Posted on 09/09/2005 2:35:47 PM PDT by RWR8189
CAMP WILLIAMS, Utah (Reuters) - Asked whether he would relocate permanently to Utah after being brought here as a refugee from Hurricane Katrina, Larry Andrew rattled off a series of questions on Friday on the delicate issue of race.
"How do the adults really feel about us moving in?" he asked at Camp Williams, a military base 21 miles south of Salt Lake City housing about 400 refugees from last weeks disaster. "What if I find a Caucasian girl and decide to date her?
"Will I have to deal with whispering behind me and eyeballing me?" asked the 36-year-old black man.
For the mostly poor, black refugees evacuated from New Orleans, few places are as geographically remote and culturally alien as this corner of Utah, where 0.2 percent of the population in the nearest town is black.
Still, some refugees, especially younger adults, say they are ready to make a new start in the region even though they did not know they were coming until the doors shut on the airplane evacuating them from New Orleans.
"I'm planning a whole new life," said Phillip Johnson II, 23, who has already arranged an apartment in Salt Lake City. "It's an opportunity knocking for me out here."
He said even though the population of New Orleans was two-thirds black, his appearance with dreadlocks and a goatee still worked against him. "In New Orleans, being a young black man, you get harassed a lot, stereotyped a lot," he said.
One of the volunteers at the base, Newton Gborway, who moved to Utah from Liberia in West Africa five years ago, shared his first-hand impression of life in an economically prosperous state with a less than one percent black population.
"Don't be shocked and surprised if you meet someone who is mean to you or doesn't want to associate with you because you are black," he told Darisn Evans. "You don't worry about the negative stuff."
"Everything is going to be okay, but it is just a matter of time."
Evans said he would remain in Utah, and would like to work either as a handyman or as a highway patrolman.
His ex-wife Tanya Andrews, 44, said race played a part in their escape from flooded New Orleans, an adventure which she said included looting food, a television and a boat to get to higher land. She said rescuers picked them up only after a lighter-skinned black woman waved down a helicopter.
UTAH OPEN ARMS
So far the local community has welcomed the refugees with open arms, although they say they face an adjustment to life in Utah, stronghold of the socially conservative Mormon Church.
"Any time you go in where you are in the minority -- and I'm experienced in this -- it's going to be more difficult," said Wayne Mortimer, mayor of Bluffdale next to Camp Williams.
He cited his past missionary work in Canada when he was a relatively rare Mormon. Mortimer said his town of 6,500, a well-to-do bedroom community of Salt Lake City, had 20 low-income housing units available for the refugees.
"When you are an affluent community like we have, the greatest blessing we can have is to lift someone else," he said in an interview.
Larry Andrew's brother Adrian and sister Tanya, despite initial shock about being sent to Utah, say they will remain in Utah. Even Larry, despite his doubts, says the state is offering him a unique chance.
"According to what I see, it will be beneficial to me economically, even socially," he said. "But how would they adapt to me?"
I know for a fact they were warmly greeted and people are bending over backwards to help them. Had a job fair at the camp yesterday. If they want to assimilate and have a decent life, this is the chance... just don't steal anymore TVs.
That was the only thing that suprised me when OJ got off... black athlete with white woman does make black women angry.
It's getting better everywhere, but there is something about the deep South that I don't think many of us can understand, unless we were from there
It's getting better everywhere, but there is something about the deep South that I don't think many of us can understand, unless we were from there
Excellent point, and I have an example. My family employed a black woman to keep house and help tend my aged and ill grandmother.
An uniformed race-hustler would see the stereotype of a black woman serving as servant to a white family.
The inside story was that she was a beloved member of the family. We cared about her and her family, too. The outside world didn't see that my grandmother's children saw to it that the maid's grandson got a college education and a stipend through their donations.
Once they come out of the influence of the bankrupt Democrat way of thinking and see the fruits of hard work, I'm sure they will prosper because thats what we do. Katrina gave whole goo-gob of people might of just gotten their ticket out of the cycle of poverty and into middle class existence. That is the most positive thing to come out of this terrible situation.
My little town has one black family. They've said that they're very content here after moving from Detroit. No concerns about gangs, the kids can walk the streets after dark and they can leave the house unlocked.
They were a curiosity in the beginning but are just neighbors these days.
You seem like a nice person, although you appear to have lived a very sheltered life compared to many of us in Freeperland.
I'm being overwhelmed by comments on this subject. Sorry if I hit a sensitive spot. I should have said, "in my opinion," instead of sounding like I know anything about the South, because I personally don't. Sorry to everyone from the South who holds only love and acceptance for all races and peoples.
"The slums of New Orleans"
N.O. is not one big slum.Theere are many nice areas-Gentilly,East New Orleans,and even parts of the Ninth Ward have nice houses that have been in those families for years.
I don't blame those blacks who have lived their whole life in a mostly black city to be reluctant to be transplanted to Utah.No doubt the majority of whites will accept them with kindness and warmth.Yet they will still be seen as "the other"in the same way a white family setting down roots in East St Louis or Compton would feel like a fish out of water.
We part as friends. And sorry to everyone in the North and West who hold only love and acceptance for all races and peoples that I may have offended.
Thanks! But Tonto, why must be part?
Well, we when we part, we'll part as friends. I've got a few minutes, so I'll hang around for a while.
I did have a very sheltered life. My parents and church conveyed no prejudice and were very strong on missions, so most of the exposure I've had to anyone different than myself (White, Anglo Saxon Protestant - that's a WASP, right) was in the form of being helpful. Also, until I moved to the San Francisco East Bay (and I don't live there - I live about 50 miles inland) I grew up in a pretty mono-cultural society. I've got a lot to learn. Thanks for teaching me, fellow freepers.
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