Were You Affected By Racism In The Congregation???

minimus

I grew up in an inner city area with many ethnic groups. I saw very little racism or prejudice in the Hall. I'm wondering if my experience is isolated.

I live in central Wisconsin, where there is a high Hmong population. Some of the witnesses treated them badly, but overall I would have to say there wasn't a lot of predjudice in the hall towards them. Surprising actually.

Dustin

ColdRedRain

Not in my congregation per se, but if I went to congregations and witnesses beyond the urban areas, you can bet there's racism.

Nancy Drake

My dad seemed to think that all black people were hilarious. I don't know why, but he would just get this little giggle when talking about black people.. Oh yeah, and he would call them colored brothers and colored sisters. ex.."didn't so and so marry a colored sister?"

One time he told me this ridiculous story about how there were two congregations that they combined in Illinois. One congregation had mostly blacks and the other whites. So when they got together, the white people sat on one side, and the black people sat on the other side...divided. That's when my dad had the brilliant idea to mix them up. He said that somehow by being nice to the black people, they decided to sit on the white people side, and then everyone was just happily mixed because of my dad.

Also, he made this huge deal going out of his way to be nice to black people. He would be super nice to them with this huge grin on his face like he was performing some public service...like, look at me! I'm being nice to the coloreds!

Yuck.

Dragonlady76

I don't know about this, I went to a spanish KH growing up.

But I can tell you that in my cong they always patted themselves on the back as to how JW's of all ethnicities were in harmony. They also would love to point out that the KH's were not racialy divided. They used the ex of a an all "black baptist church" compared with that of an all "white baptist church."

And to be honest I thought this was a really great quality that the JW's had, then later I read Free Minds.org, about how the GB is racist.

Dragonlady76

minimus

Nancy, your dad's funny.

Dragonlady76

Just to add to this I do remember that the white brothers always liked the spanish sisters, so in my cong there were quite a few marriages between white and spanish, from what I remember it was just confined to the spanish sisters hooking up with the white bros, (fyi.. the sisters didn't need green cards)then the sisters would be whisked away to the hubby's english cong. I did recently find out from a chat room friend here on JWD, that is white, and was married to a black person, they were both dubs.

Dragonlady76

minimus

Everyone liked the Spanish sisters.

candidlynuts

the worse thing i can think of was when i was 6 or 7 there was two brothers, in our cong. hector and jackson ( i think).... and a brother called them heckle and jeckle, which they laughed with him about and would say " I'm heckle, he's jeckle". but still..as i got older i wonder if they really thought it was funny.

i was at one congregation in georgia where we were one of 2 white families and the rest of the congregation was black.i felt out of place, never invited anywhere and when i'd invite people over they'd say no and look at me funny like i wasnt suposed to try to befriend anyone. dunno if it was a race thing or just regular jw luv.

roybatty

And to be honest I thought this was a really great quality that the JW's had

I never saw or heard of any racism. As a matter of fact, I would have to admit that might be the only good quality about JWs.

Were You Affected By Racism In The Congregation???

Share this