Racism in Hampton Roads
Racism in Hampton Roads Axia College of University of Phoenix As a resident of Langley Air Force Base, we have been living in Hampton Virginia for just over two years now. This area of VA is predominately black, and while I am from South Texas and lived with mixed races there, I have never seen racism the way I have here. When I am on base to go shopping we have a lot of retired military people and they are always pleasant and smiling and telling you to have a nice day.
Off base is a different story, people are rude, give you dirty looks and basically look at me the white girl, like what are you doing here. We live in base housing so we have people of all races and nationalities living here, for the most part everyone gets along with everyone. Sure there are people here who look like me and then there are people who do not. I have to sit back and realize that not everyone comes from the same type of family background and morals that I do. I grew up in a loving home where everyone was raised to respect and treat others the same way that they wanted to be treated.
When shopping on base at our commissary I have seen people of different nationalities that do tend to keep to themselves, it is mostly the baggers that I notice do that, but they do not do it in a way that they are being rude. But then there are times when I have been in the nail salon to get my nails done and the Vietnamese people start talking to each other and I have no clue what they are saying and that I do find rude sometime, but the one salon I go to I have been going to for over two years now and do not feel that way anymore.
Its like my mom always told me when I was a kid telling someone a secret with a third person in the room is rude, and that is how I feel when people carry on a conversation in a different language, while I am sure they are not talking about me I still find it rude. This has been my first year dealing with the elementary school that we have here on base housing for the kids and my daughter did very well this year in Kindergarten, I never had any issues with her teacher or school employees.
I loved the teacher that my daughter had, it takes a special person to be a kindergarten teacher and her teacher was awesome. She had so much patience with the kids even though I know there were a few unruly children in her class; but her teacher handled them very well. I was not room mother or anything like that but I did help as did other parents when things where needed for the class. I think that everyone at the school treats everyone equally and never showed favoritism towards anyone else.
As far as leaders of our community go, the only one I have had contact with is one of our York County Sheriff officers and that was with past Saturday when three teenagers went on a vandalism spree and spray painted 12 vehicles in base housing as well as set school buses on fire and vandalized the school. The Sheriff Officer who alerted us to what had happened was very nice and did his job well; he did not treat us any differently than the next person he spoke with.
The news media I felt shifted the focus more on the school which under the circumstance was necessary to catch the people who did it; but they failed to mention the damage done to the cars in the housing area. That to me was a little prejudicial, those of us who had vandalism probably all feel the same way, and my husband was able to remove the spray paint from our van with some cleaner.
There are a few people who were not as lucky as we were and will have to file insurance claims to get their vehicles cleaned up. The three teens who did the damage were arrested but we do not know if they were military kids who lived on base or if they lived off base. Our security forces team has been patrolling the area more, but I think once a little more time goes on, we will once again not get the patrolling we need in the area.
I do not like feeling unsafe in my own home, I used to leave for hours at a time and never worried about locking my house up; but after all of this happened I did a sweep of the house and made sure all my windows downstairs as well as upstairs were locked and I went so far as to put chains on my doors. This is the first time since we lived here that I have not felt safe in my home. With my husband being in the military I tend to stick to going to the base for things I need.
Work manuals that I have seen do pertain to people like me and other military members and spouses. The local media focuses a lot on the military and the military community. There are six or eight military bases in the Hampton Roads area so we see a lot of coverage on the local news channels as well as in the newspaper. The air shows that are put on by the Air Force Thunderbirds and the Navy Blue Angels are big things around here and we get great coverage on the shows and show times. I do feel that the minority groups’ interests are represented in our community.
Most of the time that I hear about it is during a sports season, without sounding like a stereotype, most of the athletes that we hear about are black and are very good at what they do, and that is when I notice the news talking about minorities. I think it is great that they athletes get scholarships for higher education, because I know there are some families who could not afford it otherwise. If I could resolve any inequities in my community it would be for everyone to treat everyone the same, sure if we lived in a perfect world that would happen, but we do not.
One thing this is a big issue for me is customer service, I am always polite to everyone I come in contact with and when we are out at the food court in the Navy Exchange for example, I can not even count the times I have encountered rude employees when we have gone to order food. They will stand there with this look on their face like you want me to work and get something for you. And I try to be as patient as possible, but there are times when I just want to tell them if it is that difficult for you to smile go find a job somewhere else.
But my mom raised me better than that so I just bite my tongue and move on. I think the main concept that relates to race is that there is going to be a mixture of race no matter where we live, but if the black people do not like the white people and do not like helping them, serving them and so forth then they need to find a job some where else, where they do not have to deal with them face to face. Because there is nothing worse than walking in somewhere to ask for help and to get an attitude from the person who is supposed to be helping you.
I worked in retail and I was always polite to my customers and never looked at them and made them feel like I did not want to help them. I still get shocked by the attitude of others when I am out. Even if we lived in a perfect world and everyone treated everyone equally regardless of race or color there would still be racism and stereotyping. I know we can not erased what the past and history hold, but we can try to make the generations better and more understanding and be raised to treat everyone the way they want to be treated.
