One of Michele’s posts (this one, to be exact) reminded me of something that happened many years ago. Back when I was a junior or senior in high school. One of my best guy friends set me up on a blind date. He went to one of the Catholic high schools here in Houston, and he thought he should set me up with one of his friends from school. I had met other friends of his, and they were generally pretty nice guys – so I agreed. I talked to the guy on the phone once or twice, then we went on the date. He showed up to pick me up, and he was cute. Quite a little hottie. I was so excited; cute guy, smart, funny, the date was looking pretty positive. We went off to dinner.
That was when it happened. I experienced a form of racism that I had personally never encountered before.
15 or 20 minutes in to the meal, he told me that he had reservations about going out with me because I was Catholic, but since I was of German decent and had blue eyes and blond hair*, I was obviously part of the Aryan race.
Yes, he based dating me on whether or not I was part of the Aryan race. I had no idea that there were people out there like that (I was 17 at the time, I was naive.) That pretty much put a damper on the rest of the evening because I am simply not a racist person. I’m not claiming to be perfect and I know I have had racist moments, but overall I’m not a racist. And I refused to date one – I don’t think I ever spoke to him again after that evening. And I gave David a piece of my mind for setting me up with someone like that. Oddly enough, he didn’t realize it would bother me. I guess he really didn’t know me that well after all.
* When I was younger my hair was blond. When I hit 20 and cut off the horrid perm I had, I discovered that my hair had become a medium brown. Now it’s about 50% gray too, if I dont’ color it.
9 replies on “Part of the Aryan Race…”
I’m trying to remember where you grew up. I was thinking it was Minnesota or Minneapolis or someplace. Anyway, reason is, in Memphis, it was never that hard to tell who was a racist. They weren’t that subtle or discriminating. Though I can imagine facing it out of the blue like that would be even more mind shattering.
Ha! Good for you for realizing he was scum despite the pretty exterior.
My family lives in Minnesota, but I grew up in Illinois. I encountered racism (normally against Blacks or Hispanics) but never someone saying they had judged me based on the likelihood that I was of the Aryan race. It was odd, very odd.
damn, whatever happened to the benefit of the doubt? thinking someone’s racist based on what they look like is, well… racist. like, duh! what a dumb fellow…
pardonez moi… i read that wrong. i thought you were saying that he had reservations because you were aryan…
Well he must have thought she’d be okay with it, so you’re still right about him, Mikey.
Well I really have no idea what to saY: People call me names sometimes, my friends mostly (since I’m german and mexican) the call me “crack-bean”.
Part of the Aryan Race….
Tell your “date” that ARYANS originated from the Persian Empire, founded by Cyrus II after 546 B.C. Today it is called IRAN. The name “IRAN” means “Land of AYRANS”. Any dumb white ass that thinks Hitler new what the hell he was talking about is not worth the air they breath. By the way swastika mean “good luck” in Sanskrit and found in many ancient ASIAN Cultures (Way before NAZIS used it.
Considering I haven’t seen or talked to him since about 1986, I can’t tell him… but if I could, I would. I completely agree with you – explaining why I only went on one date with him and ended it quickly!