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?"
Thanks for your post! Oceanperch, what Dutch community do you live in? I live in Winters, CA (north of Vacaville) but my ex-husband and I bought our first home in Pittsburg, CA.
Take care -- prejudice, IMHO, is born of fear and lack of knowledge.
You're right.
I was going back in my mind to an announcement & discussion in a Priesthood Meeting that dealt with race and a change church policy, which was not the Great Revelation and came years later.
It wasn't too long after that that I left the LDS church, which is why the timing sticks in my memory.
I don't blame black women at all for feeling outrage about this...I feel outraged when the only women featured in Howood are the above mentioned NON_TYPICAL females that apparently don't live anywhere in my universe.....
its a "lookism" issue, and I am afraid it goes far deeper than even racism, and it will never be alleviated....its far too ingrained , sadly.....
my son lives with a young pretty dark-skinned black girl....college educated and very sweet....hopefully they will marry.....
is it my imagination or is white men/black women becoming more and more common?...it seems that combination was rare for a long time....
I think that's it's becoming more common. The black women that I've talked to have the same thoughts that I have. You just get tired of being put down because you're too dark. I found freedom in dating men of other races because I knew that they liked what they saw. The black men that I dated at 20 yrs. old told me that I would be prettier if I was lighter or that they liked me because my skin was lighter than theirs.
Oh c'mon. Most black men marry black women.
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