Racism, But Not Even A Little Bit What You Think

Hello Lost Web-Surfers, 

    Today, against my better judgement, I'm planning to throw the tip of my childhood iceberg out into the big, wide web. Fun. My parents are blatantly racist and this harshly shaped the majority of my childhood. No, neither of them are white {as most racism posts tend to address}. No, neither of them are Asian{as plenty of K-Pop and other international media articles debate about}. Ready for the wrench to be thrown in the clock's cogs? They're black.
    I'm exposing my race and past experience with racism into this blog much earlier than I expected, but since it's the issue gnawing on my brain right now (mainly because I just wrote a cute depression poem and this is what I found lingering in my mind afterwards).
    So here's the set up for this rare or at least surprising to most people set of characters. They identify as Pan-Afrikans(1), which means All Afrikan, the main beliefs held by Pan-Afrikans is that you should work to help empower blacks no matter where they are, no matter what you do and strong connections to our Afrikan heritage. This, in my experience often ties strongly with community and following traditional Afrikan religions and practices. I think it's a beautiful ideology and mindset for a people to have and in no way am I here to criticize it. For the sake of the slow, Pan-Afrikans aren't synonymous with racism, prejudice, or extremists. Just as a mass murdering Protestant man isn't a representation of the Protestants, my parents and those like them aren't representation of all Pan-Afrikans or 'woke' people.  
    Disclaimers claimed, onto the show. My parents are extremist Pan-Afrikans, who truthfully believe every white man, woman, and child should die. I already dread that some anti-black person will screenshot this and quote right after they point out that "Black people had slaves too!", but this is my online confidant so too damn bad. I know minorities in general if they can't relate to hating whites, can at least understand those who do. Every aspect of history where countries go to war, into poverty, or is conquered to inhumane degrees seems to be starring a couple of European or American (I know it's not exclusively white, but it tends to be white run) influences.
   How this has factored into my life is something I wonder about today. I remembered being in a history class in high school and covering Nat Turner's rebellion of 1831. A quick run down of it is that during slavery an enslaved man named Nat Turner led the killing of his slave masters with other slaves and it became an enormous rebellion in Virginia that went plantation to plantation freeing slaves and killing every white man, woman, and child. Eventually it did fail and Turner was hung and his flesh turned into a purse. If you think that escalated fast then you never learned about true American history and the complexities of slavery. The clearest part of this memory for me was just the overall contrast of the lesson being taught where Turner was a twisted culmination of American slavery's cruelties instead of how I was first taught it when I was around ten as the golden standard of Pan-Afrikan revolutions. Being retaught how wrong and mad he was and how I never made that mental change to think so until then was a bit shocking. Not only was this a different viewpoint, it quite honestly was the right one! I don't think I'm entirely convinced of the truth yet either because it was taught to me at such a young age. Something like that really stands out to me since, I tend to be so logic based and this is...weird nostalgia or something.
    No matter, I do know my own beliefs and that's summed up to a nice, "I don't care." I won't lie and say that I don't have a bias towards blacks and Hispanics or that there isn't an instant low level of dislike for whites. But the fact that I acknowledge it and don't pretend otherwise as well as consciously assuming a person is worth my time until after they've opened their mouth is what I think keeps my humanity in tact. I once read some Tumbler post that said something along the lines of  "the first thought you have is what you've been taught and the second is what you believe." Tumbler may be a questionable source, but that's a thought I feel makes most sense in my mind and it's encouraging. I don't think you can not have a bias or judge someone, but it's about how you handle those thoughts that matters. If you act on them or just ignore them then you should at least be upfront about it and not bullshiet it. But as long as you're striving to be fair and open I think you're on the right track no matter what may be going on around you. 
    Honestly, I don't think I'm trying to prove a specific point right now. I reallly just wanted to confess this and get it out there. Mainly because, as I get more comfortable online and I start to really delve into my childhood, this entire ideology of my parents impacted it and hard. I also didn't see much online addressing this issue when I would search for some sort of advice for "How To Deal with racist Parents" (Usually it was posts about white girls liking black guys) and maybe if enough people care to read more about this I could be a resource of help. Not exactly 'gonna solve the problem' help, but more of a 'I'm not alone with this struggle' help. Heck, you don't need to relate this, other cultures and human mindsets always intrigues me.
    Controversial Comment Quest of the Post:
What race or ethnicity are you most uncomfortable around? Even if you don't care, the one you know least about might intimidate or make you feel uneasy because you don't know much.

[Clever closing line]
~KitCat

(1) I've spelled Afrikan as opposed to African because part of the ideology is that since 'c' isn't a letter in African languages, it is correctly spelled with a 'k'.
-If I ever expand on Pan-Afrikan religions, beliefs or about Pan-Afrikan communities past this post, then I'll add a link here.-