Interesting question for me, because though I'm an American born person of European descent(I'm mostly Irish and German, a blue-eyed strawberry blond) a lot of my childhood was spent around Asians, Hispanics and Blacks. My dad was in the service and we were sent to the Philippines. A lot of the families living around us on the base were Black and Hispanic families. So, I grew up in this weird situation(for a white American) where I was the minority. I think I had one white friend growing up. I was raised in part by a Chinese/Philippino housekeeper. I really thought she was family as a small child, I never saw her as different from anyone else I cared about.
My childhood gave me a peculiar case of color blindness in many ways. I remember when I was about 9 and discovered that some people actually HATE each other because they're a different race. I was stunned. Almost all my childhood best friends were Asian or Black. I ate at their houses, had pajama parties and shared their beds, and never even gave it a thought that we were "different". It was such a shock to me in particular that some white people felt they were superior to people of color. I didn't know about being afraid of or hating people who were different. I still cannot relate at all to those kinds of ideas. It's very outside my personal experience. I only felt "white" when I was much older, a teenager, and even then, it was because other people made that distinction for me.(I remember one funny incident in school where a black girl referred to me as "that white girl" and I almost looked around to see who she was talking about. It took me a minute to realize it was me!) I can't ever consciously thinking when I'm dealing with other people, "I'm white." It usually comes from the other person if at all. Growing up the way I did does seem to have had an impact on my esthetics, though. I tend to find non-white people more attractive. Most of the people I've dated are darker than I am, usually Black, Amerindian, Asian or Mediterannean types. My husband has Black and Amerindian ancestry.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2005-04-03 07:15 am (UTC)My dad was in the service and we were sent to the Philippines. A lot of the families living around us on the base were Black and Hispanic families.
So, I grew up in this weird situation(for a white American) where I was the minority. I think I had one white friend growing up. I was raised in part by a Chinese/Philippino housekeeper. I really thought she was family as a small child, I never saw her as different from anyone else I cared about.
My childhood gave me a peculiar case of color blindness in many ways. I remember when I was about 9 and discovered that some people actually HATE each other because they're a different race. I was stunned. Almost all my childhood best friends were Asian or Black. I ate at their houses, had pajama parties and shared their beds, and never even gave it a thought that we were "different".
It was such a shock to me in particular that some white people felt they were superior to people of color. I didn't know about being afraid of or hating people who were different. I still cannot relate at all to those kinds of ideas. It's very outside my personal experience.
I only felt "white" when I was much older, a teenager, and even then, it was because other people made that distinction for me.(I remember one funny incident in school where a black girl referred to me as "that white girl" and I almost looked around to see who she was talking about. It took me a minute to realize it was me!) I can't ever consciously thinking when I'm dealing with other people, "I'm white." It usually comes from the other person if at all.
Growing up the way I did does seem to have had an impact on my esthetics, though. I tend to find non-white people more attractive. Most of the people I've dated are darker than I am, usually Black, Amerindian, Asian or Mediterannean types. My husband has Black and Amerindian ancestry.