Pauline Nevins

“Did anyone make racists comments to you when we lived there?” I was talking to my adult son on the phone after reading articles about racist incidents in the Elk Grove School District.

Our family lived in Elk Grove for more than 20 years. My first home there was on 10 dry acres with a weather-worn country barn large enough to stable our daughter’s horse, Raven, and the mare’s feed. I’d grown up in a small town in England with houses clustered together, most sharing a wall. I was proud I owned 10 acres and a barn. Felt like lady of the manor.

When our daughter graduated from riding her horse to tearing around in an orange Firebird, we moved to a house in a court with three times the square footage on half the acreage. The realtor, who managed the purchase of the house, lived nearby. Shortly after we moved in, she arrived at the front door carrying a potted plant – a housewarming gift. Before she turned to leave, she said, matter-of-factly, that she wondered what our next-door neighbor would say about us moving in. I didn’t respond – my usual reaction to remarks that bewilder me.

When the penny dropped a few minutes later, I realized she was referring to my skin color. This was 1980, before Elk Grove city’s incorporation, and subsequent population explosion, when I was one of the few in the area with brown skin. I chafed at the insinuation I was an undesirable addition to the neighborhood. After all. I was English.

The referenced next-door neighbor, a descendant of Oklahoma dustbowl migrants who proudly referred to himself as an “Okie,” kept any racists tendencies hidden. Our families became friends.

Our youngest son, to whom I posed the racism question, was born in Elk Grove and went to school there. He has darker skin than his siblings and looks more like me than his white father. He answered my question matter-of-factly.

“Some of the older siblings of my white friends used racist language around me,” he said, “and then they’d add, ‘but you’re different.’ ” An insult meant as a compliment. “Some kids called me an Oreo,” he said nonchalantly.

I felt my stomach knot. I’d recently learned the name is a derogatory term for a Black person who’s accused of “acting white" – ridiculing those who don’t fit the Black stereotype. “Why didn’t you tell us?” I asked him. He chuckled. We both knew he was too reserved to have done that. And then I thought about another Oreo, our sweet black and white border collie. Long gone. Was our son tortured every time we called the dog?

Elk Grove memories surfaced again weeks later when I came across a photograph of our son with a young girl who he escorted to a prom. I remembered that evening.

A car sputtered up our long driveway. Out spilled the girl’s mother and father, sister and grandmother. They were chattering and smiling and waving cameras.

The girl and our son posed on the front steps outside our huge double doors. The girl linked her arm through our son’s and tossed her blonde hair. I knew little about the girl other than she lived in a trailer park. I’d only seen her twice and had never had a conversation with her. I’m ashamed to admit this, but I didn’t think she was good enough for our bright, handsome kid.

In the English country town where I grew up, racial prejudice existed, but with few non-whites in the community, overt incidents were rare. What there was, however, was an “Upstairs, Downstairs,” class mentality. Birthright, education, a regional accent – all pointed to how a person was categorized and treated.

According to the greatbritishmag.com website, the British are still grouped into five class systems: Low, Working, Middle, Upper and Aristocrats. I was born into the working class. Today, I would be considered middle class – elevated by a college degree and white-collar profession.

Looking at the photograph of the young blonde girl, and learning later from our son what a difficult life she and her family had, I was mortified by my own prejudices. How many of us prejudge others based on how they differ from us in skin color, eye shape, accent, economic status?

Our realtor assumed our Southern neighbor was racist, perhaps a prejudice of her own. Some white Elk Grove kids judged my son. I judged a young girl because she lived in a trailer park and her family’s car backfired in our driveway. And this from me, a person who grew up so poor she put cardboard in her shoes to keep her feet dry.

“Get off your high horse,” my mother used to say whenever I became judgmental. These days, hopefully, I’m off more times than I’m on.