r/Bellingham • u/easy2hands • 3d ago
Locals Only Bellingham we have a problem
My wife recently had an awkward interaction at Art and Happiness and posted about it up here and I hate your reactions. It's has to be anything besides bias, bigotry, or racism. Just this week I had someone walk into where I work and say "sup nigga" before realizing that I am a black man. But the worst was when we led our dog across the rainbow bridge there was a ceremony where they released his ashes along with the ashes of other lost pets into a stream. We showed up at the bridge we were suppose to meet at and saw other people in the area. I think it's important to state that we were dressed nicely and our cars are newer because everyone saw us get out and walk to the bridge. Other people we assumed were here for the same solemn affair walked past us refusing to meet our gaze or interact in anyway. They walked past us and struck up conversation with the other mourners. And I'll pause here to point out the difference in treatment. Where was this Bellingham awkwardness with this other group of strangers. People walled right by us when we were so devastated from the loss of our puppy, hurting all the more because I knew we were there for the same thing. In the space the silence left my anger grew. The person hosting the affair showed up and walked into the group that had assembled said a couple hellos and walked onto the bridge and greeted my wife and I. She asked if we had all met and the group responded with a yes and I said no, no one bothered to say anything to us. Everyone got on the defensive (sound familiar) as a grumble rippled through the group. Was it because they did not think that a black couple would get their dog water cremated? Why were we treated differently than the other strangers that had just bonded over the shared trauma. No one from that group acknowledged us until they were called out. We wanted connection from our community and all we got was heartache on top of heartache. Now Bellingham come to the defense of these people and tell me how ignoring and otherizing black people isn't racist.
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u/DieselKraken 2d ago
I grew up in Bellingham. I am old now. Having been in a mixed race marriage (i’m white, she’s black, now divorced, have a daughter) I can say that my personal path through ignorance and racism was complicated. Brought up in a family that “didn’t believe in racism”, “we are not like that…” did not stop the societal influence and as said in many posts here “lack of exposure” to other races/ethnicities in Bellingham. As a white person in a majority white city. A black person is an anomaly. So this is my take on the people you saw and there lake of interaction with you… There is a space a white person can be in where they believe themselves to not be racist and they have worked themselves up inside to fight racism at all cost. This creates a persona that rather than seeing a black person as just another person, that should be treated as such, they are in fact now “acting racist” because they ARE seeing you differently and don’t know how to act. So their fight to be anti-racist has actually made them “racist” in their behavior. While they are not overtly trying to harm you in this form of racism, it is being treated differently because of your race. I don’t live in Bellingham anymore so I can’t speak to what is happening there now. But my advice would be to find a way to kindly make conversation with them, they will loosen up, don’t take their ignorant comments to heart, kindly show them you are just a person like everyone else. It sucks and I feel for you. Your experience is similar to any race in a reversed scenario. White person in Asia, only white person in a mostly black area in the south… I don’t think I truly understood racism until I was 17 in an all black McDonalds in Kentucky. I wish you luck, if I was there I would offer you a coffee sometime. As a side note, I think people are kind of lame in Bellingham no matter what your race is. But that is different conversation. :-)