Alexis Senge JohnsonUpon entering the world of theme parks you’re given the immediate opportunity to drink the Kool-aid in each of the orientation and training classes that you’re submerged into. Right off the bat, company orientation is generally done surrounded by other fellow new hires that come from a range of other job area and locations across the property you’ll be starting at. Immediately following that you usually begin training for your area of work and potentially any specialties within it.
In the world of entertainment there’s a slew of additional on-going trainings you participate in as you learn new offerings across property. The bulk of these are formal trainings that you’ll learn from company organized opportunities, but then there are those that you get (unsolicited) from your fellow employees. This is where past experiences with nationalities and races start being shared with you whether you asked for them or not.
After a few initial weeks of stories about how certain nationalities needed to be watched closely because they are too rough on characters or how others will smell all summer because they don’t culturally embrace using deodorant, I started hearing about how black visitors were known to be impatiently pushy or frustratingly aggressive. I’d never once had an experience in my life to make this resonate with me, but I repeatedly heard stories and warnings along the way.
That’s when the conscious bias in my gut knew I needed to tune out these “helpful tips” that were being shared. Looking back I now know I should have corrected them and stopped conversations, instead of politely excusing myself, so that they couldn’t continue. I took a page out of The Blue Fairy’s lesson plan and reminded myself to, “always let your conscious be your guide.”
Day after day I saw how wrong the employees sharing these racially biased comments were. There were more similarities across all the diverse ethnicities of visitors than differences and it didn’t often matter what region of the world they traveled from. Newsflash, we all can be impatient when situations get frustrating and we certainly all smell less than desirable after a hot August day trudging around a theme park.
When children see their favorite character they will charge toward them with all the might and happiness their tiny little bodies hold. They will stand before their beloved character exclaiming so passionately how they waited their whole life, all four years or so, for that moment. Their parents will beam with pride seeing the happiness of their child and often there will be tears of joy from many in the party.
Long before the The Princess and the Frog provided black girls with a strong independent princess that they could see themselves in, I watched first hand as young black girls approached any one of the slew of white princesses with such excitement. Dressed from head to toe in every accessory they could find, and often carrying a matching doll for extra measure, these bundles of joy would exclaim how much they looked just like the princess before them.
Never did they say, “we’re twins, almost, except for the whole I’m black and you’re white thing.” No! They just stood there admiring that they matched someone they looked up to from watching on a screen in the comfort of their own home about a million times. They hug their idols with all the love their pint size bodies held regardless of the physical differences they could see and yet rarely acknowledged.
It didn’t take long for me to see one glaring difference between these guests and the fellow employees who were trying to impose their racial biases upon me. We aren’t born to hate each other. We aren’t predisposed to thinking someone’s worth is less than someone else’s just because of a skin tone. We don’t come into this world fearing certain individuals based on only the color of their skin. That’s not how we, as humans, work.
These conscious biases that often lead to hate and racial injustices are learned, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be corrected. Politely removing ourselves from tough conversations is not how you move the needle on anti-racist thoughts, statements and actions. Speak up and stop these injustices now so the next generation doesn’t have to continue growing up in fear just based upon an external physical feature.
Now is your chance to view the world through the eyes of Esmeraldas words in God Help the Outcasts:
God help the outcasts
Hungry from birth
Show them the mercy
They don’t find on earth
God help my people
We look to You still
God Help the Outcasts
Where nobody will
________________________
I ask nothing
I can get by
But I know so many
Less lucky than I
Please help my people
The poor and downtrodden
I thought we all were
Children of God
We might not be as practically perfect in every way as Mary Poppins is, but that’s because we are real humans and not living in some story book. We have the power to make a difference each and every day. Educate yourself about the reality of racial injustices today, make positive changes where needed and help others learn to do the same. Be the one that speaks up for those who’s voice have long been ignored, pushed aside and hushed.
