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?"
With any luck their time in Utah will make them realize that they've been the victims of liberal propaganda all those years in New Orleans.
thanks for your advice, but I think he was talking from his own personal experience.
LOL... I've always wondered - where exactly is Caucasia???
That would be 'grammar'.
Question: does the Latter-Day Saints church (Mormons) still hold a tenet that black people cannot attain the highest level of afterlife, or hold high office in the LDS church? I grew up in an area of the East coast (DC) which had quite a few Mormon families, and these ideas of mine may have been misunderstood by me from talking with Mormon classmates, or overturned by the LDS church since then.
i've experienced that myself. Black women tend to get very angry, in general, when they see Black guys with white women. However, I have lots of Black female friends as well as guys. I think it's important to be able to talk about it. There's still a lot of discomfort. Plus, I've made lots of comments on this website and have gotten many more replies from this one comment than any I've made in a year! Interesting!
I'll bet if he lost the dreadlocks, dressed neatly, spoke politely and dropped the attitude he'd get a lot less of it. Look like part of the subculture and you risk being treated like part of it!
Typo. I make a lot of typos and misspellings because I type fast and don't take the time to check my spelling (don't even use the spell checker half the time).
They were SO afraid of how they'd be treated in Tucson, that this was plastered on our front page today. I can't imagine the outcry if the words were changed to "white" and the situation reversed. Tucson is not exactly a hotbed of segregation and racism!
"Tucson blacks prominent in evacuee welcome"
By Jeff Commings
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
"Blacks make up only 3 percent of Tucson's population. That's about 18,000 people.
And it seemed like all of them were making their presence known this week to support the arrival of the evacuees from New Orleans. Whether at Tucson International Airport or the Tucson Convention Center, organized groups and individual well-wishers made sure the first thing the evacuees saw were what they call "faces like ours."
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/katrina/92507
I was born in Mississippi, lived there many years, and returned to go to college there. Since then, I have lived in many areas of the country (including northern California), and overseas as well.
Mississippians are unrivaled for their caring, warmth, and generosity of spirit. The news talks about the horrible things that have happened, but they don't talk about the remarkable, unselfish attitudes of those who are living this disaster. I have to hear this from my family and friends, black and white, who are struggling to maintain dignity and sense of purpose under horrible circumstances.
I'm a little oversensitive maybe.
You CLEARLY don't understand the deep South, or San Francisco, for that matter. My grandfather was sherrif of Neshoba County, Mississipi, during the depression (only served one term because he didn't tolerate the Klan) and my father was raised in Philadelphia, MS. I grew up in New York, went to school in Texas, Boston and New York and ended up living in SF for the time between 77 and 82. After 5 years back in New York I ended up back in the "mid south" in the Memphis area, so I've seen it all.
If your boyfriend was afraid of being lynched in Mississippi for dating a white woman he should be honest enough to admit that the odds are equal that it would be a group of black women as a group of white men doing the lynching.
And as far as places "blacks can't/won't go" there are a ton of places in New York, Boston and, particularly, San Francisco, that a white boy better not go or they be dead real quick.
You don't want to be a whitey hanging out near Sam Wo's and the Golden Dragon at 3 AM. You don't want to be a black person in the hispanic sections of South City, Redwood City or the Potrero most any time of day. You don't want to be an asian in the wrong part of Oakland EVER. And you don't want to be ANY other ethnic group and wander into an area where Tagalog is the primary dialect.
There is more harmony and brotherhood between the "traditional" American ethnic groups (black and white) in the deep south than any other place I've lived. Don't get me started on South Boston during the busing riots! The white population in Memphis area is doing amazingly well in dealing with the large influx of hispanics from Mexico and further south, as well as the amazing increase in the asian population, particularly Korean and Vietnamese.
The folks in this area who are having trouble dealing with minorities are the black activists who have finally gotten control of the city government and insisit "it's our turn" to get rich off of graft and nepotism the way white people did through most of the 20th century. They can't stand the idea of other minorities "horning in on their action." There are signs of hope in the "traditional" black community, particularly the new County Mayor, AC Wharton, and some of the up and comers in the next generation (Harold Ford Junior is as partisan as they come, but he is rational).
So do a bit of introspection on your bigotry towards an entire quarter of the country you are part of and try to be a bit less prejudiced. Oh, and try to understand when the 99% of the US looks at the loons in SF and cries "WTF are you talking about?"
Just west of Asia and just east of Europe, a little north of the Middle East.
Thanks for the education.
The people in the Rocky Mountain states may be the least racist in the country. Why?
The region was settled by sturdy individualists. In the earliest days, trappers and guides included blacks, half-breeds and Indians, Mexicans, etc.
Survival was the test, not your race.
An article a few years ago in US News, or Time or Newsweak featured a Medical Doctor, that moved to Wyoming. He also had a ranch.
He said he was most welcome. That he held some novelty value, but that was all.
In Utah, there are a whole lot of non-Mormons, too, if that is an issue.
If you were a democrat, you could get elected president.
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