The place I'm from is settled mostly by French and German immigrants who pushed Indians off the land to farm it, a fact that is reflected in the town names: Millstadt, Germantown, Mascoutah, Cahokia,  Kaskaskia, and Belleville ("The Bee-yoo-tiful  Village! my dad would crow as we drove past the row of fast food restaurants at the intersection of Main Street and the North Belt Line, much to the hilarity of us kids). 

The Beautiful Village is my home town, where  I grew up and went to high school.  It's right across the Mississippi river from St. Louis. When I grew up there, Belleville was 99% white; the Main Street of Belleville runs into East St. Louis, home of Olympian Jackie Joyner Kersee, which was (and I'm sure still is) 99% black.  There was a half mile of no man's land between the two towns, a lick of quiet street lined by car lots.

It's the kind of town you don't know about unless you live there, or unless some news happens there. And as it happens, my hometown is in the news. 

If you don't feel like following the link to watch the video, I'll summarize: on a Belleville school bus a black student beats a white student while both black and white students a) cheer, b) act horrified c) ride peaceably together d) join in,  e) restrain others from joining in, and f) all of the above.

The incident  prompted Rush Limbaugh to declaim ""In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering."

I'm a little mystified by the import of that little word 'now'.  What happened in America (as represented by Belleville, one presumes) before? Maybe Rush doesn't know, but I do.

 Belleville has always been in the racially-tinged news, the only diference is,  in the past there was no Obama to blame for the goings on.  Back in the 80s, 60 Minutes did a story on Belleville,  "The Most Racist Town in America?" a story in which the phrase "arrested for driving while black" was coined. 

There was a great outcry from the white Belleville populace, and my parents and their friends were among those offended by the story - though I have heard from them, varoiusly, over the  years the following comments which one would think might give them pause when complaining about the 60 Minutes story (but didn't): 

"I don't mind it when they talk white, but I hate when they talk nigger." 

"I don't want one walking across my yard."

"If you act like a nigger and talk like a nigger, I'm going to call you a nigger."

"That makes me sick." (at the sight of a white woman and black man holding hands in Burger King - this uttered by a man wearing a  hat that read "Chevy's the Best! Piss on the rest!")

"Know what a ho-di-do is? That's a black man running for the elevator: Ho'd de do! Ho'd de do!"

"Know what nacho cheese is? That's a black man complaining of theft: Hey! Tha'ts not 'cho cheese! Dat's MY cheese!"

In the Beautiful Village, as anywhere else, the acorns do not fall far from the trees.

I'll never forget the night my boyfriend Tracy made the remark that included the punchline "stupid nigger!" There was an odd silence in the car, a silence that coalesced around Keith, though no one looked at him.  

"Keith,  sorry, man," Tracy said.

"It's OK," Keith said, his face impassive. I wondered how many times that happened to him.  I figured a lot, since it was a word I heard all the time at home, and no one ever said they were sorry, because there was no need, right? When you're all white and all right, some words don't do more than scratch the surface -that seemed to be the thinking, anyway.

Lest you think I am painting a story of a progressive angel amidst corn-fed ruffians, let me just say  I laughed at the nacho cheese 'joke' along with everyone else, in the same embarrassed "We shouldn't be laughing at this" way. "You were young!" people say ...and I was, but I was old enough to know I wouldn't want that joke told about me. 

"They don't commit crime because they are black, mom," I protested. "They commit crimes because they are poor and desperate and with no hope or prospects. Color has nothing to do with it."

"Hmmmph," my mom said. "It's their own fault. East St. Louis used to be a nice place to live." 

And it was, before white flight and some spectacularly failed public housing projects and long-term political corruption led to a decade of unemployment that exceeded 80%.  My parents saw this phenomenon soley in terms of color (or, more accurately, the impact they perceived that color to have on the value of their home) ; they were unable to conceive that color might be what is known around the social scientist water cooler as a 'spurious causal link'.  

So Belleville is racist, no doubt about it.  Except there  is another side - there is always another side. 

There is my mom, working at City Hall. Her job was to train new employees. She got to know a bunch of them. Her favorite was a young woman, Deedee, who had a husband in the army and was raising two kids on her own and going to night school on top of her full time job.   My mom was full of admiration for this girl, who happened to be black. 

One day mom came home so upset she was nearly in tears - rare for mom, who I have only seen cry two times, and only then after a considerable onslaught of vicious verbal abuse.  

"My boss and her boss said to me, "Don't you think she (DeeDee) moves kind of slow?" mom fumed.  " ''They all do' - that's what they said!"

I pictured mom sitting silently by, just as she did when dad was pulling one of rants.  But she surprised me. 

"I told them I never heard of such a thing! I told them they had a nerve! I told them, DeeDee moves faster than me and all the other fat white women working there!  I told them DeeDee was the hardest worker I've ever seen!  I told them-" at this, she stopped and pressed her lips tightly together until she was sure she wouldn't cry for this woman who likely never gave her a second thought.

"It wasn't fair," she seethed.  "It was wrong."

Then there was my dad; if you've lived in the burbs, you know his type, which might best be defined as Mr. You Better Be Out There Mowing Your Lawn Every Saturday Or Suffer My Deadly Stare As You Drive Past My House.  Not long after I moved off to college, a black family moved into the neighborhood, and people were grumbling.

"What's the problem?" dad gritted at the skinny grizzled guy in the wifebeater who liked to remark at neighborhood gatherings that the place sure was going down hill.  This was the same guy who had not one but two, count 'em two, cars up on cinder blocks with big sticky pools of oil spreading beneath.

"He mows his lawn, he trims his shrubs," dad continued with the rising inflection that we had long since associated with a pressing need to find a fox hole and pull it over our heads. 

The skinny white wifebeater dude snarked some more. I guess he didn't get the memo about my dad.

"HE TAKES CARE OF HIS HOUSE WHICH IS MORE THAN I CAN SAY FOR YOU, YOU TRASHY SON OF A BITCH!" dad bellowed. He said more - lots more - but that was when I beat my strategic escape, it never being a good idea to be in dad's line of sight when he was like that. I almost felt sorry for the wifebeater.  Almost. 

So, my parents said racist things but valiantly defended  - at some risk to themselves - the very race they so casually slurred.  They uttered pejroatives about a group but praised individuals of that selfsame group. It's something I've thought about often over the years. 

I don't have some grand, thoughtful conclusion here, unless it's this: I don't talk to my parents about racism any more.  Not because I think they can't change, but because I know they can - it just won't be due to anything I will ever say.  

They will only change as they gain wider and deeper experiences with people.  

They will only change when they are confronted with actual similarities, instead of rumored differences. 

They will only change when they see, for themselves, the need for change. 

Which is pretty much how everyone changes, come to think of it.  

Which makes us, one and all, residents of the Beautiful Village.  

 Peace to you all.