence of systemic racism. Port Townsend is now mostly made up of White people who moved here from other parts of the country–including a large number of Trust Funders who don’t need a job and can handle the high cost of living. These people moved away from their hometowns, their network of friends and associates, their families in order to live here.
Such a thing is unheard of in the Black, Hispanic and Filipino families I grew up around. They are too family-centric. To move away from family when they retired–and had more time to be with family–would be illogical to them. They remain where their heart is, and that is where family is.
Growing up in a rainbow community made me who I am. I was blessed to get knocked around, to pick myself up, to make life-long friends with guys who taught me so much. The most important lesson, one I cannot repeat enough, is the antidote to racism. It is so profound and so powerful. It destroys all this “systemic racism” BS. Here it is: Don’t let anyone define you by your skin color, and don’t do that to anyone else. Ever. It’s that simple.
T.J. Kalas is the nom de plume of a prominent Jefferson County business owner.
THANK YOU for saying what has been on my heart. I was not brave enough to voice this very same opinion. I spent my school years in New Orleans as a “white Yankee” living in a very Black neighborhood. My experience mirrors yours.
The author stated unequivocally that “there really is no such thing as systemic racism anymore”. Is this really your opinion?
From the editor: Mr. Maupin appears to be the same person as the other commenter, Radwhawk not Redskin. They have exactly the same email address and other identifying digital information.
To the editor: the coward who wrote this piece chooses to conceal their identity, hiding behind a “nom de plume”. If you’re so interested in identity transparency, this “journalistic outlet” is setting a poor example.
We permit that in limited circumstances because Port Townsend has a very active practice of retaliation against business people who don’t toe the line. We pointed out your identity so it did not appear that the two commenters were different people. So now you have three comments under three identities to your count. That coward, as you call him, has provided jobs and careers for dozens of minority workers and, as the article said, stood by his Black friends when they faced real racism in a rough town. We should have personal histories like that. The world would be a better place. Cheers.
Interesting that you selectively choose to identify people on the internet, and this right wing website in particular, which has a very active practice of doxxing people who have the audacity to point that racism does exist (this is by definition a right wing website as you wrote a piece recently supporting the debunked conspiracy theory that there was widespread “voter fraud” taking place in this recent election- laughable!)
I’m truly fascinated by the double think which you and your racism denying ilk are capable of. You insist that the solution is to not acknowledge, think about, or talk about race, then in the next breath you boast of all of the Black and other minority people that you call friends, employ, have “helped out”. To this day nobody who ascribes to this “colorblind as a cure to racism” has been able to explain how their eyes defy the laws of physics by not seeing skin color. It’s a great fantasy to think about a world where race doesn’t have an impact on people’s lives, but that’s not the world we live in. We live in an explicitly racialized society, and POC have always been at the losing end of that power dynamic. I would really love to hear you articulate why you believe black infant mortality is triple that of white infants in parts of our country, or why black men are 6 times as likely to be sent to prison than white men. Police clearly see race (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/03/10-things-we-know-about-race-and-policing-in-the-u-s/), bank lenders clearly see race (https://www.revealnews.org/article/for-people-of-color-banks-are-shutting-the-door-to-homeownership/), employers clearly see race (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/28/18241973/workplace-discrimination-cpi-investigation-eeoc), yet you in your infinite zen state claim to be immune to basic human psychology and to deny the existence of systemic racism? Just fascinating. I would genuinely love to hear your mental contortions and explanations to these discrepancies. Feel free to email me since you clearly know my information.
PS: I’m going out on a limb here, but I’m guessing you loved the name “Redskins”, and opposed the school board changing the name? How does this fit into your “colorblind” narrative? Sincerely interested- I don’t hear from many people with your views, and I would like to try to understand.
PPS: If you don’t like the ability to for commenters to use multiple monikers, redesign your platform!
This is the same person again posting a comment under a different identity.
Pure and simple this is the absolute solution if only —-
According to your brilliant “antidote” to racism, if we pretend not to notice race, then there can be no racism. This idea is nothing new, and like those before you, you invoke the famous “I Have a Dream” speech by MLK. The line from this speech that you seized upon- that one day he might be judged by the content of his character and not the color of his skin- was seized upon by the white public because the words were seen to provide a simple and immediate solution to racial tensions: pretend that we don’t see race, and racism, with white people insisting that they didn’t see race, or if they did, that it had no meaning to them. Clearly, the civil rights movement didn’t end racism; nor have claims of “color blindness”. But reducing King’s work to this simplistic idea illustrates how movements of social change are co-opted, stripped of their initial challenge, and used against the very cause from which they originated.
You claim that you don’t define anybody by their skin color, yet you proudly gave several examples of all of the Black friends that you’ve had. You say there is “really no such thing as systemic racism” yet you fail to acknowledge any of the gaping racial disparities in wealth, income, home ownership, educational opportunities, health outcomes, and extreme rates of incarceration in our country. I would really love to know how you explain why black men are incarcerated at astronomically high rates compared to their white counterparts- if your answer is “it’s the behavior of the people getting locked up”, you’re ascribing an attribute to an entire racial group of people, which is the definition of a racist idea.
I understand how tempting it can be to just “not see or talk about race”, but guess what? This makes you blind to racism!! Your outdated, tired, and thoroughly privileged ideas in this piece need to go the way of the dinosaurs. Read a book about systemic racism instead of just relying on “your experience”. You have a lot to learn.
To Dr. Jesse, and your other personas listed herein…My words are these…
The author of this story, grew up in a rainbow of races, cultures, and creeds, and was not afforded your privilege of growing up in a stark white little town, born into a privileged family whose roots are from a stark white city of the east coast. The author, in his growing up envriorment saw, and sees people as individuals. He could not, and did not identify these individuals as in groups of color, race, or creed. By your hap-hazard comments, it appears you lack the ability to see people as individuals, but only as in groups. I might add, that your white guilt is showing.