The Bullsheet

My name is Melanie Beth Hale and I am racist. I am racist and I hate myself for it. Three and a half years ago now I was raped by a black man, a student who finally is no longer on campus, not because of anything the school did or could do, just because he graduated. For a while I could only stand to be around white women. Anyone who was black or male, especially black and male, would only be accepted if we had already been introduced. Even then, it often didn't feel completely safe. I have no problem with white men and black women now, but I'm still racist. There are even some black men that I have met since then with whom I have had normal encounters. But a "token black male friend" does not make up for the tension in my body every time a black man I do not know comes near me. It does not wipe away my transgression of being afraid of another human being because of his gender and the color of his skin.

My counselor says I am not racist. She says it is a symptom of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and that it is a completely normal response. She says it is good that I recognize it because then I can get past it. My psychologist agrees. No matter how much I recognize that it is illogical, I do not seem to have found the power to change my reactions. I can not seem to get past it and I still hate myself for it.

Today, Sunday, February 15, 2009, I met a/the kid that wore black face. We weren't formally introduced. I do not know his name. A friend, with whom I was eating dinner, and I merely overheard a conversation that hurt us deeply. I cried. He turned around.Finding myself to be racist, I felt that I did not have the right to say anything. It was the same self hate of being a hypocrite that kept me from the events of the day Denison recognized Martin Luther King Jr.

He does not seem to understand why what he did was wrong. He does not seem to understand why the forum happened. He does not seem to understand why "black people were bitching about their lives" or why saying that tonight was racist. He does not seem to think he is racist.

I was not at the forum. I was not present for the events in the fall of 2007. I was away from school dealing with other symptoms of PTSD. I heard about it though. People kept me informed. My friend who was at dinner tonight made sure I knew because in his eyes this was still my campus and he felt I should know. Because of him, I was able to listen to the events at the flag pole up until the battery on his cell phone died.

So what? What changed? How do you make a person understand who does not want to listen? He heard the arguments my friend put forward, but possibly only so he could refute them. He said that the things black people were complaining about were perpetuated by themselves. He said they were lazy. He said that if only they stopped acting like thugs and did not drop out of high school they would not be stuck in the slums. I asked him if he had ever been to an inner city school, the only time I spoke. He either did not hear my weak voice or ignored me.

All five of us were angry, he and his two friends and my friend and me. They left. We shortly did the same but not before I thanked my friend. He looked at me oddly and asked "for what?" I thanked him for turning around, but I suppose he did not see that there was another option. He did not seem to understand I was thanking him for saying all the things I do not feel I have a right to say because I am racist and I hate myself for it.

Potentially the only thing that separates me from the person I met tonight is that I recognize that what I am doing is wrong. But this is what perpetuates the cycle. Someone who generalizes a race based on one experience and someone who refuses an attempt to understand another human being.

Melanie Beth Hale
hale_m@denison.edu
Slayter Box 9271

I thought about not using my name because of the personal nature of this submission, but I feel that the person I met tonight has the right to know who is accusing him and where retaliation should be directed.
I would also like to ask people who already know me not to treat me differently because you now know I was raped.