Brown-eyed children "became domineering and arrogant and judgmental and cool," she says. "And smart! Smart! All of a sudden, disabled readers were reading. I thought, 'This is not possible, this is my imagination.' And I watched bright, blue-eyed kids become stupid and frightened and frustrated and angry and resentful and distrustful. It was absolutely the strangest thing I'd ever experienced."
Elliott's eyes flash at the memory.
"When they were saying and doing those things to one another, they were being their preachers, their parents, people on television -- they were practicing what they had learned. I learned you don't have to have people of color in a community to have racism. My third-graders knew every negative stereotype they'd ever heard about blacks, and there were no blacks in Riceville, Iowa."
--
Elliott is an enigma to me, not only because she is a white woman who believes God is black and detests phrases like "reverse racism," but because she comes from a city I know well.
My grandfather once served the Congregational church in Riceville as a student pastor and my mother graduated from Riceville High School. She and my father settled in Cedar Rapids, but every summer, we'd pack into our red station wagon and join cousins, aunts and uncles at Riceville's Lake Hendricks for our annual family camp-out.
A place that had fewer than 1,000 people and a main street where elderly women sold Avon soap at sidewalk sales intrigued me -- at first. But as I grew older and more self-conscious, Riceville became yet another small town where it felt as though residents stared extra long at an Asian face.
("Did you ever think it was because you're new in town?" a well-meaning aunt once chided after I expressed my frustration.)
Race was not something we discussed in my family. My adopted Korean brother and I were different, yes, but we focused on similarities. Besides, "Asian" was thought of merely in cultural terms, mentioned in connection to food or dress or dance, but forgotten in a black-white paradigm. Racism was acknowledged only when it appeared on the news, linked to such symbols as burning crosses or hooded Klansmen.
My parents were liberal Democrats who believed love transcended race and taught us to judge according to character. Good lessons, but they did nothing to combat the ache of growing up "foreign" and "exotic."
